UEFA Champions League 21-24: FTA on RTE&VMTV, LiveScore other matches

Delta2113 · 02-06-2021 12:50pm

Will we see Adverts during the game pop up. Hope I'm wrong but can't see presentation etc. being great.

irishfeen · 02-06-2021 1:06pm

icdg wrote: »

It may well be, but how they will monetise these rights is an interesting one. This may well be one of the first instances of a streamer taking up premium sports rights and attempting to do it for free. Not tied to a broadband or tv subscription, not connected with an existing broadcaster, not requiring you to have a gambling account of some sort.

And they outbid VMTV, so presumably they didn’t pick up these rights for peanuts.

Just looking at the app now, they have betting on all games it seems and plenty of app ads too. I presume they will have ads before live streams play and ads at half time. Possibly on screen ads during games too. They obviously think this will make them money. VM could possibly have bid very low thinking they were up against RTÉ and TG4. It wouldn’t surprise me if these rights were relatively cheap.

Dodge · 02-06-2021 1:17pm

irishfeen wrote: »

I think the delay with streaming is not really an issue at all. By all accounts IPTV is in fact closer to real time action then satellite broadcasting.

The backhaul to uplink locations takes longer.

This simply isn’t true for football, and when you don’t have a native app and you have to cast from phone to TV, there’s a further delay

I have actually trialled this with livescore’s seria A coverage (compared with Premier on TV) and it was at least 30-60 seconds behind. That’s without casting

irishfeen · 02-06-2021 1:26pm

Dodge wrote: »

This simply isn’t true for football, and when you don’t have a native app and you have to cast from phone to TV, there’s a further delay

I have actually trialled this with livescore’s seria A coverage (compared with Premier on TV) and it was at least 30-60 seconds behind. That’s without casting

I suppose it’s all to do with how the actual broadcasters are set up (fibre/satellite/servers). I have heard that channels on IPTV in the UK are often a few seconds faster then the same channels on satellite but you are almost certainly right on the case of LiveScore If you tested it.

Can I ask you what bitrate LiveScore are running at 720, 1080 do you know?

Dodge · 02-06-2021 1:36pm

Not sure tbh. I only watched on my phone

dulpit · 02-06-2021 1:38pm

Dodge wrote: »

This simply isn’t true for football, and when you don’t have a native app and you have to cast from phone to TV, there’s a further delay

I have actually trialled this with livescore’s seria A coverage (compared with Premier on TV) and it was at least 30-60 seconds behind. That’s without casting

A delay like that has a number of issues too, namely:

In play betting is problematic (but don't care about that)
News alerts for big results at full time can spoilt it
Loads of messages from friends if something big happens before you see it (Ken Early on Second Captains mentioned this the other week when something happened, he was watching on Now TV and got a tonne of WhatsApp before he saw the incident, so knew something was about to happen.)

I reckon for the "casual" viewer, these won't matter if the stream quality is good.

Actually - for this specific app, can you use PIP? Or are you full screen or nothing?

Dodge · 02-06-2021 2:05pm

PIP worked for the Serie A football

I think casual viewers will stick with the TV option to be honest. I do it myself and I don’t think I’d be described as a casual football watcher

If there’s a game on TV and a slightly more appealing game available to stream, I’ll probably watch the TV game

Delta2113 · 02-06-2021 2:42pm

Just tried to cast to Tv from App - get "Select device:" in a blank white box. Not a great sign.

Headshot · 02-06-2021 2:48pm

Not a fan of the livescore app at all.

The delay is really fecking annoying and the picture quality is rubbish

lertsnim · 02-06-2021 2:55pm

Delta2113 wrote: »

Just tried to cast to Tv from App - get "Select device:" in a blank white box. Not a great sign.

Casting fine for me just now. Only complaint is it could do with a boost in frame rate.

irishfeen · 02-06-2021 2:56pm

Headshot wrote: »

Not a fan of the livescore app at all.

The delay is really fecking annoying and the picture quality is rubbish

Any idea what bitrate LiveScore are running at 720, 1080??

Delta2113 · 02-06-2021 3:11pm

lertsnim wrote: »

Casting fine for me just now. Only complaint is it could do with a boost in frame rate.

