AFANA Footy BBS

I don't know what prompted the AFL (and/or Telstra) to restructure access to the streaming video - but they've done a rotten job of it; I feel like I should apologize to anyone who went and signed up because of my earlier post.

Whereas before if one clicked on a video (whether it was a game or some other program that was subscriber only) and was not logged in, the system would pop up a window asking for the username and password, and then right on to the video.

While I'm hopeful it's just "teething pains" on the new site, getting logged in is by no means obvious, and it seems to be difficult to get access to anything older than the most recent rounds. (And I'm a pretty sophisticated, experienced web user; I can only imagine the frustration of someone who hasn't got that background to figure out what's going on.)

One thing that could be a mixed blessing is that they seem to have gone to all widescreen format for the videos; the only problem there is that they don't seem to have increased the bandwidth, so with more picture to encode into the same stream, we may see even more compression artifacts than in the past. One bright glimmer is that one of the introductory programs for Round 1 was available in a higher-bandwidth version; whether that was a mistake or not will remain to be seen, but frankly - it's in the fast action of the games one needs a better picture, not with gents just sitting around talking about the upcoming round!

I haven't yet written the AFL/BigPond/Telstra about these issues - though I think it was rather dim of them to leave it to the beginning of the season, rather than getting all this worked out in the off-season! I figure I'll give them a round to work on it - and then I'll give them a comprehensive keyboard-lashing, as it were. (The good news is that once you work your way through all the obstructions - it's still possible to use the techniques I wrote about - though when they get all the kinks worked out, I will probably have to re-do part of my tutorial to follow the new system.)

im having a small problem with following your tutorial george. im not sure if its just me doing something silly or its got something to do with the new system being used.

after following the steps and getting the pl-int file and the actual video file into net transport the pl-int file downloads but the video file wont download. in the log details it says that after attempting to connect to the tealstra server that it has been timed out. this process keeps repeating itself without the download ever occuring.

i'm wondering if the problem is that for some reason the telstra website wont grant net transport access to download because the telstra website cannot recognise that i am a subscriber? as you said the whole logging in and out thing is not as obvious as the old system

am very much looking forward to being able to watch some streaming video that doesnt stop and start!

thanks

> I don't know what prompted the AFL (and/or Telstra) to restructure access to the
> streaming video - but they've done a rotten job of it; I feel like I should
> apologize to anyone who went and signed up because of my earlier post.

> Whereas before if one clicked on a video (whether it was a game or some other
> program that was subscriber only) and was not logged in, the system would pop up a
> window asking for the username and password, and then right on to the video.

> While I'm hopeful it's just "teething pains" on the new site, getting
> logged in is by no means obvious, and it seems to be difficult to get access to
> anything older than the most recent rounds. (And I'm a pretty sophisticated,
> experienced web user; I can only imagine the frustration of someone who hasn't got
> that background to figure out what's going on.)

> One thing that could be a mixed blessing is that they seem to have gone to all
> widescreen format for the videos; the only problem there is that they don't seem to
> have increased the bandwidth, so with more picture to encode into the same stream,
> we may see even more compression artifacts than in the past. One bright glimmer is
> that one of the introductory programs for Round 1 was available in a
> higher-bandwidth version; whether that was a mistake or not will remain to be seen,
> but frankly - it's in the fast action of the games one needs a better picture, not
> with gents just sitting around talking about the upcoming round!

> I haven't yet written the AFL/BigPond/Telstra about these issues - though I think it
> was rather dim of them to leave it to the beginning of the season, rather than
> getting all this worked out in the off-season! I figure I'll give them a round to
> work on it - and then I'll give them a comprehensive keyboard-lashing, as it were.
> (The good news is that once you work your way through all the obstructions - it's
> still possible to use the techniques I wrote about - though when they get all the
> kinks worked out, I will probably have to re-do part of my tutorial to follow the
> new system.)

The way the system is set up, the idea is to prevent you from getting the URL of the video file without being a paid subscriber. As far as I can tell, there's nothing to prevent you from using that URL with any program you like. Obviously - ethically - you should only do with that URL what you're entitled to do as a subscriber.

> im having a small problem with following your tutorial george. im not sure if its
> just me doing something silly or its got something to do with the new system being
> used.

> [...]

> i'm wondering if the problem is that for some reason the telstra website wont grant
> net transport access to download because the telstra website cannot recognise that i
> am a subscriber? as you said the whole logging in and out thing is not as obvious as
> the old system

Once I worked my way through the mess, I didn't have any more trouble using NetTransport than I did before the change. It seems likely your problem is elsewhere.

> am very much looking forward to being able to watch some streaming video that doesnt
> stop and start!

I certainly can't blame you there. I'm not having your problem and there are so many other things that could affect this, I don't know what else to say.

George

I'm also having trouble - I am not able to right click on the video screen and get the properties box. I have tried the embedded streaming video on the bigpond page, and also detaching the screen to get the more traditional (and useful)windows media player screen that lets you more easily select which part of a quarter you want to watch. Neither will allow me to right click - looks like Telstra has done something to stop this occurring, unless I am missing something.

Any ideas on how to access the properties box ?

PS I have emailed Bigpond a couple of times about the poor streaming of wide screen but thus far no satisfactory reply. I suspect that as an international subscriber and non-Bigpond customer, they are not quite sure how and whether they are meant to assist.

Go Catters !

> im having a small problem with following your tutorial george. im not sure if its
> just me doing something silly or its got something to do with the new system being
> used.

> after following the steps and getting the pl-int file and the actual video file into
> net transport the pl-int file downloads but the video file wont download. in the log
> details it says that after attempting to connect to the tealstra server that it has
> been timed out. this process keeps repeating itself without the download ever
> occuring.

> i'm wondering if the problem is that for some reason the telstra website wont grant
> net transport access to download because the telstra website cannot recognise that i
> am a subscriber? as you said the whole logging in and out thing is not as obvious as
> the old system

> am very much looking forward to being able to watch some streaming video that doesnt
> stop and start!

> thanks

im guessing you were using internet explorer as your web browser. i had the same problem too when using internet explorer. however, it seems if you use mozilla firefox as your web browser then you can right click to access the properties box. nevertheless, i have been unable to figure out whats causing problems with the rest of the tutorial. let me know how you fare after trying to access the properties box using firefox.

> I'm also having trouble - I am not able to right click on the video screen and get
> the properties box. I have tried the embedded streaming video on the bigpond page,
> and also detaching the screen to get the more traditional (and useful)windows media
> player screen that lets you more easily select which part of a quarter you want to
> watch. Neither will allow me to right click - looks like Telstra has done something
> to stop this occurring, unless I am missing something.

> Any ideas on how to access the properties box ?

> PS I have emailed Bigpond a couple of times about the poor streaming of wide screen
> but thus far no satisfactory reply. I suspect that as an international subscriber
> and non-Bigpond customer, they are not quite sure how and whether they are meant to
> assist.

> Go Catters !