New Cornell Athletics Website

[cornellbigred.com]

No more affiliation with CSTV.

You may have to refresh your browser.

Thanks. Let's hope that means a different webcast provider for the next academic year.

[Edit: Well, here's a teaser: [cornellbigred.com] ]

Al DeFlorio
Thanks. Let's hope that means a different webcast provider for the next academic year.

[Edit: Well, here's a teaser: [cornellbigred.com] ]

The main ICS story, [cornellbigred.com] also says: "The introduction of REDCASTS, enhanced audio and video that will provide the best streaming experience possible for the fans. Improved support, using the newest technology to increase reliability and customer friendly subscription options available on all platforms highlight the new service."

As one of the biggest critics of the cstv site designs, my first impression (consisting thus far of 20 seconds of looking and clicking) is that this is a HUGE improvement. Great, clean look. No popups or flashing ads. Easy to find links on team pages. So far, so good.

Thank you to those involved. Let's hope the webcast service adds to this precedent of improvement.

I agree with Rich. Generally cleaner and, therefore, more useful.

Notice that ICS (Internet Consulting Services) is a local (Syracuse) company. Syracuse, Colgate, Ithaca College, RPI, RIT, and Clarkson are some of their other clients. One hopes that a local company will be more responsive to Athletic's needs.

Scersk '97
One hopes that a local company will be more responsive to Athletic's needs.

And ours.

Al DeFlorio

Scersk '97
One hopes that a local company will be more responsive to Athletic's needs.

And ours.

Heck, let's just be greedy and hope that this is a sign that Athletics has recognized that our needs ARE their needs...

The new site is generally a big improvement. It loads faster without all the commercial junk. To my eyes the text frames are a little too wide for the font size.

Poking around, I found copy of the Ivy League admissions statement, which I found interesting. I don't remember ever having heard of a "likely letter" before. I had wondered about commitments by athletes reported long before normal applicants receive notice of admission.

[q]# Admissions Offices at each Ivy school may offer some athletic and other candidates a "likely" letter, which has the effect of a formal letter of admission provided the candidate continues to have a satisfactory secondary school experience. Coaches may initiate the requests for these letters, but only the office of admission can issue a "likely" letter.
# Admissions decisions will be communicated only by official written notification from Admissions Offices, by notification in Early Action, Early Decision or "regular" processes, or by "likely letters" after October 1, which are confirmed by one of those notifications. No other indication of a possible positive admissions result is or should be considered reliable. [/q]

Any cause for concern that Cornell athletics' split with CSTV might hurt chances of getting Big Red hockey games televised on that channel?

David Harding
TPoking around,I found copy of the Ivy League admissions statement, which I found interesting. I don't remember ever having heard of a "likely letter" before. I had wondered about commitments by athletes reported long before normal applicants receive notice of admission.

I received a "likely" letter a couple months before the real thing when I applied for purely academic reasons. So it's not just an athletics thing.

KeithK

David Harding
TPoking around,I found copy of the Ivy League admissions statement, which I found interesting. I don't remember ever having heard of a "likely letter" before. I had wondered about commitments by athletes reported long before normal applicants receive notice of admission.

I received a "likely" letter a couple months before the real thing when I applied for purely academic reasons. So it's not just an athletics thing.

I got one of those too. I have this recollection that it was mainly an engineering college thing although it could just be that I only had this conversation with other freshmen engineers.

nyc94

KeithK

David Harding
Poking around, I found copy of the Ivy League admissions statement, which I found interesting. I don't remember ever having heard of a "likely letter" before. I had wondered about commitments by athletes reported long before normal applicants receive notice of admission.

I received a "likely" letter a couple months before the real thing when I applied for purely academic reasons. So it's not just an athletics thing.

I got one of those too. I have this recollection that it was mainly an engineering college thing although it could just be that I only had this conversation with other freshmen engineers.

When I showed an interest in Cornell, I was actively recruited for academics, but that was 40 years ago.

I had a nice e-mail from Jeremy Hartigan this afternoon (Sunday) in response to my e-mail with comments on the new web site. He promised to consider my suggestions, along with all others. He commented that they are very happy about the tremendous flexibility they have to make changes, in contrast with the CSTV site.