IOS phone?

theoneeyedman · 02-06-2021 3:30pm

While it's good to see a new player in the system here, it's a pity to see it tied to what looks like a gambling website, or at least on the face of it that's what it looks like. There is no financial outlay required, so at least that's not so bad, but personally I find casting a glitchy enough system at times,can be unreliable, and I hope livescores have servers able to handle the traffic (I suspect they will, I know nothing about them - are they a big outfit?).

There is still a large swathe of the country without decent broadband so, this is not a great solution for them, and kids (won't someone think of the children!) accessing through a site/app heavily promoting gambling is less than ideal too, but that's the way its going I suppose - broadcast TV like RTÉ, Virgin, BT, Sky and ITV have huge promotions for gambling, fast food and alcohol during games too.

carlos · 02-06-2021 3:33pm

I've tried the app on ios and played a few of the Serie A highlights via airplay to the apple tv

picture looks to be 720p at 25fps with a lowish bit rate, i'm guessing somewhere around 3mbps.

this is going to be the problem with this service being free, to have a good tv experience they would need to improve both the frame rate and bit rate which massively increases their hosting costs

awec · 02-06-2021 3:40pm

While streaming may be the future I still think it's not ready for the mainstream yet. I don't think I'd be relying on livescores for my football fix if watching these matches was important to me.

720 @ 25fps is going to be very noticable.

iseegirls · 02-06-2021 3:40pm

theoneeyedman wrote: »

There is still a large swathe of the country without decent broadband so, this is not a great solution for them, and kids (won't someone think of the children!) accessing through a site/app heavily promoting gambling is less than ideal too, but that's the way its going I suppose - broadcast TV like RTÉ, Virgin, BT, Sky and ITV have huge promotions for gambling, fast food and alcohol during games too.

I've just downloaded the app, and the first question that pops us asks if you're under or over 18. I presume that if you choose under 18, that the gambling ads wouldn't display?

lertsnim · 02-06-2021 4:16pm

Delta2113 wrote: »

IOS phone?

Android

dublinman1990 · 02-06-2021 5:02pm

Okay. I was not expecting an announcement like this one to ever happen. It's very peculiar in the sense that the company who got these rights, namely Livescore, are not very well known among general sports fans here for having to broadcast live TV sports rights to viewers in Ireland. They are a completely new entity to the Irish market who are taking on a big gamble to take on the Champions League rights to both casual sports & regular sports viewers alike.

I think this announcement made this morning is sort of mirroring the announcement of what happened with the UEFA CL matches in Australia. A new start-up company, completely new to that country at that time, reportedly got these rights to show these games to online viewers via an app in a rights cycle auction for a sum of AUS$20 million. I think I remember reading about this seeing this story on the Sydney Morning Herald or The Guardian website in the UK.

Would I be right to suggest that a deal of this similar scale was done here in Ireland even though there knowingly some big differences between the 2 countries. The population size of Australia is much bigger than Ireland so I would be guessing that the cost of the new rights deal here would be much smaller than what was paid for in Australia. I would be guessing Livescore would have paid under a ballpark figure of €5 million for these new Irish rights to be shown via their app.

icdg · 02-06-2021 5:13pm

I don’t think it can really be compared with the Australian deal, which was a never heard before from company founded two years ago by a 25 year old and has since fallen apart, because they never had the money to back the bid in the first place.

LiveScore are well established and have prominent backers (in the gambling industry, as I think has been mentioned).

awec · 02-06-2021 5:18pm

icdg wrote: »

I don’t think it can really be compared with the Australian deal, which was a never heard before from company founded two years ago by a 25 year old and has since fallen apart, because they never had the money to back the bid in the first place.

LiveScore are well established and have prominent backers (in the gambling industry, as I think has been mentioned).

Yes but live streaming sport is not LiveScore's forte. I would be sceptical of the sort of quality you're going to get, but then again it's probably telling that they aren't going to charge even an insignificant sum for it.

People will point at Amazon, but Amazon are enormous.

irishfeen · 02-06-2021 5:31pm

Who do we think will pick up the remaining 3rd package?? Can VM go back in for it I wonder? If anything one big game and highlights every game week would still be a decent addition to their channel.

Atlantic Dawn · 02-06-2021 6:21pm

I assume there will be zero studio analysis between games and commentary likely bought in rather than provided in house. Not sure how they will make any money without having some premium element to the app.

irishfeen · 02-06-2021 6:22pm

Atlantic Dawn wrote: »

I assume there will be zero studio analysis between games and commentary likely bought in rather than provided in house. Not sure how they will make any money without having some premium element to the app.

