Rangers TV - still way behind the times

[Frankie 8,308]

I take it, calscot, that you put all this into an e-mail and sent it to Rangers / RTV too?

 

Yes, his original post says that.

[der Berliner 3,472]

... the eyes, the eyes

[Blinkyman 0]

................................ - didn't matter to me what the platform was, only that I could view the game.

 

As an overseas user I can only concur.

 

RTV is 'abused' on most Rangers forums and it gets right up my nose. Of course, you have to consider the source ...................

 

It's a bit like Canadians who have to 'put up with' those ungracious Torontonians who consider Toronto to be the 'center of the universe', no less. Toronto isn't even the capital & considering that Canada is 9,306 km (5,780 miles) from Vancouver Island to the east coast Newfoundland, they are taking a liberty.

 

I can't speak for the RTV subscribers nor the 10's of thousand of Bears scattered across the globe but it is interesting to note that most of the complaints seem to originate within a 'stones throw' (in global terms) of Ibrox. I am sure I can say that countless Bears wish they could buy a season ticket or simply make a once in a lifetime pilgrimage, to 'feel' the atmosphere and drink in the noise that brings a lump to the throat just thinking about it.

My monthly 'season ticket' to RTV is 17.25 gbps and worth every cent to me. I've found in several countries that if you have good bandwidth then buffering is

non-existent. I regularly stream from laptop via HDMI to a 50" TV, and in all honesty, can't complain about the picture quality. Not everyone around the globe has access to the Ultra HD, HD, etc., available on BT/SKY. Streaming difficulties as experienced from Charleston by UK RTV viewers happen on occasion due to bad weather but are not indicative ........... last problem I remember was from Cowdenbeath a few years back.

 

It has been stated the RTV is a work in progress to Rangers FC and an upgrade is 'in the plans'. Considering the amount of whimpering that goes on over 'another CH/CB & another striker' is it any wonder that RTV is a little bit further down the list of needs & wants .........................

 

PS : as for [a bit technical] .........................where there is a will there is a way and I'm very grateful for the privilege of being able to watch RTV.

[calscot 0]

Puffin isn't a faff at all. That is a fallacy.

 

Download puffin

type in RTV website

Watch game

 

 

 

How is that a faff ?

 

 

The faff is that I click on a link and it doesn't work, so I have to select part of the address on a touch screen, press and wait a bit to click select all, wait a bit and then click copy, go to apps or home screen, find Puffin and open it, wait, then press on the address field, wait, click paste and then click go. Wait. Watch.

 

I didn't say it was incredibly hard, just a faff and touch screens are very faffy for copy and paste.

 

I'd rather just click on the link in any browser which would happen with HTML5 - and we'd lose all the disadvantages of Flash into the bargain.

[calscot 0]

I take it, calscot, that you put all this into an e-mail and sent it to Rangers / RTV too?

 

I've emailed them twice giving similar feedback. They just said they'd take the feedback on board.

[JFK-1 1,691]

I often had buffering problems with it till I tried experimenting with a variety of different browsers and discovered that for me at least the microsoft edge browser works pefectly.

[calscot 0]

As an overseas user I can only concur.

 

RTV is 'abused' on most Rangers forums and it gets right up my nose. Of course, you have to consider the source ...................

 

It's a bit like Canadians who have to 'put up with' those ungracious Torontonians who consider Toronto to be the 'center of the universe', no less. Toronto isn't even the capital & considering that Canada is 9,306 km (5,780 miles) from Vancouver Island to the east coast Newfoundland, they are taking a liberty.

 

I can't speak for the RTV subscribers nor the 10's of thousand of Bears scattered across the globe but it is interesting to note that most of the complaints seem to originate within a 'stones throw' (in global terms) of Ibrox. I am sure I can say that countless Bears wish they could buy a season ticket or simply make a once in a lifetime pilgrimage, to 'feel' the atmosphere and drink in the noise that brings a lump to the throat just thinking about it.

My monthly 'season ticket' to RTV is 17.25 gbps and worth every cent to me. I've found in several countries that if you have good bandwidth then buffering is

non-existent. I regularly stream from laptop via HDMI to a 50" TV, and in all honesty, can't complain about the picture quality. Not everyone around the globe has access to the Ultra HD, HD, etc., available on BT/SKY. Streaming difficulties as experienced from Charleston by UK RTV viewers happen on occasion due to bad weather but are not indicative ........... last problem I remember was from Cowdenbeath a few years back.

 

It has been stated the RTV is a work in progress to Rangers FC and an upgrade is 'in the plans'. Considering the amount of whimpering that goes on over 'another CH/CB & another striker' is it any wonder that RTV is a little bit further down the list of needs & wants .........................

 

PS : as for [a bit technical] .........................where there is a will there is a way and I'm very grateful for the privilege of being able to watch RTV.

