for the price they charge, I expect HD quality and no hiccups in the feed
think of how much netflix or hulu costs, think of what other leagues and networks do when it comes to sports. Hell, the NBA had an HD live feed of the playoffs for free not too long ago...
for the price they charge, I expect HD quality and no hiccups in the feed
think of how much netflix or hulu costs, think of what other leagues and networks do when it comes to sports. Hell, the NBA had an HD live feed of the playoffs for free not too long ago...
Think of how many Netflix customers there are compared to AHL Live customers.
Think of all those NBA marketing deals that gives them all this free money to throw at their game and making it more available to fans.
Think of the ****** infrastructure in all those east coast AHL barns that just only this year finally got video replay.
The DEL is live streaming the Adler Mannheim game right now, it's better quality and it's free...and it's not even in my time zone!
Apples to oranges. The live stream of the Mannheim game is just the TV broadcast. AHL Live is producing their own broadcasts from arenas where a lot don't have HD cameras and many of the teams like Adirondack and Albany don't even televise any games. AHL Live is pretty terrible but it's not like they're holding back on us.
AHL Live is poor even without considering the obscene prices.
Here comes the "if you don't buy it, they'll never improve the product" nonsense. No, you can't offer such a poor product for such expensive prices. AHL has to actually put some money into the venture to make it something worth buying. The "quality" is a complete joke for the prices they charge.
Considering that anyone with the slightest knowledge of the NHL knew there was going to be a lock-out this year, the AHL could of been in the perfect position to capitalize due to the influx of talent and people wanting their hockey fix. So, do they actually improve the quality of the AHL Live? Nope, still crap quality, server overload problems and cases of audio not synching with the video.
I would gladly purchase AHL Live if it wasn't complete crap.
OHL (probably all CHL) streaming quality is better. I would have thought that the AHL would invest in some decent technology considering the boost to business they would've gotten this yr and the price they charge.
Looks like people are gonna either be cancelling or using the free streams which are going around aplenty for AHL games so far this week.
OHL (probably all CHL) streaming quality is better. I would have thought that the AHL would invest in some decent technology considering the boost to business they would've gotten this yr and the price they charge.
Looks like people are gonna either be cancelling or using the free streams which are going around aplenty for AHL games so far this week.
A few years back the Q was even worse than the current AHL quality. Not sure if they've improved, I never bought a season pass again.
It's been the same since Ahllive started. Actually one year it got worse. Another note, don't expect to have any customer service. They don't have a phone number, just a live chat, with limited hours, and when it is open a representative is barely around to answer. If you do get someone to respond, consider yourself lucky.
Looks like people are gonna either be cancelling or using the free streams which are going around aplenty for AHL games so far this week.
Can people cancel though once they've already purchased the product? After struggling to watch either of Norfolk's games (loading times were terrible and I kept getting logged out of AHL live) and having to switch to the free streams so I didn't miss anything I already regret purchasing the Ads season pass.
It's sad btw that those services don't provide a free preview. I'd refuse to buy it if they don't provide a preview even if it's a tiny one. NHL Game centre for example will let you watch like 10 live mins before you have to subscribe.
If you're a Marlies fan and already overpaying Rogers/Bell for TV then it might be worth subscribing to LeafsTV since they seem to be showing a tonne of Marlies games. Otherwise stick it out with free streams this yr or until good reviews come in for this.
The stream quality is the problem. NeuLion provides several HD services, so they are not the problem. The AHL must be being cheap here.
The in-house production has nothing to do with the poor quality. For whatever reason people point to Adirondack and Albany. Both have HD cameras in house. The best quality on AHL live was actually Adirondack and Lowell, when both were using a single camera near center ice that rarely zoomed in, and panned slowly from side to side. It gets way worse when zooming in and out, and moving quickly side to side. That the sign of a low (i.e. cheap) bitrate. Again, nothing to do with the individual teams/arenas- and all to do with the leagues deal with NeuLion.
If you're serious about seeing the games in an acceptable (not good, but acceptable) format, this is what I have done. I have an older video card (ATI Radion 1300) in my 2008 computer. It has an S-video output. That's hooked up to an older SD television. Again, it's not great, but looks ok. You can get an old video card for around $20 and usually a tv for free from someone looking to get rid of one. Monoprice.com has very cheap s-video cables.
The obvious solution would be for AHLLive to improve the quality of the service from the level it was in 2005 with B2. But playing with the cards dealt, this works best as far as I can tell.
What I don't get is why they don't take the local TV broadcast and use those for AHL Live (if games are televised in that city), instead of just straight up showing the jumbotron feed.
Maybe it costs more, but you'd think with all the increased business... very possible that it's just the AHL being cheap. I mean, this is a league that only just implemented video replay...
There was a video replay in Adirondack Saturday (two actually). It was like when the NFL started it like 20 years ago......very long delay. It appeared the officials couldn't tell what happened. It looked like they had a laptop in the penalty box. I don't think that it's worth keeping. Big waste of time.
Adirondack has HD cameras.
Many of the venues don't even use the jumbotron feed for AHLLive, just one center ice camera. My thought on that was the league doesn't want replays of fights shown (according to a former River Rats employee) and it's harder to collect data when the data is not broadcast on the internet.
More like completely reasonable fans that are pissed that the top professional league in North America right now charges $350 for streaming video that is worse than junior hockey.
The AHL is bush league when it comes to technology.
