Let's talk about ILDN

[BMac]

I hate the offseason.

But seriously, ILDN was pretty awesome. After years of "redcast sucks" posts, we've pretty much seen the end of complaining about the feed from lynah.

I've watched more games this year than any since graduation.

Because mobile works so well, I've been able to watch high-def games from tons of places when I couldn't be home to catch the game, which has been awesome.

Could it improve? Sure. The angles often take too long to change. But there's nothing like being able to pull over the car and watch that overtime at Yale, or catch the Harvard senior night game on the road in another city at a bar.

Thanks ILDN.

[pfibiger]

Totally agree. The mobile streaming has been excellent, you can airplay it easily to a tv and can stream it reasonably over 3G. AND we get ivy road games for free. Sure there are some minor production issues but it is an enormous improvement over what came before.

[Jim Hyla]

So, we put in a lot of complaints before, let's give them some positive feedback.

[email subject="ILDN Feedback."]ILDNsupport@neulion.com[/email]

[email subject="ILDN Feedback"]jlukach@cornell.edu[/email]  He's Director of Multimedia for CU.

[billhoward]

Do others find the [] Remember Me checkbox doesn't remember you?

For hockey, the camera angles remain troublesome. When the press box was rebuilt it didn't take into account the importance of video. That's not the fault of ILDN but it does affect the overall enjoyment of the game.

For all sports, the graphics are a bit over the top, such as the words like GOAL with flames licking the base of the type. This is like when Corel introduced (popularized) warpable type, a crime against humanity if ever there was one. With lacrosse, the graphic or the picture of the smiling goal-scorer stays up so long you miss the ensuing faceoff, although with our FO luck lately, that's not altogether bad.

I'm trying to recall if ILDN picks up retransmission rights for the occasional national or regional TV broadcast afterwards. That should be the case.

But yes, Cornell and ILDN are finally providing a decent video platform for alumni, parents and other sports nuts.

[Trotsky]

Do others find the [] Remember Me checkbox doesn't remember you?

Yes.

[Trotsky]

For all sports, the graphics are a bit over the top, such as the words like GOAL with flames licking the base of the type.

Agreed.  Classic example of a product adding a feature nobody wants to distinguish it from the prior, non-producted experience.  Yes, we know we're watching a webcast and we know you have the capacity to add shit like that.  Now don't.

They don't even have the excuse of the derpy scoreboard graphics that you're "increasing crowd intensity" (hint: you're not, unless your crowd consists solely of 11-year olds), and the greatest war crime of all, kicking into piped-in stadium music instead of just letting the natural noise of the event mark it as special.  If I hear the fucking song from the fucking Natural one more time after a homerun, I'm going to hunt down Randy Newman and slit his throat ear-to-ear.

[RichH]

For all sports, the graphics are a bit over the top, such as the words like GOAL with flames licking the base of the type.

Agreed.  Classic example of a product adding a feature nobody wants to distinguish it from the prior, non-producted experience.  Yes, we know we're watching a webcast and we know you have the capacity to add shit like that.  Now don't.

They don't even have the excuse of the derpy scoreboard graphics that you're "increasing crowd intensity" (hint: you're not, unless your crowd consists solely of 11-year olds), and the greatest war crime of all, kicking into piped-in stadium music instead of just letting the natural noise of the event mark it as special.  If I hear the fucking song from the fucking Natural one more time after a homerun, I'm going to hunt down Randy Newman and slit his throat ear-to-ear.

I'm quite certain that for sports like lacrosse, they simply take the direct feed from the stadium scoreboard (now that there's sadly a video scoreboard). So when herpa-derp graphics like flames and 4-fingered gloved-hands clapping and awkwardly-posed player mug-shots are shown in the stadium, that's what viewers at home also get.  Just once I'd like to see the person in control of any video scoreboard in the world show some restraint and maybe NOT hit the "MAKE SOME NOIZEEEE" explosion graphic button.

Things like poor camera work...that's not really in ILDN's control, but the University, right?  If Princeton decides to put the Athletic Director's 11 year-old nephew in control of the camera, I don't think we should be yelling at ILDN.

I didn't have as many problems with RedCast as most people did, but throw in the road games and the universal device access, and it's a nice product.  My small quibbles are small website-design related (mucking with drop-down menus to find Cornell games when I have a Cornell-specific subscription), and I'd prefer dedicated apps to dealing with mobile-browser limitations, but these are tiny nits to pick.

[Al DeFlorio]

Do others find the [] Remember Me checkbox doesn't remember you?

Funny.  Last year, it didn't remember me.  This year it did.

