AFANA has been in touch with the AFL's internet manager on several occasions this season.  We've forwarded complaints from fans about missing video on the Aussie Sport TV service.  We are also aware of other fans who have complained to Aussie Sport TV directly.  We cannot be sure where the problem is exactly however since Telstra is the "middleman" between the TV Networks/AFL and Aussie Sport TV (the tradename of Perform Ltd. of the UK) we tend to believe Telstra is the first point where things break down.

Unfortunately, it is hurting fans like yourself who paid good money for service they expected and aren't getting it and hurting AFANA which depends on being able to support what we do for fans by gaining commissions on sales of the service through our banner advertising.   We will bring your complaint to the AFL's attention and hopefully it will spur the responsible party(-ies) into action. 

-Rob
AFANA Chairman Emeritus and Site Admin

Colin from the customer service department at Aussie Sport TV sent this along today in reply to Rick's complaint:

"Thank you for your email.

We can confirm that the highlights/full match replays are now available on the Aussie Sports site.

Please visit - http://www.aussiesport.tv/page/Home/0,,12614,00.html

Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience caused with the delay."

-Rob
AFANA Chairman Emeritus and Site Admin

The problem hasn't gotten any better, despite their bland assurances. I enquired about delays in posting the Full Match Replays back in early August and again just yesterday. In each case I received exactly the same canned response. ...

--------

Thank you for your email.

Firstly please allow us to apologise for the delay is supplying the match highlights and full match replays.

We have been liaising with our Australian partners who provide the video content for the Aussie Sports site. They have been experiencing some technical issues ensuring that the video content is available for us to upload to our sites.

Please accept our apologies for the inconvenience this has caused but rest assured we are working to get this resolved as quickly as possible.

We fully expect the replays to be up in the site within 48 hours.

We thank you for your patience and understanding

------------

Since the problem continues and the responses are canned and unhelpful, I have to assume this is an institutional problem, notwithstanding their claim that it's a technical issue. These difficulties in seeing the matches is gradually killing any interest I still have in Footy. It's not that important to me that I will spend time and energy fighting the good fight.

Rob

Sorry to hear that you are losing interest in this great sport.  (Imagine where I am after dealing with issues like this for years.) I do understand however. 

My guess is that there is a technical issue but you are probably right at this point it is also a management or organizational problem, too.  It just keeps happening with too much regularity.  Unlike AFANA, where we are all unpaid volunteers, these companies are making money with paid staff to deal with this stuff and neither the employees or their management (including at the AFL) seem able (willing) to fix the problem for good. 

We'll keep after them but something tells me the permanent solution is in the AFL's hands come 2011...

-Rob
AFANA Chairman Emeritus and Site Admin

Just to provide an update...

It's now the morning of Thursday, Sept 10, 2009 -- here in Nova Scotia, which means it's Thursday evening in Oz -- and the only game from last weekend's playoff round 1 that has been posted to the Aussie Sport TV web site is last Friday's game. Nothing yet from Saturday or Sunday. The site continues to be updated with news clips and interviews, so it's not like I'm getting nothing for my money. But I think the full games -- not just the scoring highlights -- are the important part.

It's hard to understand how the AFL could say they'd like to support the sport in North America and yet allow this to happen. Sure they have a contract with someone to provide this service, but there must be a non-performance clause in it to let them move to another provider.

Technically the video they do manage to get up on the site works fine. It's not quite the quality of a TV broadcast, but it's watchable. And I haven't had any hiccups in the games I have watched. They've streamed in smoothly from beginning to end. If only they'd post the games in a timely manner I'd have nothing but good things to say about them.

Rob

AFANA has taken complaints about the service this week to AFL management and they tell us that the complaints have been forwarded to Telstra management.  Whether they get from Telstra to ASTV management who knows. 

The AFL is clearly aware there is an on-going problem with ASTV.  I don't know what the "non-performance" clauses are.   But yes, I would think that would come into play here at some point or at least financial penalties would. 

