Has anyone been able to purchase a live broadcast from khl.ru? An entire month of all games is twice as expensive as NHL Game Center Online, at around €25, so not an option for me.
However, a single game costs only 49 roubles, around €1.25, which I'd be happy to pay. The trouble is, I can't. Around 30 payment options are offered -- all of them Russian banks. My Slovak VISA card got rejected for payment several times (it works for online payments on other sites). PayPal is not offered. I wrote to khl.ru support twice, asking them how I can purchase a broadcast from Slovakia, but they ignore the questions. I read somewhere that a Finnish fan was able to purchase a broadcast from khl.ru. How did you accomplish this, please?
The atrocious Czech sports TV channel Sport 1/Sport 2 was supposed to show today's game of Avtomobilist vs. Slovan, even if tape-delayed by 4 hours. It was announced on their site as late as this morning. In reality, they cancelled the hockey broadcast without explanation, and they're now showing silly archived football clips instead. No pirate streams were available either in the course of the game. For my turn, I'll be cancelling my Sport 1/Sport 2 subscription. They are worthless.
If the KHL wants to seriously compete with the NHL, they can't be this amateurish. I'm willing to pay them, but I can't? Also, the pricing policy is questionable: why should a full monthly subscription be twice as expensive compared to the NHL? (On the other hand, khl.ru makes it possible to buy only individual games or games of only one team, something that's not possible in NHL Game Center.)
Thank you for any help in purchasing a live broadcast from khl.ru.
Last time I heard they were working on solution for that foreign payments bug. That was about a week ago. They said that they're making an english version of that live.khl.ru website with fully functional payment options.
Thank you for the information. I don't necessarily need an English version of the site, as I can read Russian, I just need a payment option. It's very surprising to me that PayPal isn't an option so far. The live site should make PayPal payments a priority, because that way the broadcasts would become instantly available pretty much world-wide, including for North American hockey fans. I mean, if any random porn/warez site can offer PayPal payments, it's rather embarrassing for a legitimate "big-business" site like khl.ru to fail to do so.
The fact that Paypal isn't in the list is not surprising at all as it doesn't work with Russian banks (in result it's veeeery tricky to withdraw money from PayPal in Russia) and that service is aimed at Russian auditory.
Well, it's an international league now, and internationally, PayPal rules. The live site seems to have remained stuck in the "Russian SuperLeague" mode of 5 years ago. Making broadcasts available internationally seems a lot more important than token gestures, such as forcing Latin letters onto all the teams' jerseys.
That depends. If you're watching an illegal stream of paid channel without advertisements and stuff, you kinda do pirate it... KHL-TV is not a free channel btw.
These sites are very unreliable (not all games are shown) and the quality of those streams is usually bad, with frequent disconnections, etc. In contrast, when I watched a short segment of the Chekhov vs. Slovan game on the official khl.ru site, the stream was of fine quality. They switched it off for free users after the 1st period so I never got to see Slovan's win, just as I didn't get to see Slovan's win today.
This problem usually occurs when Slovan plays a lower-ranked team such as Chekhov or Avtomobilist. There was no problem getting the streams from Magnitka or Traktor games at sites like livetv.ru, but I'd still prefer to pay the 49 roubles for a hassle-free, fine-quality stream. The Traktor broadcast was particularly awful, with ads and logos splashed across much of the screen throughout the play (!), frequently obscuring the puck (!) and even the time indicator (!) in the top-left corner.
That depends. If you're watching an illegal stream of paid channel without advertisements and stuff, you kinda do pirate it... KHL-TV is not a free channel btw.
Actually if you want to get technical it is not pirating from the companies point of view if the "illigal viewer" has no way of viewing or purchasing the stream legally. There is no lost revenue since the willing customer can't pay for a service even if they wanted to since it doesn't exist. In fact, sponsors would prefer if people who can't access the paid service watch it illegally since it increases ad exposure... and the sponsors are the ones who pay big money to the league and broacasters. The loss then becomes potential revenue which becomes the burden of the KHL, who's duty is to maximize viewership for itself and its sponsors.
Has anyone been able to purchase a live broadcast from khl.ru? An entire month of all games is twice as expensive as NHL Game Center Online, at around €25, so not an option for me...
You could try to pay through Яндекс Деньги or QIWI.
this is really cool, had no idea there was even an option to pay for the steams...(asked awhile back, but apparently in the wrong forum) ...really hope they make the site in English and unfortunately I don't speak Russian...might try to muddle through it with google translate once the payment bug is fixed...would love to watch Slovan's games also...
Not all games are shown there. Yesterday's game of Avtomobilist vs. Slovan was nowhere to be found, except through that official khl.ru stream, perhaps. I'm now going to write more about this; I have some good news!
You could try to pay through Яндекс Деньги or QIWI.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Atas2000
He can't do that in Slovakia obviously. That's the whole point. I have no solution to offer too though.
