The Poolie Bunker

Which we all know are cack since the new site was opened. Before, you could download them and watch them whenever you wanted and the same with the interviews. Now it's a live feed and very poor quality even if you can get anything at all, which I can't. I can't stop paying because I won't get the live commentaries but I'm only getting half of what I pay for which is ridiculous.

It seems that every club with PTV are experiencing the same problems and the various clubs media people are aware of the problem but are banging their heads against a brick wall trying to sort it out. The clubs want to return to the download system. Obviously Poolsworld isn't cheap and fans are not getting what they used to for the money, they're promoting the quality as good as DVD but you can't see the bloody thing.

Consequently, mail the club with your complaints. It'll all be passed onto PTV, and the more mails the club can forward, the more impact it will have.

Mail to : media@hartlepoolunited.co.uk

Mine's already gone.

Aye, done that Kev. It is a p1ss poor service now - fecking delayat the weekend was awful as well.

Needs more. Don't wait for everyone else..

Had my my whinge

Kev, you can pay a smaller amount and just get the live commentary; we've done that for a while now....don't really miss the other stuff

Grabec, mine subscription to Pools World is up soon and as I really only use it for live commentary I'm interested in the set up you receive. Out of interest how much is it?

Well the 'highlights' from the Leeds game are nothing short of disgraceful. They only showed the two goals and Barkers was it or wasn't it over the line effort.

From the commentary it sounded an excellent game which was littered with chances, how come they didn't show anything else.

Yeah I've just watched the 'highlights' or should I say the 'goallights'.

Terrible coverage, can't have been more that 90 seconds.

It's £24.99, Hawklord, just for Match Live.
I think it saves about £15 a season, which isn't a great sum I suppose, except that by what people are saying they're getting nothing much for the extra money

OK a mail is going off straight away. It's not the first time I've written to Mark Simpson about highlights.
Last season I received this answer:

Dave,

Thanks for your email – I understand completely your frustration; it's a frustration we share.

Unfortunately, we rely on the highlights package provided to us direct from PTV (the company who hosts Pools World).

While we edit video interviews and do the commentary, match highlights is an area out of our control and for some reason they do appear to have been cut down this season. I have watched the Torquay highlights and admit they are not to the standard which our subscribers should expect.

And here's the one that's just gone off:

Good morning Mark.

I know you have received other complaints about the way the highlights and interviews are currently presented and I'd like to add my voice to the list.
I did write to you last season on the same subject, and an improvement - in the home coverage at least - soon followed, which I thanked you for.

Unfortunately the standard seems to have dropped off again and not only that, and not only are we bothered by licenses, but the videos are jerky when they decide to play at all and we can't even download the clip now to allow us to play it at our leisure in a decent media player, or off line when necessary (because contrary to what some might think we don't always have an internet connection close at hand).

I find it very unlikely that the addition of all these protective measures has provided any kind of benefit to the club as a business. I'd guess it's more a case of PTV falling for all the DRM hype and jumping on the bandwagon because one or two videos managed to escape their control.

My position is clear. I want the videos restored to the way they used to be, with no restrictions. That's the least I'm prepared to accept if I'm going to renew my Pools World Subscription which is due up this week.

Thanks for any action you are able to take to correct this ridiculous situation that PTV have brought about themselves.

I've added my comments, lets hope it has some effect

I'll give Mark Simpson, top marks.
He's on the ball with a response very, very quickly.
What he can do however is another matter.

Interviews = top dollar.
Commentry (when needed) = top dollar.
Highlights = shiite.

Everything Mr. Simpson is in control of is top dollar. Everything PT control is shiite.

Keep sending them in, if they think the money will stop they'll be like shit off a shovel.

media@hartlepoolunited.co.uk

Got a reply pretty quickly - Mark to pass all the complaints straight over to PTV - excellent. Have to say I preffered the older Pools site - this one just seems inundated with adverts and crap. Ho hum

does anyone use virgin media as their broadband provider if you do and have the digital telly and fone you get all the highlights from all games free ...prem champ 1 and 2

You dont need to subscribe to virgin. Anyone can watch all the highlights from any match and im sure its same content as Poolsworld for free?

why have the Chesterfield highlights not re-appeared? They are the goals nobody has seen, but would like to see, because it's the only chance we will get to see them.

the video was there, but it didn't work. Then it disappeared.
Not happy at all.