David Harding
I had a nice e-mail from Jeremy Hartigan this afternoon (Sunday) in response to my e-mail with comments on the new web site. He promised to consider my suggestions, along with all others. He commented that they are very happy about the tremendous flexibility they have to make changes, in contrast with the CSTV site.

I also emailed Andy Noel about how much better it is. I'd suggest others do as well. Our complaints will be better heard if we also give compliments.

So Cornell can tell shit from shinola after all. About time. Thank goodness.

CSTV has a good idea, a couple people got rich off selling it to CBS (more power to them), and somewhere along the way they or CBS or their successors forgot about customer service.

Scersk '97
Notice that ICS (Internet Consulting Services) is a local (Syracuse) company. Syracuse, Colgate, Ithaca College, RPI, RIT, and Clarkson are some of their other clients. One hopes that a local company will be more responsive to Athletic's needs.

Are they in some way descended from i2sports? (E.g., is Chris Fyall associated with them?) I think I was happiest with the video service when they were doing it. (Encoding technology was less advanced when Age did it, plus I never got the QT stream to work under Linux.)

Thank-you email to Jeremy Hartigan to follow...

Eight days from the Bucknell kickoff and no new news about "RedCasts" on the web site. Anyone heard anything more?

Al,

I have not heard anything. What also bothers me is the potentially limited customer support. CSTV offered 24 hour a day support if there was technical difficulty with the video/audio feed. (I had to call just about each basketball game due to interruption in service) I am not sure we can expect the same level of service from this new provider. I am concerned about the lack of news/information from Cornell Athletics about RedCasts.

As of today, the site reads:

Cornell Redcasts

View or listen to many of your favorite Cornell sports with live streaming video and audio at home or at work on your computer. More information, including sports, events and subscription information will be available shortly.

CornellFan
Al,

I have not heard anything. What also bothers me is the potentially limited customer support. CSTV offered 24 hour a day support if there was technical difficulty with the video/audio feed. (I had to call just about each basketball game due to interruption in service) I am not sure we can expect the same level of service from this new provider. I am concerned about the lack of news/information from Cornell Athletics about RedCasts.

By the end of the season, CSTV limited their 'support' to a webform you filled out and hoped someone replied to you before you missed most of or the whole game.

Oh, and back when they did actually have a phone number you could call, the only answer I ever got was "oh, we're not carrying that game". Oh really? you mean in the middle of the 2nd period you decided not to carry it, huh?

DeltaOne81

CornellFan
Al,

I have not heard anything. What also bothers me is the potentially limited customer support. CSTV offered 24 hour a day support if there was technical difficulty with the video/audio feed. (I had to call just about each basketball game due to interruption in service) I am not sure we can expect the same level of service from this new provider. I am concerned about the lack of news/information from Cornell Athletics about RedCasts.

By the end of the season, CSTV limited their 'support' to a webform you filled out and hoped someone replied to you before you missed most of or the whole game.

Oh, and back when they did actually have a phone number you could call, the only answer I ever got was "oh, we're not carrying that game". Oh really? you mean in the middle of the 2nd period you decided not to carry it, huh?

Yeah, I think with a smaller set-up it is more likely that our feedback will actually make it to the people on-site and they can fix the problems. CSTV was all about not giving real answers and just reading the script.

CSTV did remove the phone number from their website, but I had the phone number at home (saved on my computer) and I used it the entire 2006-2007 basketball season and during the lax season--- calling on weekends and at night (sometimes at 9:30 pm) and always got a person on the phone-- and always had the problem(s) resolved within 15 minutes. So.... the live customer support continued--- they just decided to hide from their customers by eliminating the phone number from the website!

I will post the CSTV customer support number on this board (when I find it at home) for future reference in case any of you decide to use CSTV for Cornell's road games.

I tend to buy one month opponent subscriptions for Cornell basketball road games.

CornellFan
So.... the live customer support continued--- they just decided to hide from their customers by eliminating the phone number from the website!

Yeah, sounds like great customer service to me (eye rolling not directed at you, but at CSTV).

