Is Eurosport Player worth getting?

superfly777

I've only got freeview in my parents house which would only give me coverage of the last couple of hours of each TdF stage and probably all of Tour of Britain. I was looking into Eurosport Player and at £35 for unlimited access for a year it sounds like a good deal. Especially considering it covers all of this pro cycling: http://tinyurl.com/4vojsnf

I was wondering whether anyone had any opinions whether it is worth it. My main query is what the quality of the picture is like and whether there is any buffering or lag problems. The test video is perfect on my computer but i'm not convinced that's a great test or not.

I do love watching loads of other sports but I could always just sign up for monthly membership for the 7 months from March-October when there's coverage of pro cycling which at £4 each would set me back less at £28. Assuming I would want access during the winter months. Anyone else done this?

Paris-Nice starts 6th March so I'd want to make a decision before then.

Cheers in advance for any input.

Doobz

deffo worth it

Benjamin Hall

Yeah, I subscribed last month and reckon it's well worth it.

It will prove its worth during the tour alone..I cannot stand the ITV coverage of any sport!

mike ives

I watched loads of events on Eurosport last year, including: Giro, TDF, Tour of Britain and quite a few others including some track events. I paid monthly but stopped at the end of the season as I had decided to pay yearly at the start of the new season.

Coverage was great with no buffering problems. Only real problem was Tyler Farrar and his repetitive advertisement of hisf.....g Transition lenses!

I really enjoyed the commentary as well. All in all it was a bargain and I would definitely recommend it if it gives the same coverage of events as last year.

sonny73

I used it in the past and it was great, a good feed and easy to use. I also liked the fact if you didn't need it one moth (e.g in the off season) you didn't pay for it.
Just keep track of when your subscription runs out if you do it monthly; I recall logging on to catch the end of a race and the subscription having run out, by the time I sorted it out the race was over

fleshtuxedo

I seem to be on my own here, but I had ES Player and it was crap - the feed kept cutting at choice moments of coverage, and it regularly screwed up and required me to go through a right palaver resetting my password. They give no meaningful support at all - you have to email them and then they take an age to get back to you, if they do at all.

Maybe i was unfortunate.

Karl2010

Is it like Iplayer where you can watch the program you want anytime of the day or is it REAL TIME FEAD only?

Doobz

Karl2010 wrote:

Is it like Iplayer where you can watch the program you want anytime of the day or is it REAL TIME FEAD only?

yea there is on demand as well. Last year you could go back and watch every stage of the tour when you wanted etc..

Not sure what its like now. I have seen people use the hi quality stream on their telly and it looked smart

cal_stewart

had it. the watch again was the tour only IIRC. plus if its live feeds you want then cycling fans is your friend

gsk82

is it worth it if you have eurosport on your tv? is there extra coverage?

seanoconn

Bloody hope its worth it, just bought a years subscription. Can't get it to work yet though, just get a blank screen with annoying blue balls spinning round.

Money well spent so far.

superfly777

Thanks for all the messages. I was pretty much set in buying it but just wanted to check on those few things. Have now signed up for a year and been watching the strongest man for the last hour. I didn't have any problem signing up or getting on for the first time. Very easy.

I'd say the quality is very good. Definitely worth it for the money. Stream is nice and fast and no lagging problems.
I really like the interface. Very easy to see the schedule for what's coming up without moving away from the feed.
Good variety of sports.

Cycling fans may well be good during the grande tours but I don't think most races will have a good stream and english commentary. Eurosport player definitely gets my vote at this early stage.

seanoconn

superfly777 wrote:

I didn't have any problem signing up or getting on for the first time. Very easy.

Ok, don't rub it in!

superfly777

seanoconn wrote:

Ok, don't rub it in!

Sorry :?
Hope you get it sorted soon. It'll be well worth it.

jimmythecuckoo

Any discount codes for it knocking around anywhere?

Kléber

Can you change the audio channel? I'd quite like to swap Carlton Kirby for foreign commentary even if it means I don't understand as much

jerry3571

If you're on the BT internet watch out for extra charges for streaming video.
Charges can go from 30 odd quid to 50 something quid. Cheeky monkeys.
Talk Talk, I think, were (not sure now) more generous with the Unlimited download amounts.

Cheers Jerry

tomilinski1

Call me stingy - but cyclingfans.com always seems to have a free link to some dodgy internet feed or other for realtime viewing - and you get to learn Flemish/French/German at the same time!

durhamwasp

Just signed up for it the other day, and no problems at all. Got the skiing on now.

bigpikle

anyone know if you can access the feed from overseas? I travel loads and it would be great to be able to watch stuff on my laptop but if its UK only then I'd be stuffed

tim000

http://mypremium.tv/

blazing_saddles

According to my Sky epg, Brit Eurosport has the Volta y Catalunya scheduled for 30 minutes highlights, each evening.
MyP2P is suggesting there may well be live coverage this year, too.

Fingers crossed.

curium

Beware if you're on a mac. Last I checked it didn't work very well with macs.

takethehighroad

Does anyone know if there's an app for it on HTC? I know there's one for iPhone and iPod, and if I'm paying for ES Player I might as well use it whenever I can

Richrd2205

TakeTheHighRoad wrote:

Does anyone know if there's an app for it on HTC? I know there's one for iPhone and iPod, and if I'm paying for ES Player I might as well use it whenever I can

I found an article from May last year saying that they were planning on keeping it as an iPhone exclusive for the immediate future, but nothing more recent. I've emailed customer services & will let you know of any response, but it might be worth others who are interested doing the same to see if it encourages them...

conceptual_primate

I am thinking of getting this for the Giro as I only have freeview.

Does anyone know if there is a 'watch again' feature as I need to take my laptop to my library for internet (long, shameful story, but no interent as I have just moved in with my gf and we're looking to move shortly). That way I could watch there, or buffer whilst there and watch later.

yenrod

I find you can get the races on links on steephill - eurosport player buffers ALOT for me & sometimes just goes off or freezes esp. when in HD channel...

Id look at cycling.tv ?????????????

Costly, but not sure on the generality of it.........

daniel_b

I thought I would resurrect this thread instead of starting a new one.

I too am after a method of watching some of the tours, and also the track championship in the winter months, and avidly do not want to subscribe to Sky.

My minor concern could be data usage, as currently mine is 10GB all month between 8AM and midnight - unlimited overnight though.

My question is, I can see people mention that you can watch things on demand through the interface - but could you 'download' a few shows overnight, to watch the next day, thus downloading whilst your on your unlimited time, or is it not that sophisticated, and or simply not possible?

And for those people who were happy with the service nearly a year ago, is that still the case?

yenrod

When cyclings on ES its the BEST - but - recently, there was the Algarve tour & the Haut Var on separate site...soo..the juries out..saying that; I subscribed monthly...

dougzz

I think a lot of Eurosport is available on Hotbird. Why not look at a small dish system, I'm not sure about subscriptions and such with this, but I bet someone here knows.

Doobz

Daniel B wrote:

My question is, I can see people mention that you can watch things on demand through the interface - but could you 'download' a few shows overnight, to watch the next day, thus downloading whilst your on your unlimited time, or is it not that sophisticated, and or simply not possible?

Your best option if you would like to download some races while your asleep is to use http://cyclingtorrents.nl/ they pretty much always have everything in various formats and qualities..

A lot of the channels on most Sats are encrypted so you would need some way round the encryption which is not usually free if you want a reliable service.