Ads and online betting .. they must see a return in it not to mention they might not have actually paid a massive amount for the rights.

Delta2113 · 02-06-2021 6:27pm

Atlantic Dawn wrote: »

I assume there will be zero studio analysis between games and commentary likely bought in rather than provided in house. Not sure how they will make any money without having some premium element to the app.

The app ad free is €1.99 per year.

This is purely to push Gambling and now that I've had all day to think about it I'm not happy that they have won the rights.

irishfeen · 02-06-2021 6:31pm

Delta2113 wrote: »

The app ad free is €1.99 per year.

This is purely to push Gambling and now that I've had all day to think about it I'm not happy that they have won the rights.

Tbh I’m delighted all games will be available FTA .. the gambling element is irrelevant because sky, BT, RTÉ and all other broadcasters are shoving that down our throats during games and pre and post game.

Don’t think we can just single out LiveScore as the baddies here.

theoneeyedman · 02-06-2021 7:09pm

irishfeen wrote: »

Ads and online betting .. they must see a return in it not to mention they might not have actually paid a massive amount for the rights.

One wonders what's in this for UEFA, if the money isn't big?

Were they not better having saturation coverage on 2 channels on midweek, FTA, very accessible to more casual viewers, and lots of eyes on their sponsors.

Instead, they have only one game per week at present, on an app that's probably a bit fidgety to connect via Chrome cast, not something you can just flick over to in a second if herself is watching Corrie.

They are probably looking to frighten the established broadcasters with a view to future auctions but I'd be of the belief you want the games to be as accessible as possible.

irishfeen · 02-06-2021 7:20pm

theoneeyedman wrote: »

One wonders what's in this for UEFA, if the money isn't big?

Were they not better having saturation coverage on 2 channels on midweek, FTA, very accessible to more casual viewers, and lots of eyes on their sponsors.

Instead, they have only one game per week at present, on an app that's probably a bit fidgety to connect via Chrome cast, not something you can just flick over to in a second if herself is watching Corrie.

They are probably looking to frighten the established broadcasters with a view to future auctions but I'd be of the belief you want the games to be as accessible as possible.

Your giving UEFA far too much credit I think ...Champions League scheduling in Ireland or Coronation Street you can be sure does not give them sleepless nights.

UEFA care about money paid for the rights - end of! LiveScore paid more money then the rest be that €100 or €1m

Dodge · 02-06-2021 7:39pm

theoneeyedman wrote: »

One wonders what's in this for UEFA, if the money isn't big?

Were they not better having saturation coverage on 2 channels on midweek, FTA, very accessible to more casual viewers, and lots of eyes on their sponsors.

Instead, they have only one game per week at present, on an app that's probably a bit fidgety to connect via Chrome cast, not something you can just flick over to in a second if herself is watching Corrie.

They are probably looking to frighten the established broadcasters with a view to future auctions but I'd be of the belief you want the games to be as accessible as possible.

Ireland means absolutely nothing to UEFA. Why would Gazprom care if 200,000 or 80,000 in Ireland saw their ad?

They don’t have any FTA broadcasters in the big countries like the UK. It’s all about the rights fees...

Delta2113 · 02-06-2021 7:42pm

My idea off a free-to-air channel is that it must be carried on Saorview. Don't like this term being used.

forzacalcio · 02-06-2021 7:50pm

Delta2113 wrote: »

The app ad free is €1.99 per year.

This is purely to push Gambling and now that I've had all day to think about it I'm not happy that they have won the rights.

Where can one avail of this sub for ad free? I cant see it anywhere

MisterAnarchy · 02-06-2021 10:30pm

irishfeen wrote: »

Tbh I’m delighted all games will be available FTA .. the gambling element is irrelevant because sky, BT, RTÉ and all other broadcasters are shoving that down our throats during games and pre and post game.

Don’t think we can just single out LiveScore as the baddies here.

I'd like to see some ban on betting ads introduced in the UK and Ireland like Spain recently brought in.

In Spain, advertising is only between 1:00-5:00am, with no exceptions for sports events, a total ban on gambling sponsorship of sports jerseys, kits and stadiums, and a ban on welcome bonuses.

