Question about IceNetwork.com

[sabinfire]

I won't have to run for the Ladies cause NBC insists on tape delaying them for the west coast cause it's prime time.

Really? So if you live on the West Coast, you won't have any live coverage available of the major portions of U.S. Nationals on NBC or IceNetwork? :no:

 

[Mrs. P]

Really? So if you live on the West Coast, you won't have any live coverage available of the major portions of U.S. Nationals on NBC or IceNetwork? :no:

Just the ladies. The other NBC stuff and Ice Network are live. It's because the ladies are in Saturday prime time that it's tape delayed.

 

[charmblade]

Also, maybe it won't be like this for this year, but I'm pretty sure that last year when the IN coverage ended and the NBC coverage of the ladies free started, the competition was still going on but NBC was showing intro fluff pieces/short program recaps/etc. I seem to remember people complaining that basically one group of the ladies weren't shown at all because NBC had the broadcast rights at that moment but weren't actually showing the competition. That could easily happen again this year since the coverage is switching over directly from IN to NBC.

(It is possible that I'm remembering this incorrectly since I was actually at Nats last year and not watching at home, but I really do seem to remember people complaining about this problem)

 

[Icey]

too complicated lol.

 

[sabinfire]

Also, maybe it won't be like this for this year, but I'm pretty sure that last year when the IN coverage ended and the NBC coverage of the ladies free started, the competition was still going on but NBC was showing intro fluff pieces/short program recaps/etc. I seem to remember people complaining that basically one group of the ladies weren't shown at all because NBC had the broadcast rights at that moment but weren't actually showing the competition. That could easily happen again this year since the coverage is switching over directly from IN to NBC.

Right, and this was my general sentiment expressed above in an exaggerated tone, since I won't really be running back and forth between my computer and TV. General point being, the coverage looks like it will be complicated and a bit of a mess to follow, since neither IceNetwork or NBC will be showing entire live coverage of Nationals. So, best case scenario, you're switching back and forth between IceNetwork and NBC, depending on who's showing what at any given time, and there's the possibility that coverage will overlap a bit, or some live coverage will be lost.

Just a real pain to deal with, when as I mentioned above, we got continuous complete coverage of Russian Nationals in America on ESPN, yet in comparison, neither NBC or IceNetwork will be offering complete coverage of U.S. Nationals. Very, very strange situation.

 

[Hyena]

I won't have to run for the Ladies cause NBC insists on tape delaying them for the west coast cause it's prime time.

Well at least I'll have time to go to Mass and eat dinner, lol.

Really? I'm a new west coast transplant and that's a bummer. I'll be so tempted to follow along with the forums here but I guess I'll have to resist...it does give me more time for a nap though.

I have to say, I was nervous when I bought the IN package this year but in the end I'm really glad I did. I tend to get a little buffering at the beginning of a competition but that usually fixes itself. For example, I missed Duhamel/Radford's GPF free skate but the entire rest of the competition was completely smooth. Fingers crossed that it continues working (mostly) well for Nationals! And it's been fun rewatching previous competitions in their entirety instead of just clips on YouTube.

 

[sabinfire]

This is funny (I mean...frustrating), because the Japan Sports TV is actually doing a live coverage for the full event of the Mens & Ladies competition. But just the singles event and no pairs or ice dancing.

Incredible. I wonder if I subscribe to my cable's service package with the Japanese channels, I might actually be able to see U.S. Nationals live in its entirety (Ladies & Men, at least).

 

[Mrs. P]

Really? I'm a new west coast transplant and that's a bummer. I'll be so tempted to follow along with the forums here but I guess I'll have to resist...it does give me more time for a nap though.

I have to say, I was nervous when I bought the IN package this year but in the end I'm really glad I did. I tend to get a little buffering at the beginning of a competition but that usually fixes itself. For example, I missed Duhamel/Radford's GPF free skate but the entire rest of the competition was completely smooth. Fingers crossed that it continues working (mostly) well for Nationals! And it's been fun rewatching previous competitions in their entirety instead of just clips on YouTube.

It's so frustrating. Even when it was in the same freakin' time zone (i.e. Spokane in 2010) it was STILL tape delayed (i.e. the ladies competition was held earlier for EST prime time.).