Why does it keep asking me to drag something into the picture box?  I never find something to drag.  I just click on "Watch" in the schedule.

But I can't get it to work on my tablet or smartphone for some reason.  It just hangs up after starting.

[Trotsky]

But I can't get it to work on my tablet or smartphone for some reason.  It just hangs up after starting.

I have to use IE, otherwise it just loads forever.  Every summer I come upon IE and think, "what do I need this shit for," and remove it, and then every fall I remember.

[marty]

Do others find the [] Remember Me checkbox doesn't remember you?

Funny.  Last year, it didn't remember me.  This year it did.

Why does it keep asking me to drag something into the picture box?  I never find something to drag.  I just click on "Watch" in the schedule.

But I can't get it to work on my tablet or smartphone for some reason.  It just hangs up after starting.

I was able to watch games on my phone and tablet this year. However not all browsers worked with ILDN. My recollection is that Chrome and the built-in browser worked on my Galaxy Nexus.  I just checked Chrome and it played the Stanford at Cornell women's lacrosse game.  The phone uses an open source version of Android 4.4.2.

My Galaxy Nexus tablet will also work with Chrome. When I tested the tablet a few minutes ago it played the same lacrosse game but could not play the Cornell Harvard baseball game ( ?) . The tablet is also running Android 4.4.2 .

[Al DeFlorio]

One gripe remaining is the webcasts still don't start on time. 6:37 now and the 6:30 lacrosse game webcast is still in "The Game Will Start Soon" mode.

[semsox]

gjge ILDN. Ridiculous

[billhoward]

Video feed went out during the Syracuse lax game, just in time to miss a run of a couple Cornell goals, my feed came back in time to see a Syracuse goal. This is what happened, according to ILDN tech support:

"Thank you for contacting Ivy League Digital Network support with your inquiry. That feed was briefly down due to a power outage near the venue. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused and you should be able to view the feed properly at this time. Please let us know if you have further questions."

The power failure they spoke of did not affect the audio, which came across on the video non-feed, nor did it affect the scores overlay on the video. I'm sure there was some kind of power issue but it doesn't jibe 100% with the four-sentence broad explanation.

[semsox]

This is the frustration that comes with these broadcasts when they're executed poorly. The Cornell sports twitter mentioned that the power went out to the video scoreboard, which is where the live video feed is taken from (hence the ridiculous cut away's to players posing and twirling their sticks after goals rather than showing the ensuring faceoff, but I digress...). But this is entirely a problem regarding the way in which the system is set-up and operated. Because the decision was made to lift the video directly from the scoreboard, rather than the video equipment itself, then all of a sudden a scoreboard outage prevents access to live video, despite the fact that there is nothing actually wrong with the cameras themselves. With the equipment and such that is currently available, this should not still be an issue, and it is these repeated amateurish issues that have made RedCast and now the Cornell implementation of ILDN so frustrating.

[billhoward]

This is the frustration that comes with these broadcasts when they're executed poorly. The Cornell sports twitter mentioned that the power went out to the video scoreboard, which is where the live video feed is taken from (hence the ridiculous cut away's to players posing and twirling their sticks after goals rather than showing the ensuring faceoff, but I digress...).

Not at all. Fans in the stadium may have different expectations of the experience than people viewing online. Plus the scoreboard - sorry, I know it cost a lot - is not high res when viewed from 75 yards away, and you only glance over at it, not watch it every minute. It's good that Cornell has a person responsible for coordinating video. Some things Cornell is learning first-hand probably were learned elsewhere, earlier.

By some measure, Cornell webcasts are two, three times as good as they weere 3 years ago. That's not the same as excellent. It's like the psych experiment where the subject sees a dark gray card through a hole in the well-lit box and when it's replaced by a medium gray card, the subject declares it white.

I think if we saw a financial statement for Cornell webcast revenue, even before taking out the cut for ILDN (neulion.com) and Cornell's overseer, it'd be shockingly small. I wonder if one alum could endow webcasts -- free -- into perpetuity for $1 million. I still think we could outsource to RPI or- let's admit Ithaca College knows more about some subjects than Cornell -- a bunch of IC broadcast majors. They would have noticed immediately that the Syracuse lax game press box camera (the wide view camera if there were two) was markedly darker than the field level camera(s?) and one field level camera was not in focus at times. Maybe it's time for a poll: Which has been disappointing of late, lacrosse or the lacrosse feed [choose only one]?

I favor a wakeup button on RedCast or ILDNcast that, when clicked by more than 5% of viewers simultaneously, delivers electroshock to the camera operator and he then pans the camera to catch up with the play.