WCKN - Input on Tonight's Game Wanted

[snyderkb]

Hey everyone,

First off, I know the quality sucked. The Office of Info and Tech (OIT) has been resistant to give us more bandwidth and/or a seperate ethernet line. Until that happens, the quality will suck. We are trying our best to fix it, but it'll be the same quality for tomorrow's games.

Besides that, I would like any input you guys have on how the video broadcast went tonight. Thanks everyone!

Kyle Snyder
WCKN - Executive Hockey Producer
snyderkbATclarksonDOTedu

[ScottA '06]

With the exception of the a/v quality, I thought the broadcast was fine. During the times I could hear you and your cohort, the play-by-play was well-timed and well-done. The one thing I did notice was that the a/v quality took a considerable downturn whenever you guys showed a graphic, such as the player information when a penalty was called. Good luck on getting it fixed, and thanks again for working on getting us the stream.

[snyderkb]

With the exception of the a/v quality, I thought the broadcast was fine. During the times I could hear you and your cohort, the play-by-play was well-timed and well-done. The one thing I did notice was that the a/v quality took a considerable downturn whenever you guys showed a graphic, such as the player information when a penalty was called. Good luck on getting it fixed, and thanks again for working on getting us the stream.

Hmmmm...that graphics thing is interesting. Thanks for telling me, that is something that we'll look at for tomorrow, but as for the general AV quality, unfortunately it won't be fixed until at least next weekend. Also, we know the bandwidth on our side is low, but we may also have a problem with the provider that streams. We won't know until we get our bandwidth problem fixed on our end. Also, it probably didn't help that Lake Superior has a link to the broadcast on their athletics site.

Anyway, thanks everyone for watching, and we hope you tune in for the women's game at 3 and the men's game at 7. Please leave any more comments you may have!

[vicb]

Bad picture quality aside, it was great to be able to watch the game. The camera people did a great job of keeping up with the puck and play. Keep up the good work. I'll keep on watching, choppy picture or not. Nothing against you all as announcers but I really enjoy listening to Bob and Josh call the game. So I cannot comment on your play by play. I was a bit difficult listening to the their play by play with the video about 15-20 seconds behind though :rolleyes: .

[ChuckNajimy]

Bad picture quality aside, it was great to be able to watch the game. The camera people did a great job of keeping up with the puck and play. Keep up the good work. I'll keep on watching, choppy picture or not. Nothing against you all as announcers but I really enjoy listening to Bob and Josh call the game. So I cannot comment on your play by play. I was a bit difficult listening to the their play by play with the video about 15-20 seconds behind though :rolleyes: .

vic,
Just push pause on the audio player for 15 sec and let it buffer then it's in sync.

again nothing against the ckn announcers I've been listening to Bob and Josh for years and might have withdrawl.

I enjoy watching the games alot, but it will have to be a smoother stream before I pay for it. Something for the powers that be to consider when allotting bandwidth.

Keep up the good work.


vic - you got comcast?

[Todd '86]

Kyle, Is there somebody at OIT that some of us can contact? Seems like a waste to have the streaming technology if bandwidth isn't there to support it.

Again, don't get me wrong -- a choppy picture is better than none at all. But if the idea is people away from Potsdam can now see the game, a significant percentage of whom will be alumni (those people the U constantly hits up for $$$), then maybe a few friendly messages from us can't hurt. Heck, I'll even offer to pull the Cat 6 cable myself! :D

[snyderkb]

Kyle, Is there somebody at OIT that some of us can contact? Seems like a waste to have the streaming technology if bandwidth isn't there to support it.

Again, don't get me wrong -- a choppy picture is better than none at all. But if the idea is people away from Potsdam can now see the game, a significant percentage of whom will be alumni (those people the U constantly hits up for $$$), then maybe a few friendly messages from us can't hurt. Heck, I'll even offer to pull the Cat 6 cable myself! :D

That's a great idea, but give me a little more time to work on them. If that doesn't work, I'll be sure to let you guys know who to contact to pressure them to get working.

[scottcomstock]

For us:

I'd suggest contacting Kevin Lynch, Director of Network Services (klynch AT clarkson.edu) and Gard Meserve, the CTO (gmeserve AT clarkson.edu). Their phone numbers are listed in the OIT staff directory @ http://www.clarkson.edu/oit/directory/. Don't forget Athletics and the Alumni Association as well -- my fax machine is ready.

snyderkb:

The Office of Info and Tech (OIT) has been resistant to give us more bandwidth and/or a seperate ethernet line. Until that happens, the quality will suck...[a]lso, we know the bandwidth on our side is low, but we may also have a problem with the provider that streams. We won't know until we get our bandwidth problem fixed on our end. Also, it probably didn't help that Lake Superior has a link to the broadcast on their athletics site.

Does OIT even know that Athletics plans to start charging for this, and that Athletics is not going to be able to offer the service (let alone charge for it) if these bandwidth problems continue?

Some other questions: is everyone connecting to that streaming box on your (Clarkson's) network, or is that streaming box used solely to send the video to an outside provider to whom we all connect? If it's the former, I can see why OIT would be hesitant; if it's the latter, I have a hard time believing it would take THAT much bandwidth. Then again, I don't have much experience in video streaming so I'm probably way off base here.

[snyderkb]

We send our stream to SurferNet, who then sends it out to all of you. However, even sending that one stream more than expends our bandwidth, hence what we believe to be the problem. There may still be a problem on SurferNet's end, but we won't even know that until we get things on our end set up well.

[CUKnight]

Yeah, its hard to have too many comments when the feed is basically unwatchable. The Athletics department needs to wait to start charging until things get straightened out. The only game I have seen that was decent was the first week. Its been downhill since (and no fault of WCKN).