The AFL did tell us they are working on yet another alternative beyond ASTV and ESPN360 for the last couple of weeks of finals (omnisport.tv).  Whether that would be better I can't say; though omnisport charge for the service and last I looked omnisport didn't know the difference between "Aussie rules" and NRL.   We will post more on this when we know more. 

Side note:  we will be posting a special finals offer from ASTV today but with disclaimers.  We feel we need to do this because even with all of it's worts, ASTV may be some fans only option to see the Grand Final this year.

-Rob
AFANA Chairman Emeritus and Site Admin

I tried to post this yesterday but for some reason my post was stopped by your spam filters.

Yesterday, Thursday just after noon Atlantic time, Aussie Sport TV finally posted two more games: the Saturday evening game and the Sunday game. Today, Friday morning, there's still no sign of the other Saturday game.

I watched that Saturday afternoon game on TSN last weekend. Horray for TSN! And the Friday night game has been up for viewing since Sunday. So I'm covered. But that's still pretty dismal performance on the part of Aussie Sport TV.

On a related note... While poking around the AFL's site I found a link describing International TV options in which they said that TSN and TSN2 would carry game 2 this weekend and that game 1 would be available on TSN's on demand service on their web site. But they gave the wrong url for the site. They said it was www DOT watch.tsn.ca, but the correct URL is without the www part.

I took a look at some of the on demand video up there now and the quality seems even better than Aussie Sport TV, so here's hoping that holds true for the footy game.

Rob

Hi Rob,

Thanks for the report.  We have just received from the AFL the full listing of what ESPN / TSN will have this weekend.  Our TV schedules guy (Jeff) should have it up on this site when he gets home from his day job later today.  We'll list both the broadcast and online offerings. 

I agree that ASTV continues to be a disappointment.  As noted elsewhere in this and other threads, we've taken yet more complaints to the AFL so they are aware there is a problem.  They are working on another new online option for the last two weeks of finals and we hope to have those details early next week. 

Re: your problem with the spam filter.  I looked at our logs and it wasn't entirely apparent why the filter rejected your post.  What I can tell you is that we have been getting absolutely slammed by the spammers the past two weeks.  Part of what they are doing is posting innocuous messages with bad URLs embedded.  When those messages are flagged as spam it can "pollute" the filter into thinking that words and phrases that should be ok are not ok.  I fix it as we go along but it is an on-going battle.

-Rob
AFANA Chairman Emeritus and Site Admin

I had tried to include a full URL in my post. That's probably why the spam filter caught it. This time, since I didn't care if the URL was clickable, I just wrote out the DOT part and that went through okay. Bit of a problem though if I'd actually wanted to make a clickable URL.

As for the spammers... they usually hit certain software hard, not particular web sites. So they may be on the hunt for vulnerabilites in Drupal at the moment. It's a cycle; they should be gone soon if they can't accomplish anything in your site. I assume you're keeping your install of Drupal updated to the latest version with all security fixes in place.

I'd offer my services to help manage the site (I have experience with CMS's) but I'm extremely busy at the moment. Things will calm down around the end of October. I'll get in touch then to see if you need some help.

Rob

Thanks, Rob.  I'd love to have some backup and help whenever you can spare the time.  Yes, I am a pain in the you know what about keeping things up to date and patched here.  We have a very deep multi-layer defense against the spammers and hackers.  It's held up pretty well; knock on wood. 

Ordinarily I would subscribe to your theory of why we are under a higher level of attack.  However, over the many years I have run this site, our spam traffic just like our regular visitors, goes up and down with the season; the AFL season to be precise.  It peaks in late March and late September.  Every year without fail.  I suspect that means the activity is tied to bots which monitor the "activity"of the site or the increased visibility on search engines we get at this time of year.

