Following is a series of emails I received on July 10, 2009 from an American friend in Tarpon Springs, Florida, who was eager to watch the Hamilton Tiger-Cat vs. B.C. Lions game on July 10, 2009 in B.C. because I convinced him the CFL was well worth watching. He'd never previously experienced the CFL. Now he has. It's not a very good impression.
Please note, this was the second attempt by this person to watch a CFL game this year. When he and other American friends attempted to watch Toronto at Hamilton on July 1, 2009, all they could see was a reported technical problem, a 'redirect loop error'. When I reported this error on the web site, even though I provided my email address, I was simply ignored.
[i]July 10, 2009
9:21 pm
They want $179.95 for a season pass to watch games on the computer. Forget it!
9:29 pm
OK, I'm a sucker. I just bought the Tiger Cats game for tonight at 10:30. I was curious as to how everything works. It was $6.25. Now, if I can figure out how to watch it...
10:42 pm
Looks like I'm getting f***ed! The game isn't on... just a bunch of highlights that play over and over. I'm pissed! Plus the picture quality sucks!
10:48 pm
Now is looks like they're at the previous game, which is running long. It's working now but the quality is only a 650 kbps stream. I thought it was going to me in HD. Oh well, at least I can see it.
11:25 pm
What a load of crap. If I watch it in the lowest quality, the stream keeps going. If I try to watch it in higher quality it runs for a minute or so and then drops of to nothing. It's a scam.[/i]
It seems to me these were perfect opportunities to sell the CFL in the United States to rabid football fans awaiting the start of the NFL and the CFL utterly failed, making me look like an idiot in the process. Thanks from all of us!
I sincerely hope this didn't discourage your friend from someday checking out a CFL game. It was simply the inadequate stream that many have complained about coming from this site. Honestly, since you only have one chance at a first impression, I don't even know why CFL.ca bothers with streaming. They don't have it right yet and shouldn't offer it until they do. I would never pay money for a poor quality stream. They just need to get off their butts and work on a tv contract in the states. They know there are fans, and they know we should be watching on tv and not the computer!
That seems rather poor if that is in fact the case. It takes quite the connection to stream an HD feed, I'm assuming your friend was watching this on a half decent internet connection, otherwise the problem would likely be his connection, not the stream.
I agree you need quite an Internet connection to stream HD but he has speed we can only dream about because we live in Canada. No real competition means no real speed.
The last time I checked, he was getting 20 Mbps. I’m lucky if I ever get to the top of the “up to” 5 Mbps promised by Shaw. Usually, I get something less than 2.5 Mbps and sometimes less than 1 Mbps.
He streams movies live. I don’t think his Internet connection or his technical expertise were a factor.
Thanks for the kind replies, by the way. Much appreciated!
Canada has higher speeds than the US and I find it hard to believe he was getting 20 MBPS. The average speed in the US is about 2.5 while in Canada it is about 7
A survey performed by Speedmatters shows that Americans are not global leaders when it comes to Internet speed, as expected. The company determines the average Internet speed in different countries through tests that show how fast people can download files from its website.
Countries like Japan, South Korea, Finland, France or Canada turned out in the test better than the U.S. when it comes to this particular matter. While in the U.S., the average download speed that was recorded barely reached 2.3 mbps
From 2007
In the test conducted by the CWA, the United States averaged 1.9 megabits per second.
Currently, Japan, the number one country in the world, has an average broadband download time of 61 megabits per second. South Korea is second with 45.6 megabits per second. Sweden is third at 18, France, fourth at 17, and Canada fifth at 7 megabits per second.
Rhode Island's median download speed was 6.77 megabits per second, according to the report, higher than any other state, and nearly three times as fast as the national median.
I had also my disenchanting expierence regarding CFL Broadband. I bought an archived game (i live in Europe and have no interest in watching games between 1 - 5 AM) and despite my PC can stream in "Super Player" quality CFL Broadband delivered only 300 kb/s.
I do not know if CFL realizes that they are competitor in a world wide market. The season package costs the same price like the NFL "Gamepass" (regular season) and offers much more games. FoxAustralia offers australian sports in HD quality a year for 41 Euros (or 72 Euros three years). Charging the highest prices and offers the lowest quality does not make the CFL any favour.
I admit to not knowing much about such things. But I find it difficult to believe that at the CFL head office in Toronto, where discussions of rule changes, video review, and player fines are going on every day, that the top brass is sitting at their desks trying to decide how many Euros a person in Belgium will have to pay to watch archived games on broadband.
I understand your complaint, the package is clearly overpriced. But I'm just not sure it is the CFL who sets the price. There are plenty of middlemen between CFL head office and your living room, and I have to think that the price is set by one of them, no doubt as a factor of the cost of supplying the product, the demand for it, and the currency exchange rate.
CFL Broadband viewers are strongly advised to use the CFL Broadband online support help link before posting any technical problems in this forum. There is a “help it’s not working? button that viewers can use. If all else fails, please send an email to cfl-support@insinc.com.