Warning: Full on Cycling TV rant coming

by Drew on Jan 27, 2008 9:40 AM EST in News

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, and to blow off some steam, I'm going to unleash my anger on Cycling.TV (again) because of my poor viewing experience (again) during a major race (again) - in this case the Elite Men's cyclocross world championship. I had a 15,000 screed already written in my head but now I've got a headache, so I'm just going to list bullet points of annoyance, frustration, and fury and let you get back to your morning coffee. To whit:

No accurate starting time to be found, other than a helpful suggestion of 'most likely start time is 8:00 if your computer settings are accurate.' Guess what? I started trying to log in from 7:45 on and didn't get anything until around 8:30am, when the race was already 23 minutes in. Sound familiar? How fucking hard is it to list the local start time (from Italy) and either provide a link for global time zones, or let us figure it out for ourselves? How about actually starting your freaking coverage on time?
Needed multiple screens to open before getting the actual screen that is showing the video. For Exploder you have to open at least 3 screens before getting to your destination. I'm no web designer but how hard is this? Especially after 3 years of getting the kinks out?
While we're on the above subject, how about making the goddamn site play nicely with Firefox? Or Mac for that matter?
Consistently losing the video feed due to site traffic. I lost it 4 times in the span of 12 minutes and after the last time, could not get back in. I was greeted the first 3 times by Lake Shoes and Tour of Qatar adverts. The last time I got Paris-Brussels highlights, before getting shut out completely with a blank page. For all I know Lars Boom just rode off the edge of the earth while leading on lap 5. Are you telling me that after 3 years you still don't have enough servers to handle your traffic on a day you know will be pretty high in people trying to watch the race? Do I really need to be typing all of this?

I am past the point where I'm going to be assuaged with 'we're undergoing growing pains and we appreciate your patience.' I don't appreciate a continued shit product that has not changed much (fancier interfaces aside) since day 1. I certainly don't appreciate paying for the privilege of watching archived races to ensure an uninterrupted data flow, knowing who's won already.

And the rub is that I've got no choice, since there is no other real competitor to Cycling.TV. So it's either put up with this treatment and rant every once in a while, or read cyclingnews live commentary. Wonderful.

*this is not a commentary on Anthony or Brian and their call of the race. I fully enjoy their participation....when I can hear it.

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Here's what gets me . . .

(and I'm posting to see if it affects anyone else):

On days when I'm stuck riding rollers, I fire up cycling.tv to watch while I spin away to nowhere.

Now, leaving aside the problems like:

You can't actually watch races from '06, and
races like 07 Amstel Gold seize up for no good reason, the true annoyance is:
After watching the first race (whatever it is), an attempt to start a second file causes exploder to , well, explode. Extremely frustrating, that . . .

by R Mc on Jan 27, 2008 9:46 AM EST reply actions

annoying.tv

And where the hell did they hide the Tour Of Qatar?

by angst on Jan 27, 2008 10:21 AM EST reply actions

Gave up on this shit site last year

Who cares about the money, its the frustration level from trying to get the damn thing to work. I am a much happier person when i try not to access any video from this site.

At the end of last year, i would just listen to everyone's color commentary here. I found it rather exciting, like listening to baseball games with my grandpa when i was a kid.

by CannonDowell on Jan 27, 2008 10:24 AM EST reply actions

same problems here

I've experienced all of the problems mentioned above. I tried it for the first time with the '07 Giro. I guess I forgot what a horrible experience I had with it that I signed up again to get the Vuelta.

Cross is my favorite cycling sport - and the promise of seeing good coverage of worlds was really tempting - but I passed because I knew how excited I would get - and how disappointed I would be when the problems started.

by sfd on Jan 27, 2008 10:44 AM EST reply actions

Qatar

All I saw from the race today was QS riding over the finish line, after struggling an hour to get any picture. Got so PO that I didn't want to watch the cyclo's after that, apparently good that I didn't since it was so bad again!
What is wrong with those people that they can't get it to work??
My premium ends April, I'm not sure if I'll continue with it if this is still what we get..

by Bruce on Jan 27, 2008 10:44 AM EST reply actions

I've just spent ten

frustrating minutes trying to get the TDU stage 5 to play from the video on demand with no luck.My subscription runs out in March. Does any one know if I can just let it expire or is there an automatic re-subscribe?

"The ox is slow but the earth is patient."

by Teel 22 on Jan 27, 2008 11:00 AM EST reply actions

Check

your paypal account. If you search long enough, you can find the auto-update feature and turn it off.

by R Mc on Jan 27, 2008 3:03 PM EST up reply actions

Rant all you want

but if you live in the U.S., you have no business ranting about UCI events as cycling.tv does not have the rights in the U.S.

by Toyota on Jan 27, 2008 11:52 AM EST reply actions

Rights?

to races in the US? Or to broadcast here?

by Chris Fontecchio on Jan 27, 2008 1:26 PM EST up reply actions

cycling.tv cannot broadcast

UCI events in the U.S. I suppose that is why the information on their site says the UCI channel is for viewers outside the U.S.

by Toyota on Jan 27, 2008 1:57 PM EST up reply actions

Eerrrrrr

I hate to say this, but since it's the internet, and none of you are within arms reach of me...I watched the Tour of Qatar TTT this morning with no problems what-so-ever. And I want to second Drew's last point...I thoroughly enjoyed Anthony and Brian's commentary.