Tigerandahalf · 02-06-2021 10:30pm

Delta2113 wrote: »

The app ad free is €1.99 per year.

This is purely to push Gambling and now that I've had all day to think about it I'm not happy that they have won the rights.

I am suprised this hasn't been looked at by regulators.
This is a blatant gambling push.

How do you get young people to get into gambling?
Let them have an app for free on their phone in their bedroom streaming their favourite sport and you hook them in without the supervision of their parents.

icdg · 02-06-2021 10:36pm

Just to say that there’s other places on Boards to debate the rights and wrongs of gambling, this forum isn’t it. Also give it time. The deal was only announced this morning.

Delta2113 · 02-06-2021 11:24pm

forzacalcio wrote: »

Where can one avail of this sub for ad free? I cant see it anywhere

My sincere apologies. It's actually the Live Soccer App. I was trying them earlier and mistakenly thought it was for LiveScore.

mike2084 · 02-06-2021 11:56pm

Hopefully we won't get the dreaded '08' message on Sky boxes during BT's Champions League now, but from what I've read today I'm not expecting it to happen. I was mainly watching Champions League on BT anyway so I'll definitely be sticking with it now. The Goals Show is quiet addictive!!

bk · 03-06-2021 11:05am

Dodge wrote: »

This simply isn’t true for football, and when you don’t have a native app and you have to cast from phone to TV, there’s a further delay

Just to point out that technically casting doesn’t work that way and doesn’t add any extra delay.

When you cast, your not actually streaming the video from your phone to the cast device/TV, instead what happens is the phone sends just the address of the video stream to the casting device and then the casting device directly streams the video from the source.

Your phone is basically just acting as a fancy remote.

Red Silurian · 03-06-2021 12:07pm

MisterAnarchy wrote: »

I'd like to see some ban on betting ads introduced in the UK and Ireland like Spain recently brought in.

In Spain, advertising is only between 1:00-5:00am, with no exceptions for sports events, a total ban on gambling sponsorship of sports jerseys, kits and stadiums, and a ban on welcome bonuses.

I'd prefer to see ads on the telly, don't care what they're for, as long as the content is free to view but perhaps offer a subscription model to remove the ads if people want to avail of it then they can

Dodge · 03-06-2021 1:14pm

bk wrote: »

Just to point out that technically casting doesn’t work that way and doesn’t add any extra delay.

When you cast, your not actually streaming the video from your phone to the cast device/TV, instead what happens is the phone sends just the address of the video stream to the casting device and then the casting device directly streams the video from the source.

Your phone is basically just acting as a fancy remote.

Try it. There’s a few seconds delay between your device and how it connects to to the chromecast

I know how it works, and how it’s supposed to work, and casting adds a little delay. The connection is that delay

bk · 03-06-2021 3:19pm

Dodge wrote: »

Try it. There’s a few seconds delay between your device and how it connects to to the chromecast

I know how it works, and how it’s supposed to work, and casting adds a little delay. The connection is that delay

https://helpdeskgeek.com/product-reviews/hdg-explains-how-does-google-chromecast-work/

Many people mistakenly believe that their device is streaming the content from the internet, and “sending” that data stream to the Chromecast to display on the TV. This isn’t the case. Devices like mobile phones and laptops that are capable of casting only act as a “remote control” for the Chromecast.

This means when you open a YouTube video and select the Chromecast icon, the following events take place.

Your device sends an HTTP request to the Chromecast, telling it the URL of the content you want to stream.
The Chromecast uses its own browser to reach out to the internet and retrieve that content.
The Chromecast will start streaming the content. Your device still has the ability to stop, start, move back or forward, or adjust the volume. However all content streaming is happening directly from the internet through the Chromecast device, and to the TV.

Of course it will take a second for the connection to setup on the cast device, but when it does, the cast device starts streaming directly the same it would on your phone. Once started it doesn't add any extra delay.

irishfeen · 03-06-2021 4:22pm

Tried casting from the LiveScore app to chromecast without having any luck, anyone cast its yet successfully for the videos they have up?

Dodge · 03-06-2021 7:43pm

bk wrote: »

https://helpdeskgeek.com/product-reviews/hdg-explains-how-does-google-chromecast-work/

Of course it will take a second for the connection to setup on the cast device, but when it does, the cast device starts streaming directly the same it would on your phone. Once started it doesn't add any extra delay.

