Would you have paid for a live stream for the World Championships?

[juggler314]

I love it when people who have never actually produced or streamed a live pool match talk about how easy and simple things "should be".

I guess I have one question. If it is so simple and easy, and someone should do it......why don't you?

The other thing that people do not realize is how expensive a professional production can be. Even if one was to just stream 1 table, for the 6 days of the event. Your costs could easily run into the 10's of thousands of dollars...depending on how high quality you wanted the production to be and how much work you manage to get volunteered.

 

[JCIN]

did you not read my earlier post I work for a professional streaming media company, pool or otherwise I've personally produced hundreds of webcast events. It is easy, there is also a lot that can go wrong.

However, it's not like I'm just going to randomly offer to work for DP for free...

I just said, if anyone is going to run a pool event and wants help with the live streaming side of things to get in touch with me - exactly how much more outgoing do you want me to be.

I think attacking me because I didn't run over to the venue this week with a video camera is a bit harsh - if, say, someone reading this is involved with the US open I'd be more than happy to work with someone to help make something like that happen - I can't imagine Accu-stats lets anyone broadcast events if they are going to be there though, even if they are not on the TV table.

So its easy till it's not and cheap until you have to pay for it.

Got it.

I will be streaming from Q-Masters during the Open. Stop in and I will buy you a beer.

 

[juggler314]

It can be cheap...but you get what you pay for. If you want to do a paid distribution - as people here suggested - say $10/day. Once people pay for something they expect it to be of a certain quality level and to actually work. With the free providers, if something in their network breaks, they aren't going to jump through hoops to fix it necessarily...

If you've got say 200 simultaneous viewers at 300Kbps - that's 60Mbits of service - someone usually has to pay for that bandwidth somewhere...

Settup up a free stream and just letting it run, that's pretty easy, a polished e-commerce product isn't going to be free.

I've been working in the streaming media industry since 1997 - back during the dot com days there was lots of high end streaming media...problem was all the entertainment stuff lost money and all the boring financial stuff made money. The only things that usually make money are things that are audio only since the bandwidth requirements are light, streaming high quality video to a wide audience usually requires some deeper pockets.

I don't think I'm going to make it to the US Open...although I don't have much to do at work that week...

 

[JCIN]

It can be cheap...but you get what you pay for. If you want to do a paid distribution - as people here suggested - say $10/day. Once people pay for something they expect it to be of a certain quality level and to actually work. With the free providers, if something in their network breaks, they aren't going to jump through hoops to fix it necessarily...

If you've got say 200 simultaneous viewers at 300Kbps - that's 60Mbits of service - someone usually has to pay for that bandwidth somewhere...

Settup up a free stream and just letting it run, that's pretty easy, a polished e-commerce product isn't going to be free.

I've been working in the streaming media industry since 1997 - back during the dot com days there was lots of high end streaming media...problem was all the entertainment stuff lost money and all the boring financial stuff made money. The only things that usually make money are things that are audio only since the bandwidth requirements are light, streaming high quality video to a wide audience usually requires some deeper pockets.

I don't think I'm going to make it to the US Open...although I don't have much to do at work that week...

We had 420,000 views on our live stream from the Derby over 7 days last year. We have produced 7 of our own PPV events and covered the DCC,US Bar Table Championships, Hopkins Million Dollar event, The Battle of LA and a Midwest 9 Ball Tour stop most with PPV mixed in with free coverage. These events have taken place in pool rooms, casinos, convention centers and hotels from Pennsylvania to California. That is 12 events in 12 months. We will do more than that in the next 12.

None of them were easy and only one was cheap. I would bet that if I asked your company for a quote to do that schedule it would be staggering. You have to remember that working for someone else means that you get a check no matter if the internet connection fails or the product sells. Not so when doing something as "easy" as streaming an event knowing that if something goes wrong, no matter who is at fault, not only do you not get paid but you lose $1,000s.

I understand completely what you are saying. I just think we are looking at it from different points of view. Things are NEVER as easy as they should be in the pool world. Trust me. You obviously know what you are talking about when it comes to the medium and I would like to hear what you have to say about it sometime. Like I said, beer is on me.

 

[juggler314]

No argument from me on that point.

Lately I've come to believe it's the overall money thing, since there's little money in pool it just doesn't end up getting the kind of decent production that it should. So many people have to do everything themselves or ask people to volunteer that things just don't get planned properly.

The stuff I mentioned that doesn't have to do with live streaming is a perfect example. Why on earth didn't charlie even take the 5 minutes to pick up the phone and call Ross and Stuart and Andy (who run the manhattan, brooklyn, queens and hoboken APA franchises) and ask him to put flyers in their league packets, or mention on their own websites.

I've lived in NYC my whole life, and as long as I've been involved in the pool world I've never seen even a smidge od any decent advertising for an event. 1/2 the time if you aren't keeping your ear to the ground you can miss major events.

The last Worst Summit of Pool that took place at Slate and ESPN zone, many people I spoke with had no idea it was even happening and it was going on in the middle of manhattan!

Even at Amsterdam Billiards, where several local favorites are playing in this event, there was not much more than a poster sitting at the desk. One time the stack of flyers there was a badly copied version of the original (it wasn't even a full size copy! you could barely read it!). I get e-mails here and there from Chris Lynch and Danny Barouty (also both playing in the event) because they run the 9-ball and 14.1 leagues here, did I get one e-mail from them about coming to the event?

It's almost like pool promoters don't really want to make any money...or they think "if i bould it they will come". Just because you get 8 tables and a ball room at the east brunswick hilton doesn't mean pool fans will just flock to your site!

And then there's the bit about how even the most rudimentary website work seems to be beyond everyone. The DP website for this event has nothing more than a spreadsheet (obviously it's his excel sheet for the event, where he clicked "save as html"). Would it really have been so hard to ask (or god forbid pay) someone to whip up a little decent site. Hell even if people don't want to pay, you can get them to regester and collect valuable e-mails and demographic data.

 

[Vahmurka]

though I had positive experience watching 14.1 live at European championships a couple of years ago, my view is that straight pool is not so good for live streaming compared to 9-ball or 8-ball. The match is longer, is not divided into clear racks, spectacular shots are less required. I'd rather pay some for postponed ppv, and definitely for a dvd, but paying for live straight pool being uncertain if I have an opportunity to sweat the whole match, I'd love watching that for free.
Just my 2 cents.

 

[CueAndMe]

I'd pay for streaming of the event, and I live only an hour away from it. I'd go to the event a couple of days and watch the rest on the stream.
By the way, I had no issues with the way the event was run. It's true that I'm not playing in it, but it was fun and had what it needed, and I thank Charlie Williams and the sponsors for allowing it to happen.