Watching the full match on Player service

jimmymelrose

I've been building up to today's match by trying to watch the Bournemouth game. There are several problems with this:

1. The screen is too small. Why is it such a narrow thin strip of a screen? There is no depth to the action. In other words, if a player gets the ball by the touchline it is not possible to take a look into the box to see where he may play the ball. This makes the match difficult to follow. This problem is still there even if the screen is enlarged as the picture does not expand, it just gets larger.

2. The quality is not very good in general. It's difficult to see the players' numbers, let alone their names. I don't see why this should be the case as the quality is better than this when I stream a match live on the interent.

3. Sitting down to watch a whole match on the computer is hardly ideal. I have my computer attached to the TV by an HDMI cable so normally I drag the picture across to the TV for a match. Using player however this just makes the quality even worse.

Does anybody else attempt to watch the whole match on Player? Does anyone on here have anything to do with the service e.g. are you one of the commentators?

grumpyaddick

Wait for the highlights on the BBC Sport website or cut pictures of players  out of the match day programme and blu-tack them to your PC screen.

Either is higher quality than Player which is a rip-off inflicted on us by the Football League suits.

Only use it as a last resort if travelling abroad (alone) where BBC won't stream video.

There are still apologists for this rubbish and it never improves..

jimmymelrose

Wait for the highlights on the BBC Sport website or cut pictures of players  out of the match day programme and blu-tack them to your PC screen.

Either is higher quality than Player which is a rip-off inflicted on us by the Football League suits.

Only use it as a last resort if travelling abroad (alone) where BBC won't stream video.

There are still apologists for this rubbish and it never improves..

Agree. I'm not travelling abroad, I live abroad.

I stopped subscribing last season (due to Emma's commentary) but have just started again. I was hoping that I'd also be able to watch the games this season without a magnifying glass.

Stig

...or cut pictures of players  out of the match day programme and blu-tack them to your PC screen.

Thanks for your excellent suggestion Grumpy.  With a few tweaks I believe I have improved your idea which has thoroughly enhanced my first-half experience.  Through the clever employment of magnets and strings I can drag the players around the screen, making almost HD quality re-creations of the play using Radio Kent's commentary as a guide.  The only drawback is that I don't have any pictures of the Notts County team.  I have therefore improvised using some of Mrs Stig's fridge magnets.  They have the cute puppy in midfield, a gaggle of geese in defence and a little kitten with the comment "talk to the paw" in goal.  Their long throws are provided by The Tardis which we collected on a visit to The Dr Who Experience.  

Better than Player?  Of course, sir!

grumpyaddick

Don't forget to read out banal random Twitter entries to add to the atmosphere...

Stig

I might have my own Bingo competition.

Stig

Thanks very much to all of the laydeez listening.

jimmymelrose

Don't forget to read out banal random Twitter entries to add to the atmosphere...

I'm going to see what the next commentary is like. If they continue to do this then I'll make a separate thread.

Stig

I think if they keep doing it, we should send them a mass tweet.  We could use the match thread to give a signal and everyone to send out the same message, "Please stop reading out boring rubbish
from twitter. You're supposed to be commentating on the match".

Exiled_Addick

I think if they keep doing it, we should send them a mass tweet.  We could use the match thread to give a signal and everyone to send out the same message, "Please stop reading out boring rubbish from twitter. You're supposed to be commentating on the match".

I tweeted him something similar in the fist half, but it didn't stop him.

Don't mind them filling in the gaps in play with some chat (although reading out twitter profiles is about as uninteresting as it gets) but you could hear from the crownd noise hat they were talkig about frigging twitter instead of the match - there were at least two attempts on goal that he had to recap the commentary on because he was too busy trying to up his followers count.

jimmymelrose

Could we keep this discussion to the aspect of Player in the title please: WATCHING the match.

I'm going to start a thread for the commentary now.

liamhappe

I'm sorry, I'm failing to relate the Player commentary to reading out Twitter comments?

I can't recall reciting anything from Twitter during this game. If I'm mistaken, I'll be happy to apologise and retract.

Exiled_Addick

Don't worry Liam, it was the the guy doing the live match commentary who was wittering on about Twitter not you.

liamhappe

I'm confused. For someone to be building up to today's game, today, by watching the full 90 on Player, they'd be listening to myself and Olly Groome, not Pete and Jamie Reid.

Pete, for the record, does his job and does it well. He is a colour commentator, an analyst, there to add an extra dimension and sometimes trivial commentary to the game. I agree that sometimes it may be best, if you're deviating to fill dead time during dull patches of a game, to perhaps make it clear that this is what you're doing. But other than that, Finchy is arguably the best Addicks man going when it comes to entertaining and keeping things light hearted when his partner, the lead commentator, has nothing important to call.

Exiled_Addick

The threads gone off topic, that's all. It wasn't Finchy that was doing it was the main commentator, Jamie Reid.

It sounds like unecessary bitching but he read about 30 different people's twitter profile's throughout the game - he obviously decided before the game it might be a fun way to promote some user involvement and fill some dead gaps in the game, which is fine but he went a bit OTT and was definitely doing it when there was match action to describe.

While a good commentator can make a game come alive in comparison to a poor commentator (and I don't think Jamie is a bad commentator at all, when he sticks to the job in hand he does a nice job) I would always say it's important that they remember they're a commentator not a DJ or chat show host and therefore focus on describing the match -  after all, the Player subscribers do so to listen to the match, not specifically Jamie Reid or Emma or Finchy or whoever.

