CYCLING.TV Subscribers?

SQU@RETIP

Hi
Possibly looking at subscribing to the Premium package on cycling tv.Does anyone here subscribe to any of the packages,what are your thoughts,any issues with the service,what resolution are the the races broadcast at,stability with the mac platform.

thanks

feersumendjinn

I have the Premium package, its ok be aware that some of the races are for North America only you can work round this but its a pain as you have to do it each time
Quality varies depending on you broadband & falls if the servers are getting hammered
Allegedly works best with IE, but its fine with Firefox i never had a problem so would assume it will work ok with Mac OS & browser
And the archive stuff is good to watch when you need a cycling fix on a rainy afternoon

SQU@RETIP

thanks very much can I ask you what res the broadcasts are ie 640x480 or lower.

afx237vi

I have the Premium package too.

Positives
- Good quality picture even on my 2 meg wireless connection
- Excellent English language commentary
- Good coverage of many races that never get shown on Eurosport
- Not really that expensive for a whole year

Negatives
- Awful website. They change it frequently but it never gets better. Finding the link to watch the race you want is a challenge in itself
- Customer support is not good, to say the least
- The multitude of different packages and geo-restrictions make it hard to figure out what races are available to your package/location.

I've been a subscriber of cycling.tv virtually since they started. I appreciate what they're trying to do and also appreciate the difficulty of trying to provide live coverage of races streamed over the internet.

HOWEVER, they do seem to make the same mistakes over and over again with regards to their website and the problems it has. For example, I tried to log in yesterday to watch San Sebastian, only my login didn't work. I got taken to some other website - nmnathletics.com, whatever the hell that is, they've been taken over again? - and had to reset my password. When I did finally log in, I found they weren't even showing San Sebastian, despite it being listed on their race calendar.

Once you do find a stream and get it working, it's great. But usually it's just minor annoyance after minor annoyance.

You also have to take cyclingfans.com into account. Almost all of the races you see on Eurosport or cycling.tv have a live feed posted for free on cyclingfans. Sure, they're in foreign languages, but so what? Is it worth paying for the hassle of cycling.tv when you can just as easily watch stuff for free elsewhere? I'm beginning to ask myself that question...

SQU@RETIP

My concerns are compatibility with my web browsers safari and firefox,they recommend IE.Thanks for the great feedback,heading over to cyclingfans.

Kléber

Yes, cyclingfans is going to put a lot of people away from cycling.tv.

But some broadcasters are trying to stop the video streaming. There is no doubt that when it works, cycling.tv works well. You can watch several Belgian classics in April with a full screen and good coverage. No "buffering", no Danish commentary and for me, just to watch a few races makes it value for money.

But like others say, the website is infuriating. Finding the link to the live race is like a treasure hunt. In a maze. In the dark. You go round and round in circles. I've emailed them several times about this and they just won't improve it.

calvjones

SQU@RETIP wrote:

My concerns are compatibility with my web browsers safari and firefox,they recommend IE.Thanks for the great feedback,heading over to cyclingfans.

I use it (premium) on a Mac and its ropey - yo umay need to download Winmac or similar, and even then it's hit and miss. I usually end up trying for half an hour and giving up. The problem is, I'm never sure if its a Mac problem or one of the million other generic problems!

Having said that, fewer and fewer races are available free to air so it may continue to be worth the hassle (just).