calscot 0 Posted September 3, 2015 Share Posted September 3, 2015 I've reinstated my subscription Rangers TV this season and I've got to say I'm incredibly disappointed with the service - which isn't exactly cheap compared to similarly priced services such as Sky Sports Player, Europsport Player and even Netflix at £1 more per month. The first problem is that they use Flash, which is no longer supported and is poor for portable devices and doesn't work at all on iPhones and iPads. This is old technology now and is not of good enough quality for a premium service. It's buffering doesn't work well and its frame rate drops most of the time and then eventually it stutters along, instead of buffering for a while and then giving some uninterrupted playback. When it get's worse it crashes and you have to start at the beginning again and then try to fast forward to where you were. This really exacerbates one the single biggest gripes about it - we are forced to watch an advert before a video. Now this is highly insulting and irritating in a premium service which I'll get to but it adds insult to injury when you start again and you can't fast forward until you've watched the whole advert again! The advert, which is usually American based and irrelevant to me, is not only a complete waste of my time, it's a waste of my download allowance. I feel like I'm paying three times - once for the monthly fee, once for the advert and again for my extra download. This would be fine in a freemium business model where you get the adverts unless you pay, but it's unforgivable to me for a fee paying service. I don't get adverts on Netflix. Next, and related to the first is that although I seem to watch Netflix without interruption with my mobile broadband, how come I have trouble with the quality from RangersTV. It's as if my data service is fast enough but the servers are not. I also want to switch to full screen which isn't easy normally, but touching the video to bring up the controls when the advert is on means it opens a new page for the advertiser. Not only is this annoying it's more so in that the advertiser will think it's getting through clicks when it's all by accident. There is also an "on-video" advert which obscures the display that you have to be able to touch the small x to close it and not the rest of it for the same reason. I found the free streaming sites unusable for pretty much the same reasons and although this isn't quite as bad, it seems like dodgy-stream-lite, for a premium. At least Rangers are getting the money, but I'm really not happy with the service and would rather pay a bit more for an improved one with no adverts. They could really do with a modern app for Android and IOS, using either H.264 or even H.265 video coding - and NO adverts. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
colinstein 294 Posted September 3, 2015 Share Posted September 3, 2015 I just watch the streams that are free. Sometimes not great and sometimes OK but you see the match I used to liberate books from shops and the library. I was poor then 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darthter 542 Posted September 3, 2015 Share Posted September 3, 2015 I assumed you have informed RTV of your thoughts..... 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
compo 6,589 Posted September 3, 2015 Share Posted September 3, 2015 never watched it 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
craig 5,199 Posted September 3, 2015 Share Posted September 3, 2015 I've reinstated my subscription Rangers TV this season and I've got to say I'm incredibly disappointed with the service - which isn't exactly cheap compared to similarly priced services such as Sky Sports Player, Europsport Player and even Netflix at £1 more per month. The first problem is that they use Flash, which is no longer supported and is poor for portable devices and doesn't work at all on iPhones and iPads. This is old technology now and is not of good enough quality for a premium service. It's buffering doesn't work well and its frame rate drops most of the time and then eventually it stutters along, instead of buffering for a while and then giving some uninterrupted playback. When it get's worse it crashes and you have to start at the beginning again and then try to fast forward to where you were. This really exacerbates one the single biggest gripes about it - we are forced to watch an advert before a video. Now this is highly insulting and irritating in a premium service which I'll get to but it adds insult to injury when you start again and you can't fast forward until you've watched the whole advert again! The advert, which is usually American based and irrelevant to me, is not only a complete waste of my time, it's a waste of my download allowance. I feel like I'm paying three times - once for the monthly fee, once for the advert and again for my extra download. This would be fine in a freemium business model where you get the adverts unless you pay, but it's unforgivable to me for a fee paying service. I don't get adverts on Netflix. Next, and related to the first is that although I seem to watch Netflix without interruption with my mobile broadband, how come I have trouble with the quality from RangersTV. It's as if my data service is fast enough but the servers are not. I also want to switch to full screen which isn't easy normally, but touching the video to bring up the controls when the advert is on means it opens a new page for the advertiser. Not only is this annoying it's more so in that the advertiser will think it's getting through clicks when it's all by accident. There is also an "on-video" advert which obscures the display that you have to be able to touch the small x to close it and not the rest of it for the same reason. I found the free streaming sites unusable for pretty much the same reasons and although this isn't quite as bad, it seems like dodgy-stream-lite, for a premium. At least Rangers are getting the money, but I'm really not happy with the service and would rather pay a bit more for an improved one with no adverts. They could really do with a modern app for Android and IOS, using either H.264 or even H.265 video coding - and NO adverts. Purchase the Puffin Browser for iOS for 3 quid - works perfectly fine - I airdropped the game last weekend onto my Apple TV from my iPad - worked nicely. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bearman 9 Posted September 3, 2015 Share Posted September 3, 2015 I remember the days before all this technology...if I couldn't make the game I sometimes relied on BBC Scotland's radio exclusive of last 30 mins commentary on Saturday afternoons (this was later extended to full 2nd half) coverage, in those days all games kicked off at the same time so you could only hope it was the Rangers game that was to be broadcast. It was either us or them, me and my pal walked it and back to Ibrox (with 'lift over' to the game) rather than risk the sellik game being on and missing out completely. As for phones, this was in the house (if you were lucky enough have one) and you had to ask your Da if it was okay to use it, and he always said 'No'. RTV is a lot better than what us auld yins had to put up with back in the days of scabbies and nits. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
pete 2,499 Posted September 3, 2015 Share Posted September 3, 2015 The older members will be sick of me telling this story but I used to have to go and sit in the car as that was the only Radio I could get any reception of BBC Scotland on. Even then it came and went. Strange how it was almost at exciting times it always seemed to get bad leaving me not knowing what happened. I have to admit though if you pay a reasonable sum of money then you expect a good product. My complaint against it is the crap patter of DJ. Absolutely diabolical. Even worse than mine. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
calscot 0 Posted September 3, 2015 Author Share Posted September 3, 2015 Purchase the Puffin Browser for iOS for 3 quid - works perfectly fine - I airdropped the game last weekend onto my Apple TV from my iPad - worked nicely. Don't actually have any apple stuff but didn't realise that you could do Flash. Funnily enough I use Puffin on Android for Flash - and it's free. It's not great though,especially compared to other, more seamless services. You probably also get a better quality service with your non uk live stream, but then you pay more. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gribz 745 Posted September 3, 2015 Share Posted September 3, 2015 The marketing side should be pushing it more and making it more attractive especially for overseas fans. I tend to mess about finding a link which can be a problem rather than signing up for the season. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
craig 5,199 Posted September 4, 2015 Share Posted September 4, 2015 The marketing side should be pushing it more and making it more attractive especially for overseas fans. I tend to mess about finding a link which can be a problem rather than signing up for the season. Sign up for the season bud. Well worth it 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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