Krishnaiyer Believes Snafus That Plagued Live Streaming Will Be Resolved Soon
Not unlike last year’s USL-1 season, live streaming games of this year’s USSF D-2 Pro League have been hit and miss. Some teams’ broadcasts have been first rate while others have lagged or been nonexistent as in the case of last Friday evening’s game between Crystal Palace Baltimore and FC Tampa. It was a home game for CP Baltimore as the Rowdies took to the road for their first game ever as a team. Many Tampa fans had planned events to watch the game together. When the stream never appeared there were many an unhappy Rowdies fan. IMS received numerous messages from Tampa fans asking to make sure that NSC Minnesota will have their live streaming working for next Saturday’s game between the Stars and the Rowdies.
Miami FC’s stream last weekend was barely watchable with lots of stalls and poor camera coverage. The center line camera was inconsistently zooming in and out with an angle that was too low and a picture too wide to be able to see the action well.
Portland coverage was excellent as was AC St. Louis, the latter being the team’s first home game ever which made the feat even more impressive. However, with Jeff Cooper’s Athletica having a year under their belts it may have helped St. Louis get the coverage right.
IMS talked to NASL’s Kartik Krishnaiyer to check in with the video issues the D-2 Pro League has had the first couple of weeks.
IMS: Kartik, Miami seemed to have some issues last weekend with an inconsistent stream and some really poor camera angles to the point it was hard to watch at times.
Krishnaiyer: Miami has ordered new HD video equipment. The streams are not in HD but the quality of the equipment should help. Also, they ordered new equipment late and so they received it late. The next home game for Miami against Tampa will be completely different in the way it’s streamed. Higher quality cameras as well as better camera angles. We also have a higher quality tape of Miami’s last game against Vancouver. There’s no guarantee but we are going to attempt to upload that to NASL.com. From here on out it should be of a much higher quality.
IMS: Perhaps the biggest snafu so far has been at Crystal Palace Baltimore where the live stream never did happen. There were a lot of very upset people in Tampa.
Krishnaiyer: Baltimore had a problem with the steaming component. They were able to record the game and we are still waiting for them to cut highlights for NASL.com. It was a big disappointment to not have that game streamed live because it was Tampa’s first game in their history. People had huddle around computers and TV’s hooked up to computers in the Tampa area to watch this match and were not able to.
IMS: I’ve had a number of people contact me from Tampa concerned after last weekend and the no-show of the live streaming. They wanted me to check to make sure NSC Minnesota is better prepared than Baltimore and that there will be live streaming of the Stars v Rowdies came this Saturday, April 24.
Krishnaiyer: The Minnesota Stars and the NSC organization has a lot of experience in doing video and live streaming. I don’t think there should be any concern amongst the fans, particularly those in Tampa who did not get to see their season opener that there would be repeat of this in Minnesota. In the couple of months since NSC launched their new team they have produced many original content video programs and have successfully broadcast live webcasts of the announcement of the naming of the team and continue to produce NSC TV. So we have no concerns whatsoever about Minnesota’s capabilities.
IMS: It sounds as if you think all these issue will be resolved soon.
Krishnaiyer: I think everyone will be up to speed in a week or two. These snafus are taking place because of the delay in getting everything done because of the turbulent nature of this past offseason.
Comments are closed.
I think Kartik couched the problems well by attributing the “problems” with the turbulent nature of the past off-season. Hogwash, I say.
If these teams were truly prepared and ready to move into the 2010 season, communication and video would have been one of the first items focused on and addressed.
It may very well be that certain teams have been flung into the Division II league that don’t have the capacity or experience in being there.
I am too am hopeful that the technical difficulties will go away, but then one can bet that something else will certainly pop up if individual team capacity is not there over the season. Soccer in the US deserves better than this.
Bart, no one was able to do anything until USSF made a decision at the final moments before the start of the season. Then teams were still waiting for word on them on what there standards would be and who the carrier would be as well as the standards they had to conform to. While I don’t disagree that there may be issues out in Baltimore, I think the rest of the teams are good to go.
