GAA GO - 2019 edition!

munchkin_utd

Theres a few new features/ subscription options that are only available since this year
- 1year subscription is still €140 for intercounty league and championship lie and catch up for RTE/Sky/Eir Sport games + Sunday game live + League sunday delayed by a day + some documentaries and whatnot. So, stíll dear enough that you'd really have to have lots of spare time or be far from a pub to bother with it (@ €4/pint or €5 a pint, thats 35pints or 28 pints respectively, so at an average of 2 pints per game, you'd see 14 to 17 games in a social atmosphere for the same price as paying a subscription! )
- 365 day subscription, so subscribe now and it runs till this time next year, so WAY more copped on than before when you paid €140 in Feb and got league and championship OR paid the price half the live content come the summer.
- "Pick n mix" - €20 a month for 3 games. Not sure if its a calendar month or a month from when you book (help is very vague, next to useless to be honest), but either way, probably a nice one for irish based people on holiday abroad to get a few games over a weekend or 2 for less than it normally costs buying per game. For the last stages of the championshhip it is better value again as you are getting a choice of threee Semi finals otherwise costing €14 or finals costing €20

As for the streaming, theres now little bookmarks on the game stream so you can jump to the start of a half etc. which is really useful to navigate through the game or when watching it on catch up to just cleanly skip all the buildup and get straight into the game. Skipping forwards and backwards used to be a pain, now its fairly slick.
I had on the hurling yesterday and streaming quality was far from great, especially considering that a clear picture would be useful for the small ball game. We have a 50meg connection so it's not a bandwith problem on our side.
On the positive, when changing from one device to another from the same network (had it on phone and using airplay showing it on telly using the apple tv, and then wanted to switch the GAA to the ipad) it did it seamlessly. Before it used to tell you to wait a while and try again as the session was still active on another device or some such nonsense, which with live tense game is just not on.

as for selection of games, still a step down from the old setanta service which had an extra 3rd delayed game every Sunday over the summer.
EDIT: I see now that GAA Go have all BBC delayed games from the Ulster Championship (wasnt the case a couple of years ago), and combined with RTE going overboard on the Munster hurling, thats a 3rd game in full on a good number of Sundays in early summer only.
Still, when theres full coverage of a game with commentary in the possession of RTE, it'd be nice if they passed that coverage to their subsiduary GAAGO to allow folks abroad who cannot attend a game in Ireland in person, to watch as many games in full as possible.
It seems the only people who get to watch this material are the lads in the RTE cutting room, and intercounty managers who get a copy to research their opponents.

irelandrover

I tried to watch the hurling on Sunday but it was very poor quality. Couldn't really make out the ball at all. I stream soccer, rugby and GAA and GAA is the only one i have any issues with.
I've had the subscription for 3 years now assuming the quality would get better but it just hasn't. I think this is my last year.

elefant

I really wish they'd change the GAAGO theme tune. It's unbelievably grating. Drives me bananas.

munchkin_utd

elefant wrote: »

I really wish they'd change the GAAGO theme tune. It's unbelievably grating. Drives me bananas.

It hasn’t changed but it’s also annoyingly loud in comparison to the broadcast feed.

They also haven’t changed the twitter messages at any stage over the season to anything for this championship which to me is just sheer laziness. It’s not as if they aren’t making enough from it to have someone sit down every few weeks and put together a new sequence.

Aside from that, if there was to be a policy of providing up to date information as an alternative to the RTÉ ad breaks, Gaago could/ should be a great chance for communication to gaa folk across the world.
Former bbc journalist Jerome Quinn is jetting around the world filming various Gaa finals in USA, Middle East and europe (also Australia ?) on behalf of the Gaa and the units out there , compiling it into short videos, and there’s not a second of that material used .

And as for the claim that the picture is HD, for me (50mbit download) it is a slightly blurry SD , watchable for football but substandard for hurling .

irelandrover

munchkin_utd wrote: »

And as for the claim that the picture is HD, for me (50mbit download) it is a slightly blurry SD , watchable for football but substandard for hurling .

I've cancelled my auto renew now. The quality of it is just too bad for hurling which is all i used it for really.

I've complained a few times and they always blame my connection but the few people I know that use it all have the same complaints.