Oh well,

I really think Ice Network is a pretty good value even if it's not perfect (i.e. lack of HD).

 

[gkelly]

There has never been complete coverage of US Nationals on TV, and I think it's safe to assume there never will be, as broadcast TV becomes less and less the dominant source of visual media.

Nor has there historically been complete coverage of many other national or domestic competitions. There have been some with better coverage than others.

NBC still wants to be the primary source for major figure skating events for casual US skating fans, a few million people. And to protect their rights to that content by not having it available to the few thousand who would seek it out online in a way that conflicts with their broadcast.

For everything that they don't think is of interest to casual fans, they don't care.

Ice Network exists primarily to provide coverage to people with more than a casual interest in figure skating, including events (such as all content including juvenile qual rounds at regionals) that even serious fans would have little interest in.

For me it's worth subscribing, even just to be able to see kids from my rink compete at regionals, or the rare skater from my club who gets to Nationals, not necessarily at senior level.

In the last couple years, they have been providing more coverage of international events as well, which I take advantage of when convenient and which is probably of more interest to more fans.

I'm not very tech savvy, and I like to watch whole events in order but it's often not convenient for me to watch them live, so some sources of online streaming are not of much use to me -- especially if they also require payment.

A few years ago I had to upgrade my internet speed primarily to be able to get the upgraded IceNetwork to play for me.

I have not yet upgraded my television to something that will allow me to stream online content. I will probably do that this year but not in time for Nationals.

Finding specific archived videos on IceNetwork since last year's redesign can be annoying.
Having to watch part of the Nationals freeskates live on IceNetwork, part live on TV, and part on demand days later is annoying. But it's still preferable to watching only the televised parts that NBC chooses to show with no access to any of the other competitors, which would be the situation without IN.

Personally I prefer no commentary during performances, which is the case for most events I watch on IN. So I try to avoid NBC broadcasts geared toward casual fans, except when that's the only way to see a given competition at all, or to see it live.

Some of the IN commentators (Tanith Belbin especially) can be much more helpful and less annoying than any TV coverage and worth listening to.


If you're only interested in international events and seniors at Nationals, and if you have access to most of those events that you want to see through other means that are cheaper/free, higher quality, and/or more timely in the case of the on-demand-only content, then IN may not be worthwhile for your needs. If you're not in the US and most of the content you would want is geoblocked, then it wouldn't be worthwhile for you.

If you want to see US domestic content that is not available elsewhere, or if "elsewhere" would also involve paying smaller amounts for each separate competition that would add up to more than a full year subscription to IN, then it would be.

Depends on your situation.

 

[Mrs. P]

whole post

:agree:

For me, it's a chance to see some of the up-and-comers in the U.S. My first time seeing Jason Brown, in fact, was watching his sectional skates on Ice Network. I think the only other videos that were around were a grainy fan cam of his JGP skates earlier in the season (this was prior to when ISU started YouTube posting/streaming, circa 2010).

It was nice to see skaters like Alexander Johnson and Jordan Moeller, who skated earlier in the season, by watching their sectional skates.

 

[stryke]

I subscribed to IN this year and I am happy with it. I'd give it a 4/5 stars rating. It is very reliable for me. I never had to worry about getting dropped from the stream during a live feed like I read many people do who chose backwards ways to watching a live stream on some foreign site. Only once in all the competitions this year did the feed had to pause and buffer which only lasted a few seconds. There are no commercial breaks so you see content otherwise not seen on other live streams. The NBC blackout thing is nothing new. The same thing happened with Skate America. NBC paid for the sole rights to broadcast parts of the competition so there is nothing confusing about it to me and nothing IN can do about it.

My two gripes: The stream is indeed 720p. It's 2015 it should be 1080p. As others have stated already IN's search function and archiving past competitions could use a lot of work.

 

[ice coverage]

Ben Agosto and Charlie White are joining the IN team for Nats ... along with other usual suspects.