Also, USL Live sucked pretty badly at the beginning of the season last year. And the NeuLion platform was pretty horrible in my opinion. They never really cared if the platform was Mac compatible or not and we Mac people had LOADS of problems with them all season. We were never able to go full screen and log in issues and menus disappearing were a constant problem.
Lets give it a bit of time before we jump on the “NASL is crap and USL is god” pulpit.
I look at it his way–this is something that is brand new and it is free. Yes, I would be disappointed if I organized a big watch party and the streaming did not work. However, like anything there are going to be bugs and glitches and those issues will be resolved. (I note USL had a ton of issues last year and that was an estblished program.)
The streaming is also free–so make the best of it. I have watched a few games (non-Stars) and there are issues. Some of the annoucers/color commentars are terrible. There is no instant replay. Camera angles are not so good. Some of the camera operators would have a hard time getting a job on a public access channel. However, it is FREE–so deal with it and make the most of it. Enjoy it for what it is worth, and simplely have a good time supporting your team.
BTW, can they PLEASE add a clock and score to the graphics. I love admiring the Stars logo when watching, but something else would be nice. I sometimes forget to start my stop watch at KO.
Brian, I agree that NuLion sucked for the early part of the season but at least we could see replays of all the games. So far I haven’t heard anything like that for this season. It did make it much easier for fans to watch games when they couldn’t catch them live.
Also, as a Mac user – I agree it was not the easiest with NuLion but in the end I figured out how to go fullscreen, etc.
Let’s hope the Islanders have everything in place (which I’m told they do) for this weekend’s PR vs Minnesota
With all the turmoil this off-season, I’m not that concerned about the issues with the video feeds. I mean, MLS is supposedly a bigger outfit, and they’re still having problems with their new website.
I’d be more interested in Kartik (and the NASL)’s answer to “Is Baltimore really ready to be part of that ‘bigger, better’ NASL? What about Miami?”
Kristian – PR vs NSC is this evening, so fire up your webcast. GO STARS!
@Kristian: Yeah. Let’s see what goes down tonight. We already have a rep when it comes to PRI webcasts. I’ll be very curious to see if we able to get the transmission up and running and if we have progressed at all from seasons past.
Crystal Palace Baltimore now has highlights up of last Fridays game against Tampa: http://live.palacebaltimore.com
Thanks BQ.
For the league to legitimize itself, they must have games on Fox Soccer Channel (like they have had in the past). This is a huge step to show America that the second tier of American soccer is legit and it is here to stay. I am very much aware of the USL/NASL non-sense, but for tha fans, that doesn’t really matter. We want all games to be available on local radio/TV stations, online, or on national TV. Get your act together, and fast!!!
Nice that kartik has someone unbiased and without any affiliation to him asking the tough questions and getting to the bottom of things.
@Ivan. Not trying to grill you (coz I love the passion, I really do)–but what world are ya livin’ in Bro?
In what world are “all” minor league games broadcast on local radio and tv, as well as online or on national tv?
Coz, as a fan of minor league sports, I would absolutely LOVE to live in THAT world.
That doesn’t even take place in the NDBL or even WNBA(even with their official NBA affiliation). It doesn’t happen in the AHL. Or AAA baseball. Sure some franchises are much better off than other clubs but c’mon, Bro.
The USL wasn’t considered “legit” by a lot of the soccer fans that I talk to even when the games were on FSC and Fox Sports World Canada.
I like the ambition but the expectations are unrealistic. It is great to aim high but let’s understand that we are are talking about a second tier. Not even AFL football franchises were able to do everything that you are describing before that league was a victim of the recent harsh eceonomic realities.
Is there any plans for an audio only stream of the Stars play by play for home games? That would be great for those of us with phones like the Droid so we can be at the game and still hear Buzz go “oh geez” lol.
The camera angles in Austin were awful!!!
… and now we just lost the feed of the Stars game.
Brian, my comments are not pro USL and con NASL. The current system is artificial as it is not real nor futuristic.
This is a waste of a season for all the right reasons.
Let’s not go blindly into the light and get burned like moths around a light bulb.