OT: CBS streaming does it right

Submitted by buddhafrog on

While the gov't is kneeling to the pressure of TV and cable and attempting to crack down even harder on streaming sport games, CBS has chosen to go the opposite direction.

http://www.ncaa.com/mmod/player/console.html

They stream every second of every game.  If you missed the Morehead State upset of Louisville (like I did), you can go back and watch every second of it.... or like I did, skip ahead to any part of the game you'd like (last two minutes for me - underdogs!).  Tired of watching Wisconsin score less the UM football team?  Skip over to BYU loosing to mighty Wofford/

The streams are fast and near-HD.  Everything damn game is available for the entire tournament.  For free.  The catch of course is that they show the commercials just the same as the TV broadcast.... so their revenue source is still getting their investment.  The key is that when the stream goes to a commercial, you can't click out - you have to stay on that stream until the game resumes.  Not a bad price to pay.

Why can't other sports/stations do this?  It must take an incredible amount of bandwidth to do what CBS is doing, but I bet they're raking in the viewers.

I live in South Korea and watch all my games online (I'm the one in my apartment building screaming at 4am Sunday morning to not kick the field goal).  But even if I lived back in AA, I'd have the TV on as well as CBS' streams.

The future of online streams will either be more restrictions or more freedom.  Looking as how well CBS does this, I can't imagine why others wouldn't follow suit. 

wolverhorn

March 17th, 2011 at 8:17 PM ^

I've been pleasantly suprised with the streaming.  Even though it doesn't seem like it's quite at HD quality, it's really smooth and I'd take that over choppy HD any day.  Anyone tried the iPad or iPhone app?  From what I've heard that's pretty solid too.

Mitch Cumstein

March 17th, 2011 at 8:23 PM ^

Networks can't really do this with Pro sports, b/c the leagues won't allow it (they have their own streaming for pay sites). My question is, are there any hurdles for networks doing this for college sports? Cant he b10 network do this without any red tape?

buddhafrog

March 17th, 2011 at 8:34 PM ^

I agree about Pro sports.  I assume they make good money on their pay sites since I see commercials for them all the time.  One option would be for the networks to pay for the right to broadcast the games online in place of the pay sports.  Imagine how much traffic they would get on Sundays.  How much more woudl they generate with advertising?  I have no idea of course.  But just want to say that it is impossible now b/c of the contracts, but in the future, everything is possible [Disney tune playing in the background]

OMG Shirtless

March 17th, 2011 at 8:46 PM ^

If you watch a game in full screen mode, there is a button at the top right that says "Boss Button."  (I guess it's there on the normal viewing mode as well, screen placement depends on screen resolution or something, mine is somewhere between the top center and right corner)  If you click it, the screen switches to what looks like an email inbox with an open email, to hide the fact that you're watching the game at work.  In the past, I believe it was a generic spreadsheet that didn't really look like you were actually working.

TheHoke.TheHok…

March 17th, 2011 at 8:31 PM ^

I don't really get why all network television isn't streamed live and free online.  I mean, it's free TV that you can pick up with an antenna anyway, so what are they losing out on?

As for cable, I've ditched it and refuse to ever order it again until I can purchase channels a la carte.  I want ESPN, FSN, CNN, and Comedy Central - in HD and HD only.  That's it.  No speed network bs or America's best whatever reality network.

icactus

March 17th, 2011 at 10:23 PM ^

I wish they would provide better downgrade capability for those of us with slower connections.  I mean it's in their interest to have you use less bandwidth so you'd think they'd have a feature for those of us on a 1 mbps connection, like how google lets you select resolution.  I get 15 seconds of game and then 10 seconds of loading.

 

Anyway, I'm rooting for Ganzaga cause they have Mike Hart.

Tater

March 17th, 2011 at 11:11 PM ^

When the white display of the current score shows up in the middle of the score bar, it shows the score and time about two minutes ahead of what they are showing on the video.  I have to keep making it go away.  

Not that it made much of a difference in the MSU/UCLA game.

Sgt. Wolverine

March 18th, 2011 at 12:34 AM ^

the MMOD streaming experience -- from web to phone app -- should set an example for the entire sports world.  It's absolutely ideal.  The major sports leagues and tv networks need to learn from this.