It’s the “once started” bit that is the delay. It doesn’t catch up

Again, I’ve tested this out loads of times. The more obstacles you put in the way, the longer the delay is. It’s that simple

And for live sport it is an issue

For some it’s acceptable, for me it’s a problem

icdg · 03-06-2021 9:19pm

I think at this stage the tangent involving the technical operation of Chromecast can be brought to a close

lertsnim · 04-06-2021 8:11am

irishfeen wrote: »

Tried casting from the LiveScore app to chromecast without having any luck, anyone cast its yet successfully for the videos they have up?

Yes using Android to Android TV.

FRIENDO · 04-06-2021 8:25am

lertsnim wrote: »

Yes using Android to Android TV.

It won't cast to the Firestick for me from an android phone.

Hopefully they can sort out the cast, otherwise it will be screen mirroring

The cast works fine on other apps

Delta2113 · 04-06-2021 8:29am

Huawei android to LG Smart Tv and as I say I get a white box on the phone saying select device but no device to select.

Elmo · 04-06-2021 10:34am

Would livescore be interested in selling some of the games to Premier Sport? or could they?

Dodge · 04-06-2021 11:34am

Elmo wrote: »

Would livescore be interested in selling some of the games to Premier Sport? or could they?

16 Wednesday games will be shown by somebody. My guess is Premier but we don’t know for sure. We know RTE have first choice on Tuesday.

The non-first choice games will be shown by Livescore and only Livescore

icdg · 04-06-2021 12:48pm

Dodge wrote: »

16 Wednesday games will be shown by somebody. My guess is Premier but we don’t know for sure. We know RTE have first choice on Tuesday.

The non-first choice games will be shown by Livescore and only Livescore

I really don’t think any pay TV company will be interested in those Wednesday games now, with both LiveScore and BT showing them. They’d be ideal for a FTA broadcaster. Not sure if there’s a possibility of VMTV re-entering the race now. It might have been that they made their bid contingent on winning both packages and won neither but if so who did win that package. Or have UEFA re-opened the tender process?

afatbollix · 04-06-2021 5:33pm

Dodge wrote: »

This simply isn’t true for football, and when you don’t have a native app and you have to cast from phone to TV, there’s a further delay

I have actually trialled this with livescore’s seria A coverage (compared with Premier on TV) and it was at least 30-60 seconds behind. That’s without casting

Not to go all geeky but this is the broadcasting forum...

That's just the way OTT works, It has more things to go through. In the past you just sent it to an aerial and it was in your house. Off-air in the analog days was instant!
Then digital came along and all the processing put about 7 seconds of a delay and now you have OTT with about 30 to 1 minute of a delay.

The reason for that is that the encoders need time to encode the video then send it to the CDN and multiply it across the CDN and then transport it to your device. Unlike Sky or IPTV it's not a constant stream it's sending chucks of video which could be anything from 2 seconds to 15 seconds depending on your bitrate available and it won't start until that whole chunk or two is downloaded.

Video providers are catching up tho and the glass-to-glass time is coming down. At the last world cup BBC UHD had a 3 minute delay :pac: They put out a PR saying well done us we saved 30 seconds of time by just making that chuck smaller. Basic stuff lads.

icdg · 04-06-2021 6:34pm

afatbollix wrote: »

Not to go all geeky but this is the broadcasting forum...

That's just the way OTT works, It has more things to go through. In the past you just sent it to an aerial and it was in your house. Off-air in the analog days was instant!
Then digital came along and all the processing put about 7 seconds of a delay and now you have OTT with about 30 to 1 minute of a delay.

The reason for that is that the encoders need time to encode the video then send it to the CDN and multiply it across the CDN and then transport it to your device. Unlike Sky or IPTV it's not a constant stream it's sending chucks of video which could be anything from 2 seconds to 15 seconds depending on your bitrate available and it won't start until that whole chunk or two is downloaded.

Video providers are catching up tho and the glass-to-glass time is coming down. At the last world cup BBC UHD had a 3 minute delay :pac: They put out a PR saying well done us we saved 30 seconds of time by just making that chuck smaller. Basic stuff lads.

Okay, I think we can wrap up this tangent now please.

UEFA Champions League 21-24: FTA on RTE&VMTV, LiveScore other matches

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