On the Forecheck
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Outage ruins NHL.com’s GameCenter Preview
by Forechecker on 10/30/08 at 08:45 PM ET
Comments (7)
NHL.com offered a free public preview of its GameCenter technology this evening, but instead of an integrated presentation of game video, audio, statistics and chat, all fans got was this…
It must be a frustrating evening for the tech wizards at NHL.com, but that’s what they get for scheduling such a major event on Devil’s Night!
I can’t imagine they’ll sell too many subscriptions to this fee-based service if reliability is going to be an issue.
UPDATE: As of 10:46 PM Eastern it’s back up, but too late for most of the games this evening.
Filed in: NHL Commentary | On the Forecheck | Permalink
Comments
Those who ride the crest of the wave often crash and get crushed underfoot.
I too was hoping to watch, but alas, since NHL Network is broadcasting the Sens game, that means that NHL GameCenter has it blacked out, so this outage means nothing to me, other than I can’t see the game that isn’t available, and wouldn’t appear to show me the games that are hardest to get anywhere else.
How long before our broadcast deals get a serious rethink?
Posted by SENShobo from Waterloo, ON on 10/30/08 at 08:51 PM ET
Also every game is still being displayed with the wrong aspect ratio, stretching the video by 33%. Every game. Every single one.
Most people don’t notice it, because it’s fast-moving hockey, and they’re too worried about watching the puck to analyze the image. But let me tell you, if I stretched out your family photo by the same amount, you’d notice. And you wouldn’t pay the photo studio for that photo. But lots of people are paying $160 for this crap.
Digital video professionals will tell you they don’t like to have an aspect ratio error of more than 1%. It sometimes has to be a little higher, but no one would would ever go over 5% error and still call themselves a professional. But this is 33%. It’s unacceptable.
The support guys tell me, “I can see the history of your e-mails and phone calls, and all I can tell you is that’s what we have available right now.” I have repeatedly asked them to speak to someone higher up, or just have them e-mail me. Anything. The last guy told me they don’t even have any phone numbers or e-mails for the higher-up people. So he couldn’t help me, but he really wished he could provide better help.
Yeah, so do I.
Posted by Muéro from Ohio on 10/30/08 at 09:35 PM ET
I watched the first two periods of the Canes/Blues game. Got disconnected, missed over half of the third period (including the only goal scored) and finally got to see the last 5 minutes or so. Seriously, the NHL is a complete joke… how they can expect people to pay for this crap is beyond me.
Posted by MCJ from Middletown, CT on 10/31/08 at 06:56 AM ET
Worked fine for me last night.
Posted by Garbo from Vancouver on 10/31/08 at 02:37 PM ET
I emailed the NHL—- this was my response from them
“We are experiencing intermittent page load errors. It had nothing to do with the free preview. Refresh your browser until you get the video to load. You may also try clearing your temporary internet files.”
unimpressed to say the least
Posted by Decoy from Burlington, Ontario on 10/31/08 at 07:10 PM ET
I had NHL Center Ice Online last year and it was great.
It is now called Game Center Live and I decided to get it again. There are way more bells and whistles with the product this year but the overall usability of the service has decreased considerably.
Center Ice Online did all the right things in making the interface SIMPLE. This year they made things WAY too complicated. I still have no problems using it but I find it much more of a pain in the ass to use.
I rarely had problems with Center Ice Online, but I’ve already had a few problems with Game Center Live this year. And like Muéro said, every game is broadcasted in the wrong aspect ratio. It’s noticable in some games more than others but I find it very annoying. I love watching movies, television and sports in widescreen…..but only if that’s how it was filmed/recorded.
Posted by hal from ithaca on 10/31/08 at 10:10 PM ET
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How f*$king apropos!
Thanks, Gary, Ass.
Posted by SYF from a "Bron-Y-Aur Stomp" on 10/30/08 at 08:47 PM ET