Gentlemen, I have some great news: Yandex Dengi does work in Slovakia! It apparently works in all countries of the world except for 4 countries: the US, Canada, Puerto Rico, and Guam. Don't ask me why. Reminds me of the Olympic boycotts from the 1980s, when Russians boycotted the US and the US boycotted Russia. Now PayPal doesn't want to work in Russia, and Yandex doesn't want to work in the US. What you need to do is to associate your credit card or debit card with Yandex Dengi. (Just as you can associate your card with PayPal.) And then you can purchase the streams from khl.ru via Yandex Dengi. This wasn't very easy to set up. I did receive an SMS from Russia here in Slovakia to confirm the setup of my Yandex Dengi account. However, when they charged me an initial confirmation amount of €0.03, I was supposed to enter that amount into Yandex website. I kept entering "0.03" or "0.03 EUR", but that didn't work. The transaction's authorization code was nowhere to be found. I then called my Slovak bank's hotline and, through trial and error, we discovered that the €0.03 was actually 1.15 roubles. Once I entered "1,15" (with comma) into the Yandex site, the card got confirmed. I can't imagine, however, that a regular hockey fan would go through all this pain and trouble to set up an account. Plus, the Yandex site seems to be available only in Russian, so a non-Russian-speaking person would probably be lost there. If anyone wants to try it, though, I'll be happy to assist you. I do hope that khl.ru and PayPal change their mind and make the payments available -- for international fans of the KHL, if no one else. I mean, for PayPal purposes, the KHL can easily set up a bank account outside of Russia, and the payments from foreign KHL fans would simply arrive there instead of in Russia, right? What's the big deal?
Now I have another problem. How can you buy a subscription for the entire season? When I visit my khl.ru user account and press the "Buy subscription" button (Купить абонемент), it only gives me the option to buy 1 game or 1 month. When you read these articles:
... they say you can buy all games from a club this season for 1495 roubles, or the entire season for 4495 roubles. Where, however, can you buy this? I have now browsed through the entire http://www.khl.ru/video/online/ site several times, but can't find those season subscription options to buy them. Thank you for any help.
PS: The entire khl.ru site is extremely buggy these days. I wanted to ask khl.ru support what I have just asked you above, and concocted this in Russian (sorry for any mistakes):
Quote:
Здравствуйте,
где я могу покупить "Сезон: - матчи одной команды – 1495 рублей" ??? Под кнопкой "Купить абонемент" только возможности "24 часов", "1 месяц" или "1 месяц (архив)".
Спасибо за вашу помощь.
However, there is now no way to send a question to khl.ru support! When the dialog window pops up, it's impossible to "Select the topic of your message". The roll-down menu doesn't work, and the software doesn't allow you to send a message without selecting its topic. That menu used to work a few weeks ago, but right now you can't even ask khl.ru for support. I wonder if khl.ru is aware of that? Maybe they think that everything works great because no one asks them for support??? I tried all possible browsers on 3 platforms (Windows 7, Mac OS, iOS) but nowhere is it possible to send a message to khl.ru support.
PS: The entire khl.ru site is extremely buggy these days. I wanted to ask khl.ru support what I have just asked you above, and concocted this in Russian (sorry for any mistakes):
However, there is now no way to send a question to khl.ru support! When the dialog window pops up, it's impossible to "Select the topic of your message". The roll-down menu doesn't work, and the software doesn't allow you to send a message without selecting its topic. That menu used to work a few weeks ago, but right now you can't even ask khl.ru for support. I wonder if khl.ru is aware of that? Maybe they think that everything works great because no one asks them for support??? I tried all possible browsers on 3 platforms (Windows 7, Mac OS, iOS) but nowhere is it possible to send a message to khl.ru support.
They probably are a bit overwhelmed with the interest during the lockout. And the website seems to be the less loved child in the family. Someday they will figure it out. Right now thanks for your input about Yandex.
Why, ult, I'm actually delighted by today's discovery. The main thing is that foreign cards do work on Yandex Dengi! It is, therefore, very likely that I'll be able to buy those individual broadcasts for €1.25 per game, if nothing else. I need to wait for another road series by Slovan, though, since I'm a season-ticket holder for Slovan's home games.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ult
Especially since Slovan is on home series right now.
Not much of a home series, it's just 1 game against Dynamo Moscow on Sunday. I have now realized it will in fact be cheaper to buy Slovan's road games individually for €1.25 per game than to buy that unavailable online season-ticket for around €33. That's because Slovan has already played 5 out of 26 games on the road, and (21 x 1.25) < 33.
Gentlemen, I have some great news: Yandex Dengi does work in Slovakia! It apparently works in all countries of the world except for 4 countries: the US, Canada, Puerto Rico, and Guam. Don't ask me why. Reminds me of the Olympic boycotts from the 1980s, when Russians boycotted the US and the US boycotted Russia.
Thank you again for suggesting Yandex Dengi, steap. I hope it will work next week when I try to buy a broadcast.
As to QIWI, it's true they have that English-language webpage, but what they actually offer seems rather confusing compared to Yandex. If you can read Russian, then the process of setting up a Yandex Dengi account and associating a credit card or debit card with it is easy to understand, because they guide you clearly, step-by-step.
At QIWI, when I tried to register, the first thing they wanted to know was my mobile phone number, but only a US/Canada dialing code (+1) or the UK dialing code (+4) was accepted. When I tested it with Slovakia (+421) or Germany (+49), it didn't work.
Also, the pricing policy is questionable: why should a full monthly subscription be twice as expensive compared to the NHL? (On the other hand, khl.ru makes it possible to buy only individual games or games of only one team, something that's not possible in NHL Game Center.)
can offer PayPal payments, it's rather embarrassing for a legitimate "big-business" site like khl.ru to fail to do so.
The live site seems to have remained stuck in the "Russian SuperLeague" mode of 5 years ago. Making broadcasts available internationally seems a lot more important than token gestures, such as forcing Latin letters onto all the teams' jerseys. 