Besides that, when video went down, CSTV was entirely powerless to help. All they could do was ask you to try a different browser or reload the plugin, even though 40 of us were all getting no video at the same time (after they got through their once-per-call lie about the game not being carried). They had absolutely no means of communication to the school to check on what was going on or even inform them.

That's why we had to set up informal chains of communication ourselves, such as calling or texting other eLFers who were in section C, so they could tell the camera guys, who could then figure out that a cable came unplugged (this is how it got fixed more than once).

Was the problem usually resolved within 15 minutes? Sure. Did it have anything to do with CSTV rather than just the Cornell employees at the school figuring it out on their own? I highly doubt it.

Actually, CSTV does not "control" the camera/audio quality. When you complain to CSTV, they have a direct line to Ithaca and then upon getting CSTV's call, Cornell addresses the problem (usually some undergrads working the camera/microphones).

So, you are right-- CSTV does not itself resolve the issues-- but they do relay the problem to Cornell.

Now the issue is.... what happens with this new service? How do we contact Cornell if the audio or video fails? Do we get refunds? CSTV was very good at giving refunds when the service went to crap for more than 30 minutes.

I sure hope Cornell takes care of this problem before November's basketball season.

This sounds like a whole lot of FUD. We know almost nothing about the new service and yet you're convinced the sky is falling on the customer service front. OTOH, CSTV explicitly designed their webcast last year to work only on a single browser/OS combination, sticking their finger in the eye of Mac and Linux users. At least we know the new system is supposed to work on a wider array of platforms.

I just noticed this and haven't seen it posted elsewhere:
[www.news.cornell.edu]

Slope Media Group also has signed a deal with Cornell Big Red, the university's intercollegiate athletics department, to give viewers unlimited free access to online broadcasts of varsity sports games, pre-game events and interviews with players and fans.


Sports broadcasts begin with the first football game of the year against Bucknell University, Sept. 15 at 7 p.m., and future highlights include the Cornell vs. Duke basketball game on Jan. 6, 2008, from Durham, N.C.

Live broadcasts run 24 hours a day on Slope TV at [slopetv.com] and CUTV Channel 111, and on Slope Radio at [sloperadio.com], where more information on SMG and a complete listing of programming is available.

KP '06
I just noticed this and haven't seen it posted elsewhere:
[www.news.cornell.edu]

Slope Media Group also has signed a deal with Cornell Big Red, the university's intercollegiate athletics department, to give viewers unlimited free access to online broadcasts of varsity sports games, pre-game events and interviews with players and fans.


Sports broadcasts begin with the first football game of the year against Bucknell University, Sept. 15 at 7 p.m., and future highlights include the Cornell vs. Duke basketball game on Jan. 6, 2008, from Durham, N.C.

Live broadcasts run 24 hours a day on Slope TV at [slopetv.com] and CUTV Channel 111, and on Slope Radio at [sloperadio.com], where more information on SMG and a complete listing of programming is available.

Well it doesn't seem to have a fullscreen option on my macbook in firefox, but the flash video works. I don't think in their current state they are going to meet the bandwidth needs of a hockey game though.

Slope Media has been pretty disorganized this year. They've only been recruiting people for announcing/filming/producing sporting events over the last couple weeks, so it seems unlikely that they'd have a strong operation in place for the fall sports.

I'd really like to see Athletics produce their own feed.

CornellFan
Actually, CSTV does not "control" the camera/audio quality. When you complain to CSTV, they have a direct line to Ithaca and then upon getting CSTV's call, Cornell addresses the problem (usually some undergrads working the camera/microphones).

They did? Coulda fooled the heck outta me. When whole football quarters or lacrosse quarters were missed they told me repeatedly that they had no way to contact the school, and often recommended that I call the school myself! (on a Saturday afternoon/evening? at what number exactly?? I went to far as to try to reach main numbers of WHCU on my own with little luck)

So, you are right-- CSTV does not itself resolve the issues-- but they do relay the problem to Cornell.

Again, they told me multiple times that they had no way to relay it to the school and that it wasn't their problem, but the school's issue.

