RTE Player - ads but no programme

Sam Russell

How can anyone watch this appalling service.

I try to watch something and all I get is a run of adverts, one after another, after another, then when the programme is due to start - nothing. Try again, same adverts one after another but still no programme.

Also, buffering and more buffering although I am on fibre, so I should have plenty of bandwidth.

Is this normal?

ftakeith

Sam Russell wrote: »

How can anyone watch this appalling service.

I try to watch something and all I get is a run of adverts, one after another, after another, then when the programme is due to start - nothing. Try again, same adverts one after another but still no programme.

Also, buffering and more buffering although I am on fibre, so I should have plenty of bandwidth.

Is this normal?

At least I know I am not the only one

The itv player and youtube on my freesat freetime box works quicker and no ads

Irish IPTV is terrible

lertsnim

I had the same problem before. I disabled Adblock and all was fine afterwards.

My main issue with it these days is the amount of ads you must watch before you can watch anything. It's ridiculous.

ethernet

Seeing this too. It always seems to stop after the breaks as well - you need to hit play again for it to resume. Very annoying,

YogiBoy

Good to know I am not the only one having problems. But I am surprised there is not more of a protest And not more discussion on Boards.
I laid out my gripes after much frustration to Player Support and they didn’t address them, sending me back a standard response saying to reinstall Flash, try different browsers, remove extensions and anti-virus etc.

Actually I have 3 PCs, many different browsers (one for each account on different services), a good internet connection in Dublin, and very few add-ons. I know how to programme in RTMP and I download RTE stuff often.

I blow my top today when I was watching a series of 12 programmes. And there were issues with 4 of them getting them to play. Yet they all ought to have been played in identical conditions.
Some RTE player programmes now require 4 adverts to be played before you can see the programme! But when running 4 adverts one after another, with technology that is several years old, there is a strong – and increasingly stronger chance as technology moves on -that the links between the processes will break down.
The 9pm news this evening attempted to run no less than 7 programmes on my PC (many more run far more).


I can put up with the advertising… just lower the sound and go to another browser.
(Plus the advertising is as dull as hell .. always the same and essentially directed to women when men on Player will be in a large majority).

The contrast with the BBC and TG4 is huge. I have no problems with these sites. And the video quality is higher. Some of the BBC now (more so the popular ones) are in HD. In contrast all RTE programmes still attempt to run at definitions of either some 230p or at most 360p, as a function of your presumed bandwidth and the traffic.

On top of all those technical issues, some of the RTE Player programming is badly organized. Some of it can appear without warning and disappear almost as quickly ..in a matter of days (less than the 3 weeks usually). For the recent Seachtain na Gaeilge programmes, you had to be quick off the mark (and be cute in finding them). And even then, you are not sure of getting the whole series (some of the programmes in the Turas Teanga seem to have been omitted).

The fundamental problem I suppose is cash and lack of investment. RTE Player generates insufficient revenue to cover costs, let alone development. If the Player service becomes popular, it eats into on-screen advertising.
Meanwhile other TV stations around the world march on with ever better playback services, be that out of public interest like the BBC orTG4, or for purely commercial interests like Netflx, while Youtube, Vimeo etc make more strides

ethernet

Fully agreed, YogiBoy.

The number of ads to watch anything is so offputting. I love watching shows on the player on UPC On Demand as it works and there are no ads but sadly only a week's worth of content is there. Not to mention, the picture quality is acceptable.

Sam Russell

I have given up on RTE player. Too many ads and too clunky.

icdg

The web version is starting to drive me daft. A programme I was watching stopped playing three times, on each occasion I had to refresh, sit through the adverts at the start again, before I could fast forward to the position I was at before it dropped.

Giuseppe90

Tried to use the web player for the first time in a while today - so many ads before you get to see anything as mentioned in previous posts

Never again!

homingbird

This site might be handy for some of ye on here :
http://rteonelive.altervista.org/