A few updates.
Over the past couple of weeks, there have been a few tweaks made to the Eurosport Player. Some of which I like, and some which I don’t.
Firstly, it used to be that when you brought your cursor over the Eurosport Player screen, the screen would darken and three buttons for “-30 seconds”, “play / pause”, and “+30 seconds” would appear in the middle of the screen.
As of a couple of weeks ago, these buttons are now located at the bottom of the screen, to the left of the volume control. (Yes, there always a “play / pause” button there as well. But, now the other 2 buttons are there too).
Whilst it makes things a lot tidier, and means that less of the picture is obscured when your cursor strays onto the Player screen, it is really fiddily to get the cursor positioned on these smaller buttons if you and your mouse are on the other side of the room to the screen you are watching on!
Personally, I would like it to be like it is on YouTube, where you can click anywhere on the video screen to play or pause. But, it is a start.
The second development happened at the same time. Basically, if you are watching an On Demand video in full-screen mode, the information on the page below it is now displayed permanently in the top left-hand corner of the video screen. So, the title, details, and time it was originally scheduled to be broadcast.
For example, if we take the oldest figure skating video currently on the Player:
FIGURE SKATING: European Championship , Russia
Men's Short Program
08:45 - 14:30
This is not a problem if you are watching on a 4:3 screen, as the writing will appear in the black bar above the letterbox.
HOWEVER, if you are watching on a 16:9 screen, the writing is over the picture. Which is very distracting. BUT, it is even more distracting if you are watching figure skating, because it partially overlaps with the new Tech Box.
Now, I was never a fan of the Tech Box since it was introduced, because I found it very distracting having the current score changing in the corner. But, this new Tech Box is even worse, as there are more things changing.
Anyway, these new video details are partially covering the top line of the new Tech Box, where it tells you what element is being scored. And not only does it look a mess, but the overlap actually makes it more noticeable when things are changing.
Now, the third change I think was an experiment, because it hasn’t happened since.
On Friday, whenever you opened an On Demand video, a 30 second advert would be played before it started playing the actual video. Just like you sometimes get on YouTube. But, you couldn’t skip the ad.
So, I have a feeling that this could be something that could be introduced on a permanent basis in the future.
To be honest, I’m not that bothered about this. Because, having inserted tailored adverts at the start could actually mean that Eurosport are able to put up nicely trimmed videos from the Eurosport International coverage, which tend to have nice wee features in the places where the national versions show localised adverts.
Which would make it a lot easier and cheaper for Eurosport, as the video would only need to be uploaded once. And it would have the same address no matter which country’s Player you were watching.
Just so long as it doesn’t get like Daily Motion, where they insert ads in the most inconvenient of places. Like, when somebody is mid-sentence, or even mid-word!
During the coverage of the London Masters snooker a couple of weeks ago, there was a “coming up” slate for the Olympics. And, I don't know if I am reading too much into things, but the slate only mentioned Eurosport 1 and the Eurosport Player.
So, I am getting the impression that they are going to do the same for the Olympics as they are currently doing for the Australian Open:
Eurosport 1 – LIVE Olympic coverage during the night and then highlights of the Olympics for the rest of the day.
Eurosport 2 – LIVE Olympic coverage during the night and then coverage of all the other sports that may be happening during the day.
Eurosport Player – the bulk of the LIVE Olympic coverage.
The reason I say this is that there are also other non-Olympic events happening during those couple of weeks which Eurosport has the rights to. Such as the first round of the World Superbikes on 24[SUP]th[/SUP] / 25[SUP]th[/SUP] February, and a couple of snooker tournaments (although, Eurosport only have the continental rights for those tournaments. ITV4 have the UK rights).
I got a month subscribtion for Eurosport Player today, did a search for figure skating and it came up with a bunch of Olympics scheduling. I've got questions though:
OK, I'll try and answer them.
Do the times on the Eurosport Player mean the times of TV broadcast, Player stream or both?
Both. Generally speaking, you will find that the World Feed streams are longer than TV broadcast on the ESP1 / ESP2 streams, because the TV channels very rarely stay for podium ceremonies because of having to move onto other events. And I will expect that to be even more the case during the Olympics.
Does the Player stream things that are not included in the TV broadcast?
A lot more! Because, with only having 2 TV channels, they are going to find it very tough to fit every sport in.
We already know that if they are showing LIVE figure skating on the TV, the best we normally get from Eurosport is the final 2 groups (sometimes more if there are no other things clashing with it, but very rarely the whole competition). But, on the Player, they show the World Feed for every competition in it's entirity, but without commentary.
In Alpine Skiing, Eurosport tends to only show the first 30 skiiers to go down the hill. But, on the World Feed on the Player, you get to see as many as 40 more skiiers! And then the Podium Ceremony at the end.
Basically, if what currently shows up is all that's going to be streamed, then some of the event's won't be shown at all, some will be severly cut (for example, to only 2 last groups) or they're not going to be shown live.
Are you looking at the TV schedule page on the Eurosport website (
Eurosport International /
British Eurosport)? Because the
TV schedule page on the Eurosport Player is currently only going up to Sunday 4th.
This is where I have to put out a warning.
- The TV schedule page on the Eurosport website (Eurosport International / British Eurosport) shows the listings for yesterday, today, and the next 14 days. BUT, it does not include the listings for the additional streams, which it looks like most of the Olympic coverage will be.
- The TV schedule page on the Eurosport Player does include the listings for the additional streams. BUT, the listings on it are for the past 7 days, today, and the next 7 days. So, not as far into the future.
I know - they should have it so that both websites show the listings for everything. But, this is Eurosport we are talking about, where logic seems to go out the window.
Hope this helps
CaroLiza_fan