Between this and your comment about how CSTV issued refunds easily (holy heck, do you know how many people around here fought for refunds and were unable to get them?!?), I have to wonder who at CSTV you were sleeping with

Now the issue is.... what happens with this new service? How do we contact Cornell if the audio or video fails?

I agree with JTW, this is FUD. It may have been before your time around here, but we've had a small company running it before (i2sports) and they were very responsive to problems and called the cameramen or sports staff directly. Why are you assuming that another smaller outfit can't run it the same way?

I sure hope Cornell takes care of this problem before November's basketball season.

They did... they got rid of CSTV

CSTV never gave much in the way of customer support, but it was 24/7 non-support.

jtwcornell91
This sounds like a whole lot of FUD. We know almost nothing about the new service and yet you're convinced the sky is falling on the customer service front. OTOH, CSTV explicitly designed their webcast last year to work only on a single browser/OS combination, sticking their finger in the eye of Mac and Linux users. At least we know the new system is supposed to work on a wider array of platforms.

You know, I think there should be a rule on the Internet: If you choose to use an OS that everyone *knows* isn't universally supported, you forfeit the right to complain when it's not supported.

Josh '99

jtwcornell91
This sounds like a whole lot of FUD. We know almost nothing about the new service and yet you're convinced the sky is falling on the customer service front. OTOH, CSTV explicitly designed their webcast last year to work only on a single browser/OS combination, sticking their finger in the eye of Mac and Linux users. At least we know the new system is supposed to work on a wider array of platforms.

You know, I think there should be a rule on the Internet: If you choose to use an OS that everyone *knows* isn't universally supported, you forfeit the right to complain when it's not supported.

People have at least heard of Macs...

Josh '99
You know, I think there should be a rule on the Internet: If you choose to use an OS that everyone *knows* isn't universally supported, you forfeit the right to complain when it's not supported.

Depends what you mean... streaming video has been supported on the Mac for several years, and as best we could tell, there was *nothing* about the CSTV streaming video that couldn't have worked just fine on Mac. The only part that wasn't supported was their ultra-fancy flash interface to access it.

Its not like they couldn't have provided a basic HTML, or, heck, even text-page interface to access the streams. Its like a gas station that sells the same gas as everyone else, but their nozzles are too big for 5-10% of the cars. WTF.

And then, audio... don't even get me started on audio... Streaming audio has worked just fine on Macs since I ran Real player on my 60 MHz Performa with 8 megs of RAM in 1996. But again, CSTV goes *out of their way* to set up a fancy flash interface to block access to basic streaming audio. Again, make a frickin' text page with a link to the audio for cripes sake.

If you were more referring to linux, well, eh

DeltaOne81
If you were more referring to linux, well, eh

Yeah, that was mainly my point.

CornellFan
I tend to buy one month opponent subscriptions for Cornell basketball road games.

Lots of other sites force you to sign up for recurring monthly payments that you can opt out of only if you remember to go back and resign the account. You forget your logon or password, the expiration date goes by, and all of sudden you've paid 2 or 3 months worth of fees for the one Cornell-Syracuse lax game. Would that there were easier access to one-time-use credit card #s.

billhoward

CornellFan
I tend to buy one month opponent subscriptions for Cornell basketball road games.

Lots of other sites force you to sign up for recurring monthly payments that you can opt out of only if you remember to go back and resign the account. You forget your logon or password, the expiration date goes by, and all of sudden you've paid 2 or 3 months worth of fees for the one Cornell-Syracuse lax game. Would that there were easier access to one-time-use credit card #s.

Which was another plus with the ACC Select product that some of us used for the CU-Duke lacrosse game in the spring. Having the option for a single-game purchase made the experience even more attractive.

Josh '99

DeltaOne81
If you were more referring to Linux, well, eh

Yeah, that was mainly my point.

It doesn't really matter which you were referring to, after all CSTV was dealing with college grads or undergrads from a university with a large science component. They should realize their audience and adjust accordingly.

I mean my 13 year old daughter spends a lot more time on our Mac than she does on Windows. So what's up with their programmers?

Here's the scoop on RedCasts: [cornellbigred.com]

Looks like football is not in the package but is free through an alternate source.