 

I'm really not sure what you're getting at other than people in the UK shouldn't be allowed to make valid complaints. You don't seem to be showing much empathy or understanding of said complaints. A guy in a desert might be very grateful just to get any water but in the UK we're going to complain if it's not very clean from tap or tastes horrible. It's a fallacy to dismiss the latter due to the former.

 

I live 450 miles from Ibrox and as I'm in the UK, I can't even subscribe to the service you have. You might just be grateful for any way of watching RTV but that doesn't excuse them from using outdated technology which makes it difficult to use on modern platforms. It wouldn't cost much to change from Flash to HTML5 and it would seem unprofessional to not do this so long after the technology they are using is defunct.

 

The only hiccup I can think of is that using H.264 might require royalties but there are open-source ways around that.

 

Watching live is much different from trying to watch it at midnight when the level of service means you finish about 2:30 in the morning. Spending two and a half hours Watching the whole game the next day doesn't appeal to many when you already know the score.

 

You also might be happy with the quality but then some people still have a CRT TV while others upgrade to 4K (mine is normal HD). It depends how discerning you are. I'm happy enough to watch on my 4.7" phone screen, but then it needs to be clear without too much compression effects and not stuttering.

 

But in the end my complaints are not about what you are experiencing - which is a different package, so I really don't get your criticism.

 

It might be a work in progress but it's pretty slow going - and I'm not sure it needs any money diverted from players to improve. I think making it attractive will allow it to pay for itself and some of the stuff would cost nothing - like say charging an extra pound a month or something to remove adverts as there is no way their going to make much from them - especially seeing as how irrelevant some are. These kind of things are a deal breaker on premium services - especially when they also often break the service.

 

And just how much does it cost to give the correct information as to when a match is available? Is that really going to cost us a centre half?

 

There is nothing spoiled about wanting a paid service to do what it should be doing.

[Bluedell 5,422]

Constructive criticism should always be welcome and that's what the OP was. It may not be top priority but why not look to improve if it can be done at little cost.

[limeburner 0]

Calscot,i no nothing of these things-------see these upgrades you speak of,what kinda ball park figure might they cost? Just curious.

[calscot 0]

Changing from Flash to HTML5 shouldn't take much but depends on what proprietary software they are using. Usually when you edit video for web you can export it in any container and codec you have installed, so it should take no more money to save these as MP4, H.264. Like I said the latter may incur royalty fees to A&T as it's proprietary, but there are open-source alternatives for free.

 

They have probably invested in Adobe Creative Studio - which costs money, but there is plenty of free software that can do the job. I'm not sure in what format they receive the videos. But they can still use Adobe or license something better for the same price.

 

They would have to change the PHP code to create doctype HTML5 instead of XTML 1.0 and then change the Flash object and embed tags to the equivalent video tag. This code should be pretty generic and some kind of regex search and replace across all files would do it. They might have to play around with the video tag, css and javascript to get the look they want across browsers.

 

I can't imagine this would take a developer more than a week - so if in-house, £1000? I'm not a business person, I'm a developer myself so not experienced with costings.

 

Removing the adverts should be pretty minimal work, but there would be a loss of revenue. However, I don't know how they can justify it on a premium service - it lowers the tone and quality to very low levels. It's not even so bad in adverts on a page that you can ignore, but these take time and bandwidth - and they are triggered every time, so if you have a problem, do a refresh and you'll get them again. They are also too easy to click on by mistake which wastes more time - when you might just be trying to go full screen. All in all they are pretty annoying and insulting to the subscriber - really brings the club down to a tacky level.

 

There should at least be an upgrade to a more premium service which omits the adverts which would balance out the loss of the (minimal) revenue. However, that would also take implementation time.

 

Making it reliable would already be mostly achieved by removing Flash and adverts - but I'm not sure why it used to mess up before (maybe it doesn't now).

 

Making basic extended highlights I think could be done in about 4 hours, so what's that £400 a go? But then that would make a much better archive for past games. Not many have time to watch full games, and brief highlights really don't show you how the game was played.

 

Getting the navigation right might mean a bit of revamping the site but it shouldn't be hard and is massively crucial to having a professional website that is a pleasure to visit. I really don't know how they have messed this up so badly. Usually all I wanted was to find videos from the latest game - and the obvious links just wouldn't take me there and neither would a search.

 

Removing adverts would be a start in making it easier to go to full screen - but also having a large button to do so would cost almost nothing in addition to the work moving to HTML5 and be a big help.

 

I think a download option would mean bringing technology to do this which could cost something, but it would really help people with limited download (as they can use free wifi when out and about and then view at home, which is something I do with Amazon Prime) or slow connections (which sometimes happens to me at peak times).

 

I don't know how much it would cost but would probably be a one-off payment that would pay for itself over time by increasing the potential subscriber base. An app could help with all this but would be expensive to develop - what we need is to club together with the rest of the clubs to produce something we can all use. That is, commission an app for the SPFL where you pay for your team.

 

I agree the last would be the most difficult and expensive, but the rest I think is peanuts.