-Rob
AFANA Chairman Emeritus and Site Admin

I subscribed to the Aussie Sports TV this month (for AFL and NRL) in the wake of the Setanta fiasco (I have subscribed to Setanta on DirecTV since it started broadcasting in 2005 for coverage of AFL, NRL, and rugby). I am extremely disappointed in the service and definitely would not subscribe again next year unless I was assured of major improvements. 1. Full match replays are way, way too delayed. It is Tuesday night and still the Geelong-Collingwood match is not up. What are they waiting for, the GF is on Friday. Absurd. 2. I try to avoid all news which would tell me the outcome of the match before I can watch (which means that I can't come to AFANA until after the match has been viewed). Unfortunately, they put captions under some of their videos which clearly give the results away (see this week - "Grand Final Fever hits Skilled") - Gee, I wonder who won the Geelong-Collingwood match now! In addition, they put advertisements for the Omnisport for future matches which also indicate who won (it's the playoffs, if I know the next matchup, it's quite obvious who won). Last week, they were promoting a NRL match for the upcoming week, which clearly gave away the results of the next 2 matches (which had not been posted for 3 days after they were over). These ads are right on the page where you have to go to watch the videos, it is impossible to avoid them. I actually tried to cover the right portion of my computer screen in an attempt to prevent this 3. I find the quality of the video is quite poor. This is like ancient Youtube quality streaming. While barely acceptable for NRL broadcasts because of the nature of that sport, it is hardly watchable for AFL. I have been watching all the matches ESPN360 has shown, and that video quality is 100x better. I can stream it through the computer to my 40" HDTV and it's very watchable. My compliments to ESPN360 (although the link for the replay of Geelong-Bulldogs QF got transformed into a college football game after a few hours and never returned). 4. I was only able to watch on the computer that I initially signed up on. I'm sure this has to do with stupid DRM. I paid my $15, I expect to be able to view on any computer I wish. The computer I was using actually crashed and I was unable to fix it for a few days. If I hadn't been able to restore it, I don't know whether I would have been able to watch anything I paid for. IMHO, the Aussie Sports TV service as it is currently being shown is not worth the money. I discourage AFANAers from subscribing until major improvements have been implemented. On a better note, thanks to ESPN and AFANA for getting full live coverage of the GF. I enjoy all the pregame festivities and commentary as well as the victory laps in the post game.

Thanks, MikeW for that excellent and detailed report.

A few thoughts:  the delay in posting games on ASTV is chronic.  The AFL is aware of it.  Whether that means a change, I don't know.  ESPN360 is way better and I think that once it is available to more fans people will appreciate how good it is.  Not sure why the GF went away so quickly, may have been a mistake.  The matches are supposed to be up for 48 hours from the start of the match.  The captions and adverts on ASTV are simply not being handled well, particularly on a pay service.

Now, as to not getting the results of a match until you have seen it.  Good luck.  Frankly, in this instant age it is simply impossible for most of us (never an option for the AFANA staff and still do our jobs).  People want to know things instantly.  If AFANA withheld match results or TV schedules for the next week we would be deluged with complaints.  Just the read the posts on this site when we don't have something up on Sunday afternoon.  (Not nice!)  That might have been OK when we started in 1995 but today it is simply not feasible.  Very quickly a competitor would step in to do what we didn't.  Most other web sites are in the same situation.  Live and instant is the name of the game.   I know that for fans like yourself, it is hard.  Not much we can do on that front. 

-Rob
AFANA Chairman Emeritus and Site Admin

Just to clarify my point about seeing the results, I certainly wasn't criticizing AFANA for putting up the information as soon as possible, that is what I would expect. My problem was solely with Aussie Sports - they had put up this information (match results) before (sometimes days before) the match replay was available. I'm not sure whether they ever did put up the PF between Geelong and Collingwood - I wound up watching the match highlights instead. During playoffs, the matches have to be put in within 1-2 days max, otherwise, it is pointless. Although I had subscribed the full package for the month (NRL and AFL), I never was able to watch an AFL match on it (the ESPN360 version came out way before that), or I recorded the radio broadcast and listened to that. This may be off topic for this group, but they were just as late with the NRL broadcasts as well. With a few days left on my monthly subscription, I even had difficulties accessing my account, but I cut off that credit card and finally was able to log on and cancel. I definitely wouldn't waste the time and effort on it next year, so I hope that an alternate broadcast is available. On a side note, about 10 minutes before the GF, I turned on ESPN Classic (DirecTV) and to my horror, the station was not available! Sometime in the past year, they switched ESPN Classic to the Premier Tier of DirecTV (you have to subscribe to all the movie channels, etc. for over $50 more). So I wound up watching the GF on ESPN360, which did a decent job with the broadcast quality considering it was streaming online, and I was happy that they showed some of the pregame and stayed with the GF through a good portion of the post game. Once again, big thanks to AFANA - without you I don't think I ever would have been given the information on where the broadcast was going to be.

