It was only a matter of time...

[curoadkill]

... but you now get to pay seven buck a month to listen to Cornell Sports on the internet.

http://cornellbigred.ocsn.com/genrel/090902aaa.html

[jtwcornell91]

:-(:-(:-(

I'm going to wait to collect my thoughts before letting loose, but anyone who wants to tear into the athletic department over this decision may want to do it via http://cornellbigred.ocsn.com/feedback/corn-feedback.html

[Keith K]

I'd suggest that a personal letter to the athletic department would be better than using the feedback form on the web site.  Even better, direct a letter to the hockey team.  Helps if you've actually given money in the past.

[rhovorka]

So how does this affect the groundbreaking effort and existance of the LynahCam feed that was started last year?

[Greg Berge]

On the other hand: with payment comes rights.  Now, when quality is poor or we miss the first five minutes because somebody has forgotten to turn a server on, or god help them if they ever, ever screw up and we miss a whole game, every one of us has the right to demand improvements in service.  Back when it was free it was "take what you can get."  By charging, they are promising to provide something and we can make sure they provide it.

[Greg Berge]

[q]We believe that most colleges and universities will be using some form of subscription product for their multimedia content by the start of next season. We decided to shift into this model now rather than later. By making the transition now, we can begin offering our fans this improved experience immediately.[/q]

To: Cornell Athletic Department
Re: Poor quality, lack of dependability of Big Red Pass

I am writing to voice concern about the lack of quality and dependability of the services promised by Big Red Pass.  There are bandwidth limitations, content quality issues, service delays, interruptions, and poor to non-existent support.

I will notify you personally of each repetition of these problems as it occurs.  I know you will be as surprised and dismayed as I that I am not receiving "the best-of-class multi-media content available on the internet today."

Although the season has not yet begun, I have decided to shift into this model now rather than later. By making the transition now, I can begin offering you this improved experience immediately.

[jtwcornell91]

You are speaking as though we are actually going to lie down and put up with this crap.  Their frequently asked questions list says, in answer to the obvious question of "How are  you greedy bastards doing us a service by charging us for what we used to get for free?"  They include some nonsense about how this service will have improved features and use advanced technology (i.e., less compatible with non-Micro$oft operating systems than before), to which the answer is of course "I don't want new services; I just want to listen to the same feed I always have."  They also point out that it costs them money to stream the broadcast and this is a way of supporting it.  I think we all enjoy services like this enough that we would gladly respond to calls for donations to help them raise the money they actually need to provide the service (I have with Age, and slack.net), but demanding $84 a year from each and every listener naturally pisses us off, and I think we should all tell them we'll not only not shell out for their service but also pull all the donations we can if they don't put back the old system.

[jtwcornell91]

I don't think the article actually says they will discontinue free broadcasts.  If the pay service is so much better than what we had before, they shouldn't mind letting people keep getting just the old broadcasts for free, so perhaps that's the line of attack we should take.  (After all, there have been parallel services available before; bare-bones .ram feeds as well as Yahoo presentation winidows.)

[CowbellGuy]

At the very least, the video part of it will continue. The audio issue remains to be resolved.

[ugarte]

JTW -
I don't think anything is going to be free. To quote the FAQ:

Why should I pay $6.95 when I only want to listen to one game? Isn't $6.95 fairly expensive?
Presently there is an option to purchase the College Sports Pass for a three-month period at a reduced price of $18.95. Also, RealNetworks plans to listen to examine user data and fan feedback over the course of this school year, and they will be looking at different programming options in near future. Also, we encourage you to take advantage of the 14-day free trial offer, which will allow you to experience the new product at no cost.

I am pretty upset about this, but I am not the type to demand that people give me free stuff. (I confess that, unlike many of you, I haven't donated anything to alma mater in some time.)  However, with apologies to Adam Wodon, I've never heard him, so I won't miss hearing his calls. (Now brace yourselves, as this is tantamount to blasphemy.) I will just listen to the opposition's feed.

On the good news tip, the Ivy League has a deal with the YES network, and the Cornell - Harvard game will be shown live on October 12.

http://cornellbigred.ocsn.com/sports/m-footbl/spec-rel/090902aaa.html

[cquinn]

The video and audio were in sync as long as you were picking both up from the hockeycam feed, which is what I chose to do.  Otherwise, there was a significant (read: really, really annoying) lag between the hockeycam video and the Yahoo (or whatever it was last year) audio.  If we can't get video and audio from the same source, it will be nearly impossible to sync them up.

[melissa\'01]

yeah - but it is football.

[Josh '99]

big red apple wrote:

Why should I pay $6.95 when I only want to listen to one game? Isn't $6.95 fairly expensive?
Presently there is an option to purchase the College Sports Pass for a three-month period at a reduced price of $18.95.

[sarcasm]  Ooh!  If I pay up front, I can pay $6.32 per month instead of $6.95 a month!  Wow!  [/sarcasm]  ::rolleyes::

[jtwcornell91]

That particular question and answer pair is especially stupid.  If someone only wants to listen to one game and thinks $6.95 is too much, why would they want to pay $18.95?  ::nut::

Also, it sounds like $6.95 is for all the college sports broadcasts, including "brand-name football games".  If someone wants to set up a pay service for the semi-pro division of NCAA football, they can go ahead.  Sucking all of Cornell sports into this is like if DirecTV combined all college sports programs into a single pay-per-view package, so that if you wanted to watch the college hockey on the RSNs, you would have to buy the same package as the people who use it to see big-time squeakball.  "Brand-name" college sports can get along just fine without making fans of smaller sports subsidize them.

[DeltaOne81]

Now, this is just a thought, but I read the page and didn't see anything again this... how does the system have you log in? Name and pass? If so, would it be possible to share a subscription with some other cornell alums, or would the system reject that? Is it against the subscriber agreement? May be worth looking into . A few friends and I were planning on that if Napster ever moved to a subscription server, which, of course, never came to pass.

-fred