Is it possible to be able to somehow download the game and watch it mid-week? Wouldnt help with bandwidth concerns, but at least then we could watch the game. If money is a concern, certainally there are alumni ready and willing to chip in, and once the appropriate bandwith is there, commercials can be aired.

I appreciate the effort Kyle. I know eventually we can get this worked out. Thanks for the hard work.

[MikeR]

Hey everyone,

First off, I know the quality sucked.

Besides that, I would like any input you guys have on how the video broadcast went tonight. Thanks everyone!

Kyle Snyder
WCKN - Executive Hockey Producer
snyderkbATclarksonDOTedu

The video choppiness makes it virtually useless. I keep it in the background on the occasional comment from GoldenKnight chat that the video is better. Unfortunately, I've already muted the sound (because of the stuttering feed). Did see a student in GK paint between periodswhich was interesting.:D :cool: Just wish I could hear the commentary.

Scott asked a very pertinent question:



Does OIT even know that Athletics plans to start charging for this, and that Athletics is not going to be able to offer the service (let alone charge for it) if these bandwidth problems continue?

Fairly embarrasing as an institution to have this link available for everyone (including other schools' fans), much less charge for it, and not have a decent quality feed.

[Ron]

Hey Kyle,

I would simply go to Tony Collins and Steve Yianokous and explain to them the technical issues so far. Based on Tony's general enthusiasm of the streaming, and the multiple mentions to Alumni in recent weeks about this through various official outlets, it's important enough for him to want to see it be successful. Typically what happens in these situations is the decision makers themselves don't hear about the needs and it gets lost in the mix.

-Ron

[snyderkb]

Update: Members from my staff met with OIT today and they agreed to install a new line into our station, which will used solely for uploading the stream to SurferNet. That should solve the streaming problem, and if there are any other kinks that need to be worked out, we will know much easier now that this will be fixed. Hopefully the line will be installed in time for this weekend's game.

Also, I'm very pleased to say that over the weekend we had over 600 unique visitors to the stream, and at one point Friday night over 100 people were watching simultaneously. I've been assured that SurferNet can handle as many people that come to watch, and since we upload the stream just to SurferNet, more people shouldn't affect things on our side of the operation. I'll let everyone know when the new line is installed, and we will try and do a dry run to see if everything else works once the line is in. As always, thanks everyone for your patience!

[SpongeRob]

Did I mention that you're my hero?

[snyderkb]

Okay guys,

The work order has been put in, but like everything at Clarkson, it might take some time. You can help though, by e-mailing OIT telling them how important it is that this gets done this week. Please be nice though, I just want to get this going as much as you guys want me to. The contact information is posted in scottcomstock's post at 10:43 AM on 10-21-2006. Hopefully we'll be up for this weekend!

Kyle

[snyderkb]

Not sure if anybody e-mailed OIT, but if they did, it worked! The line is scheduled to be installed tomorrow. I'll update here when it's done.

[snyderkb]

Okay, the line has been installed. We tested out the system tonight, quality is much better, only delaying intermittently now. That problem will be fixed when we convince OIT that the computer they gave us for streaming is not powerful enough to do the job. Still, the new dedicated line improved both audio and video greatly. I hope you tune in tomorrow to the webcast, and hope you enjoy the improvements!

[Todd '86]

Can't speak for anybody else, but my connection was maybe only marginally better. Could be at my end - I have a somewhat older PC connected over DSL - but I didn't see much improvement.

(Still better than nothing, tho.)

[ScottA '06]

I saw no improvement whatsoever. Gotta get Gard and Kevin back on the batphone.

[scottcomstock]

I'm forced to agree with Knightsfan1228. I'm on a 6mbps Roadrunner line and saw marginal improvement. These technical issues simply must be resolved before Athletics begins charging for this service.

Kyle: you mentioned this in an earlier message:


Okay, the line has been installed. We tested out the system tonight, quality is much better, only delaying intermittently now. That problem will be fixed when we convince OIT that the computer they gave us for streaming is not powerful enough to do the job. Still, the new dedicated line improved both audio and video greatly. I hope you tune in tomorrow to the webcast, and hope you enjoy the improvements!
(emphasis mine)

I'd say now you have all the evidence you need to go back to OIT and request a more powerful computer.

[joecct]

Kyle

Vid looked better, the audio was a big 0.

Have you ever thought of setting up a high end zone camera? The looks you'd get on man up/down situations would be great!

[vicb]

My video was only marginally better also. Still choppy a lot of the time. I will agree with Todd, better than nothing.

[snyderkb]

Hey guys,

Sorry again about the quality (I probably sound like a broken record). The test we ran Friday night showed up much better quality than previously; it was mostly clear (video and audio) with about 10% of the time messing up. On Friday, we were happy with the results of the test, but it seems we weren't even that lucky come gametime.

In the coming weeks, we will be talking with OIT about getting a new computer, as the line issue has been solved by the computer we were supplied cannot handle the speeds at which the line delivers...the result a constantly decent speed to the computer, but now the limiting factor is that computer. Most likely, we will end up purchasing a new computer ourselves because we really want this to be awesome come ECAC time. I am confident that the computer issue will be solved before the ECAC weekend in two weeks.

I also want to reiterate that there are NO concrete plans to start charging for this service. Trust me, everyone at Clarkson is just as aware as I am that they can't charge until the service works great and we have a good base of viewers. One interesting thing is that originally we hadn't planned on starting the web stream until ECAC action started in two weeks, and now it seems that will truly be our kickoff date.

I hope that you guys at least got to enjoy some of the broadcast, and I have to brag that this was my favorite broadcast ever, as I had the opportunity to interview Dave Taylor. Once again, thank you everyone for your patience.