Al DeFlorio
Here's the scoop on RedCasts: [cornellbigred.com]

Looks like football is not in the package but is free through an alternate source.

So they say the all-sports year long thing lasts 1 year from date of purchase. So if I purchase it after football season this year, I will get next year's football season still? If so I don't see any reason to order it now.

Jacob '06

Al DeFlorio
Here's the scoop on RedCasts: [cornellbigred.com]

Looks like football is not in the package but is free through an alternate source.

So they say the all-sports year long thing lasts 1 year from date of purchase. So if I purchase it after football season this year, I will get next year's football season still? If so I don't see any reason to order it now.

Unless you want to watch sprint football, volleyball, or field hockey.

Al DeFlorio
Here's the scoop on RedCasts: [cornellbigred.com]

Looks like football is not in the package but is free through an alternate source.

Well on paper, or a screen, it looks like a good service and that they listened to all criticism and responded appropriately. (I can't count the number of times they said there will not be any automatic renewals. ) Who knows how well it will actually work, but, based on their effort so far, I have to assume they will be working as hard as possible to get it right.

I would encourage everyone to email them, including Andy Noel, and congratulate and thank them for their efforts so far. Positive reinforcement can only help to improve the product. Hell, I go to many of those home games, but might sign up just to view/listen to others and see archived broadcasts.

Jim, who would you suggest we email (other than Andy)?

redhair34
Jim, who would you suggest we email (other than Andy)?

I'm not Jim , but definitely Jeremy Hartigan.

Everything I've seen points to lots of games being broadcast free on SlopeTV.com (and SlopeRadio.com). The video quality might be questionable and there will be amateur student announcers, but that's definitely looking like a possibility for this year.

Everything I've seen points to lots of games (including hockey) being broadcast free on SlopeTV.com (and SlopeRadio.com). The video quality might be questionable and there will be amateur student announcers, but that's definitely looking like a possibility for this year.

DeltaOne81

redhair34
Jim, who would you suggest we email (other than Andy)?

I'm not Jim , but definitely Jeremy Hartigan.

Agree.

Jim Hyla

DeltaOne81

redhair34
Jim, who would you suggest we email (other than Andy)?

I'm not Jim , but definitely Jeremy Hartigan.

Agree.

That he's not you or that he should call Jeremy?

ebilmes
Everything I've seen points to lots of games (including hockey) being broadcast free on SlopeTV.com (and SlopeRadio.com). The video quality might be questionable and there will be amateur student announcers, but that's definitely looking like a possibility for this year.

So I go to [slopetv.com] and, poof, my Firefox browser disappears from the screen. I try again, without the eLynah tab open. Same thing. I try IE. It wants the ActiveX control Adobe Flash Player. Friendly cross-platform support? NOT!

Josh '99

jtwcornell91
This sounds like a whole lot of FUD. We know almost nothing about the new service and yet you're convinced the sky is falling on the customer service front. OTOH, CSTV explicitly designed their webcast last year to work only on a single browser/OS combination, sticking their finger in the eye of Mac and Linux users. At least we know the new system is supposed to work on a wider array of platforms.

You know, I think there should be a rule on the Internet: If you choose to use an OS that everyone *knows* isn't universally supported, you forfeit the right to complain when it's not supported.

We don't need to be "supported"; we're smart enough to support ourselves. What we want is that content providers not go out of their way to exclude us.

One of the worst fallacies of current web design is that you make your site work specifically for each of a list of environments. Just do something that delivers the content in a way consistent with open specifications, and let the browser worry about the formatting.

French Rage

Jim Hyla

DeltaOne81

redhair34
Jim, who would you suggest we email (other than Andy)?

I'm not Jim , but definitely Jeremy Hartigan.

Agree.

That he's not you or that he should call Jeremy?

Both actually, although I'm more certain about the first.

Al DeFlorio
Here's the scoop on RedCasts: [cornellbigred.com]

Looks like football is not in the package but is free through an alternate source.

Free football link here [www.ibnsports.com]

The new website is ok, but I find it annoying the way the ugly sports logo rumbles when you put the mouse over it!