Thanks for clarifying your point regarding the match results.  However you slice it though, the core problem is that ASTV doesn't post the matches in a timely manner.  Whether that problem is with ASTV or with Telstra feeding the match to them, I don't know.   

Regarding the DirecTV issue, it came up on other threads here in the week leading up to the Grand Final.  Apparently, ESPN Classic was moved a few weeks prior to the Grand Final.  That was unfortunate. However whatever the cost, it all comes down to what the sport is worth to each of us.  For DirecTV customers that will be a slightly higher hurdle than for others. 

-Rob
AFANA Chairman Emeritus and Site Admin

Hi Rick,

Jeff Hemelt is handling the TV stuff for AFANA this season as I am doing only tech support for the site now.  As far as we know, the TV and radio coverage of the 2010 season will be the same as we had last September.   We don't have any updates on changes to the ASTV service though.  We should get that in the next several weeks. There should be a post on the site about this "real soon now".

-Rob
AFANA Chairman Emeritus and Site Admin

I can tell you that they are not covering any matches in Round 1 of the NAB Cup so far as we know.  ESPN360 (to become ESPN3 as of April) may cover something later but I wouldn't count on anything before the beginning of the premiership. 

-Rob
AFANA Chairman Emeritus and Site Admin

As noted above, this is substantially correct but not fully confirmed.  The same as we had last August / September.  We are awaiting confirmation of the schedules before we post anything on that count.  Hang in there, folks.   Jeff will post info once we have it confirmed by all parties concerned and not before. 

-Rob
AFANA Chairman Emeritus and Site Admin

 Aussie Sport no longer supports MAC users

Unfortunately , just found out that Aussie sport no longer supports MAC users .

here is my reply from Aussie Sport..

Following the rapid growth of a range of video and stream sharing websites over recent months, a significant volume of content which is provided on an exclusive basis to subscribers was being made freely available on the Internet.  We have to have a solution that will satisfactorily safeguard the content.

This has required us to DRM the content and due to changes made recently we are no longer able to support Apple / Mac products.  Specifically Windows Media Player is no longer supported on this platform and likewise IE6.0. Please be advised that this has been forced on us by Microsoft and not a business decision made by Perform or its partners. 

I'm sure the AFL is aware and concerned but frankly, you're missing several factual pieces here.  No one is suggesting that Seven or Ten are contracted to provided direct service to US or Canadian fans (how could they?).  The TV networks in Australia which produce the telecasts are contractually required to provide that video to all of the international partners of the AFL (as the AFL owns it!) --whether broadcast or internet -- and they do not have an option.  Further, as far as we know, the networks have never failed to do so.  The problems lie elsewhere as detailed in this thread.  There are contracted networks here in North America (ESPN, TSN, MHz) as well as the international web options of the AFL (Telstra, ASTV, Omnisport, etc.) and AFANA regularly works with those partners in cooperation with the AFL.  Telling readers here to simply go to the AFL web site is misleading and incomplete information.  Ultimately the AFL is responsible, as it would acknowledge, since it contracts with the entities providing service to fans here. 

I encourage readers to read the entire threads here as well as to check our TV Info page.

-Rob
AFANA Chairman Emeritus and Site Admin

Our website www.autobidmaster.com/en/search/salvage-cars/jeep/wrangler/ has ushered in a new age in automotive history by making it easier for people in the US and Germany to purchase and transport autos at auction. Copart Auto Auctions offers over 300,000 cars for sale, including wholesale, used, and repairable vehicles. What the heck? Among them, you could just discover the one.