ANNOUNCERS
Icenetwork's announcing team in Greensboro will be headed up by Mike Mancuso, who will handle the play-by-play duties. Joining Mancuso in the booth will be Olympic champion Charlie White, Olympic silver medalist Ben Agosto, three-time U.S. champion Michael Weiss, two-time U.S. champion John Coughlin and 1996 U.S. silver medalist Tonia Kwiatkowski.

BACKSTAGE LIVE
In addition to broadcasting the competition, icenetwork will provide FREE behind-the-scenes video to all registered users beginning Thursday, Jan, 22. This coverage will include live segments from the icenetwork ICE Desk (see schedule below), interviews, technical analysis, special features, press conferences and more. Olympic silver medalist Tanith Belbin and Weiss will alternately serve as hosts of the ICE Desk. The rest of icenetwork's backstage team will consist of White, Agosto, Coughlin, 2011 U.S. champion Ryan Bradley and YouTube personality Michael Buckley.
Once the competition is over, icenetwork will provide still more backstage coverage, as Coughlin and Bradley will take viewers behind the scenes during the Smucker's Skating Spectacular (Sunday, Jan. 25, at 7:15 p.m. ET).

http://web.icenetwork.com/news/2015/01/15/105548434​

 

[Manitou]

As I go through the thread sometimes I think it's not worth it, but then I read another post and I think it is. I'm going to give it a shot.

 

[dorispulaski]

Incredible. I wonder if I subscribe to my cable's service package with the Japanese channels, I might actually be able to see U.S. Nationals live in its entirety (Ladies & Men, at least).

Yes, as long as you know which Japanese channel is which. Which I didn't. I subscribed to them once to get NHK live, which was great, but the network that carries Japanese nationals was not included in the package. I then dropped the extra package cost.

 

[RobinA]

Icenetwork

Just a quick question. Maybe I am missing it, but I can't find anywhere on Icenetwork where I can subscribe to just one event. I do not want a season pass because the season is mostly past and my experience with Icenetwork a bunch of years ago was that the video is of poor quality. However, due to the bare bones TV coverage I would like to try again and thought I'd sign up to watch Nationals to see if it's gotten any better over the years. I can't seem to figure out how to do this. If I can't I will just skip it...one more nail in the coffin of my figure skating fandom. If I can I may do Worlds and then go for the season next year.

Thanks

 

[sabinfire]

You'd need to buy a $50 season pass to access the figure skating streams. IceNetwork does not offer any event-specific packages within the world of figure skating.

 

[karne]

They used to offer a single-event pass, but when I contacted them last year or the year before about it - because at the time I didn't know about hola and Nationals was the only even I could watch on IN - they said they weren't doing them anymore.

So it's the whole season pass or nothing. I do recommend it. People complain about video quality but it's lightyears ahead of anything I've been forced to watch skating on the last few years. And it exists, which is more than can be said of any FS coverage here in Aus.

 

[sabinfire]

People complain about video quality but it's lightyears ahead of anything I've been forced to watch skating on the last few years.

The one thing that IceNetwork gets right (most of the time) is delivering reliable, good quality live-streams of the events they feature. You would be hard-pressed to find a better source for live internet coverage of figure skating.

I do wish that IceNetwork would upgrade the video quality of the archived on-demand videos, though. They are sub-par quality compared to what you can find elsewhere in the hours/days following an event's conclusion. I know they have access to the original 1080p source, just not sure why they don't use it for archived videos if not the live-streams themselves.

 

[Manitou]

So I subscribed, purchased the season pass and can watch videos on any PC with no problem. However, no browser on iPad allows me to watch videos. The play icon (triangle) is crossed out, meaning I am missing something. I tried both on Safari and Chrome for iPad iOS 8.1. I am properly logged in, but cannot play videos. Is there a specific browser I have to run?

 

[Tavi...]

So I subscribed, purchased the season pass and can watch videos on any PC with no problem. However, no browser on iPad allows me to watch videos. The play icon (triangle) is crossed out, meaning I am missing something. I tried both on Safari and Chrome for iPad iOS 8.1. I am properly logged in, but cannot play videos. Is there a specific browser I have to run?

Try the Photon browser. It works on the iPhone (it is a workaround for flash). The quality is degraded somewhat tho. I have also heard that the Puffin browser works but have no personal experience.