Good commentating should always include a bit of discussion and opinion but it should be when there's nowt happening and should stay on the subject of the match imo.

No problems at all with Finchy's performance today.

jimmymelrose

I'm going to post the last two posts onto the thread about match commentary.

Could we please keep this thread to the subject of WATCHING the games on Player please?

Talal

jimmy this thread might answer a few questions for you....

http://forum.charltonlife.com/discussion/42631/commentary-on-the-charlton-bournemouth-game#Item_22

bigstemarra

...or cut pictures of players  out of the match day programme and blu-tack them to your PC screen.

Thanks for your excellent suggestion Grumpy.  With a few tweaks I believe I have improved your idea which has thoroughly enhanced my first-half experience.  Through the clever employment of magnets and strings I can drag the players around the screen, making almost HD quality re-creations of the play using Radio Kent's commentary as a guide.  The only drawback is that I don't have any pictures of the Notts County team.  I have therefore improvised using some of Mrs Stig's fridge magnets.  They have the cute puppy in midfield, a gaggle of geese in defence and a little kitten with the comment "talk to the paw" in goal.  Their long throws are provided by The Tardis which we collected on a visit to The Dr Who Experience.  

Better than Player?  Of course, sir!

What a fantastic mental picture - you two have livened up my bored Sunday afternoon trying to avoid doing any work...thanks!

bigstemarra

Oh, and I bet a gaggle of geese in defence would do a great job, btw.  Could be very effective, but I'm not sure how many you would be able to play at any one time.....all that hissing and aggression is bound to put strikers off when they are trying to carve out a scoring opportunity.....we'll have to call it plan B if this season goes tits up like last season!

grumpyaddick

I tried the fridge magnets and they work very well. 

Mrs Grumpy has a David Cassidy (topless) fridge magnet who I used as Lee Hughes. David is more charming and has a less prolific criminal record than Lee but it was close enough to be better than Player.

Also found a large black bear from a local wildlife park worked well as Notts County manager Martin Allen.

For effective commentary, I tuned in the radio into the Radio 4 Shipping Forecast and found that when combined with the cut out images of Charlton players on the PC screen the overall effect was much better.

When David Cassidy fell off  the fridge during a severe gale in Dogger Bank and BWP left leg came unstuck from the PC screen (dried up blu-tac) the crowd (me) went wild.

If Player is worth £4-95 per month the fridge magnet and blu-tac franchise must be worth a fortune.

Just need a catchy name................

liamhappe

I agree about the Player service as a concept. The subscription fees annoy me greatly, and I was also very vocal about the change to the new website which unfortunately went down just before the takeover could have potentially saved us from selling our souls.

That said, those of us who are actively involved in the content put on Player are going to continue to try and improve and increase the service as much as we can week in, week out.

We were dealt this hand, but we'll do what we can to make the most of it and feedback to that extent is always welcome both on here or to charltonlive@gmail.com.

DRF

Given the number of teams who are using this service and the restrictions they place on other people using things such are highlights, I believe a switchover was inevitable eventually, even if the takeover had happened earlier.

grumpyaddick

Sorry for being ignorant but who is responsible for the content of Player?

And are they:

a. Highly paid professionals with a background in sports broadcasting?

b. Enthusiastic amateurs who love CAFC are are doing their best on a voluntary basis?

If it is B what happens to the subscription fees and how many subscribers (ie revenue) is there to fund this service?

Plaaayer

We must be doing alright on the pitch as people have found something else to moan about.

liamhappe

I can't speak for everyone involved grumpy, but the majority actually sit between those two guidelines. Like myself, many of them are well versed in sports and/or broadcast journalism with plenty of experience both paid and unpaid, and are doing their best to bring as much content as possible to the service through their love of the club and their understanding of what it's like to be a fan with a thirst for as much information and insight as possible.

As for who's responsible, who sees the revenue/fees etc, lord knows. That one is way above me.

DRF

I mimagine this is one of those areas affected by the staff reductions a few years ago. Many the new owners will invest some money ino it.

MuttleyCAFC

I found it useful on holiday, I must be honest.

liamhappe

I'm just gutted the Reading game got cancelled as it was due to be my third and final match covering for Terry Smith as play-by-play man. I really thought I was gradually getting more comfortable in the role, but I'm sure there'll be future cracks at it down the line.

LeaburnForEngland

I think the range and quantity of content on Player is on the whole great, but is massively let down by the low res videos (really poor and in regards to the original post makes all but the briefest of match highlights unwatchable to me) and also by the sound quality on the video interviews. I don't understand why we don't use a better microphone, or at least get it closer to the person talking!

I subscribe and will continue to subscribe but the service would be 10x better if the audio and video quality issues were sorted. 

Does anyone know why the videos are such low quality? Is it a restriction on the underlying Player tech to keep bandwidth down (and if that is the reason then considering it's a paid for service I think FLi should upgrade their infrastructure to support proper high-def video!) 

Zinedine Bagheri

I think the range and quantity of content on Player is on the whole great, but is massively let down by the low res videos (really poor and in regards to the original post makes all but the briefest of match highlights unwatchable to me) and also by the sound quality on the video interviews. I don't understand why we don't use a better microphone, or at least get it closer to the person talking!

I subscribe and will continue to subscribe but the service would be 10x better if the audio and video quality issues were sorted. 

 

I agree with all of this LFE.

Lots of room for improvement.

jimmymelrose

Well said Leaburn.

Liam: is there no-one you can ask about this?