I'm not saying this to be a bastard to all of you who are having trouble, I've been there myself. But I just wanted to say that although its a reoccurring issue, it's not totally universal.

On a side note, I use the 'media player connectivity' add-on for firefox, so that may be the reason that I have less problems. It takes the feed and plays it in media player outside the browser.

by Hons on Jan 27, 2008 12:04 PM EST reply actions

I love cycling.tv

when it works and I know when the races are on.

That web site is a boat anchor for their business, though.

-K-

by KevinK on Jan 27, 2008 1:47 PM EST reply actions

yup

good content, world's worst web site...

America is all about speed. Hot, nasty, badass speed. -Eleanor Roosevelt

by ELVISGOAT on Jan 27, 2008 1:50 PM EST up reply actions

Truth?

I still have yet to subscribe to this thingy. I've gone to the site a few times, and promptly gotten lost in the sea of menus and windows that take over my computer. Since most live coverage is at the crack of dawn PST, when I am so at my most smartest and most able to deal with technical disasters, the interface needs to be easy for me to sign up. Especially if I'm giving them money. Oh, and I have a mac, so I'm going to have to think even harder. Gah, that's a tall order.

I still scrounge around for video coverage from various places both legit and nefarious. I'm not usually around to watch stuff live anyway...

by Jen See on Jan 27, 2008 1:49 PM EST reply actions

Banned

Drew, I feel your pain. All these problems are the reasons I refuse to give them a link on my blog. I instead direct folks over to cyclingfans.com. Yes, I know they in turn provide a link back to cycling.tv, but they also supply links to other sources, as well. For what it's worth, they will also furnish an accurate start time.

by The Team Chef on Jan 27, 2008 2:01 PM EST reply actions

Cancelled my sub

I thought I was going to love it but after an entire year of headaches, I cancelled after the site wouldn't let me in after the automatic renewal. On a positive note my refund was prompt.

by Crackaslowa on Jan 27, 2008 2:05 PM EST reply actions

redesign in 5 minutes

since my knee is busted, I have time to do these things.

I am not sure why businesses invest so much time and money into the look and feel of a web site. Nobody cares!

Home Page

Welcome to Cycling TV!

Username: ___
Password: ___
Not a user? Register Now!

<table>
<tr><td>Event</td><td>Start Time New York</td><td>Chicago</td><td>Denver</td><td>San Francisco</td></tr>
<tr><td>ToQ Stage 1</td><td>7:50AM</td><td>6:50AM</td><td>5:50AM</td><td>4:50AM</td></tr>
</table>

The event would be a hyperlink that would open the media player of your choice, instead of that nasty embedded thingy.

The hyperlink would include a universally unique identifier to authenticate that you are a subscriber.

Me and my other software homies could slap this thing together in a day at the most.

I've run through the numbers on this type of bidness a couple of times, and think it's tough to make money with it. It would be a fun business to be in, though.

-K-

by KevinK on Jan 27, 2008 2:12 PM EST reply actions

Heart attack

Besides the crap website, the bad reception, the high price, etc... the thing that annoys me the most is the how the audio levels for the race commentary and the commercials are so totally different. The Lake shoe spots are going to give me a heart attack. I am now traumatized by Lake shoes and will never buy a pair. If I see someone wearing a pair, I may crash.

by Jimbo... on Jan 27, 2008 5:40 PM EST reply actions

I feel your pain

Actually, I felt that pain when starting to watch stage 5 of TDU - it might have been some sort of post traumatic stress disorder from last year.

by 12string on Jan 27, 2008 6:00 PM EST reply actions

so far, so good...

A Mac-only household, but bought Parallels simply to run XP in a VM for c.tv. Firefox + adblock. Find suitable speed and server choice in c.tv options, and go to the "Video on Demand" to see the most recent stuff.

TdU & now the first day of ToQ have been fine -- click and watch.

-Greg

by gregm on Jan 28, 2008 12:44 AM EST reply actions

if only you knew

i've seen enough c.tv to know that nothing there is simple

America is all about speed. Hot, nasty, badass speed. -Eleanor Roosevelt

by ELVISGOAT on Jan 28, 2008 7:50 PM EST up reply actions

parallels

+1 for parallels

I bought it for my macbook so that I could take my cycling peaks software on the road.

-1 on cycling.tv I gave up a while ago and turned off the auto renewal.

by johnw on Jan 28, 2008 6:42 PM EST reply actions

WCSN

Just thought I'd let everyone know that the cyclocross worlds are also on WCSN. I have a Mac, and never have any issues viewing races on WCSN. I use flip4mac to convert the video feed to Quicktime. Works great.
I gave up on cycling.tv last year.

by telemick on Jan 28, 2008 9:05 PM EST reply actions