Tell the man then!!!

Simple cut and paste of the above message: media@hartlepoolunited.co.uk

Steve Hallidays hat-trick against Mansfield on the final day? Didn't the tape get nicked?

I remember seeing the first four goals of that game on Tyne Tees, but apparently the last one couldn't be shown 'cos the tape got knicked. Do Tyne Tees never learn? The Cyril Knowles stand was almost complete for that game, and Pools wore the strip for the following season (that light blue and white striped one).

The Swindon highlights are the same dismal quality as the rest. And why oh why can't we rid of that stupid voice-over from a Southern Softie sitting in a post-dubbing studio.

Can everyone who has written write again to complain about the Swindon highlights.
I remember hearing a lot more interesting things in the commentary than were showed in them. The disputed penner for one.

Just keep nagging.

there's even one or two videos over the past couple of years, where huge crowd "roars" are added. I hate that more than anything. How can 23 away fans on a Tuesday night make a huge roar? Always makes me cringe that does. TV is no better, mind.

Anyone remember that nasal southerner who did the voice overs when Dimi was in goal?? He always called him 'Dimitrios' instead of Konstantopoulos.

I like it. Then we could hear his deflated tones when the oppo get one, like on Saturday with the J-PMcG goal:
"Oh, it's gone in. Well, I suppose it was an exquisite chip."

Not sure if you're being sarcastic there Mr H. Whenever I listen to Poolsworld commentary I always get p*ssed off with the way Mr Simpson gets very excited at the oppositions attacks.

He does indeed. But he does try to tone it down when they actually lead to something.

Don't Leeds United have their own Leeds TV thingy seperate to Premium TV and have control over their own highlights etc?

Well lads, I don't know if it was our complaining that did the trick but there are now the longest match highlights I've ever seen on the site.
And I now reckon I have a real feel for what happened Saturday.

Don't tell PK...

The following was received today by Premium TV

Your communication to the club has been forwarded to Premium TV.

We note your comments about the Poolsworld service. We do feel that
you comments are a lttle unfair. You are blaming the Poolsworld
service, which is used with great pleasure and without difficulty by
many hundreds if not thousands of other subscribers, for the fact
that you are having problems configuring your computer to receive
the service. The problem, we think, lies with the computer, not the
service.

We have tried to be helpful in the advice we have given. In most
cases this usually resolves the problem. We are still prepared to
offer further advice if requested.

We have noticed that our Licensing logs do not show any requests for
licences from your computer. This means that something is blocking
communication between your computer and our servers.

This is usually caused by one or all of the following, your
firewall,your anti-virus software or the security and privacy
settings in Internet Explorer. The latter should be set at Medium-
High and Medium respectively.

WE sincerely bhope that you manage to resolve the problem with your
computer.

Best Regards,

Pools World - Web Support

My reply,

Dear customer service,

I regret that you feel my comments are a little unfair, however if you had experienced the difficulties I have you would probably agree with me. I would love to be in a position after a month or so of trying, to have enjoyed even one full game audio or highlights at leisure.

In my opinion if the Poolsworld service is not easily configurable, ie non IT experts cannot do it everytime, it is poor, no two ways about it. You are also "offering" a customer service facility which is deeply disappointing, re-iterating the same help advice as on your web site when contacted for help is hardly enhancing the customer experience, no matter how many times you say the same things, and no matter how many times I go through the settings and wasting my time and effort, it still doesn't work, even you must realise that your online help is both contradictory and ambiguous and not helpful at all really.

Every game I miss is lost money for me plus of course the considerable annoyance factor of missing games.

Why you cannot devise a turn key system that works simply with basic IE6 settings is beyond me.

Why your licensing logs do not illustrate records of licenses issued to me is a mystery as one of my complaints is that during attempting to set up my system, obviously with not yet correct settings, your system advises the number of licenses for my computer has been exceeded, thus halting the setup process for another 24 hours!!! Do you begin to see where I am coming from now?

I am also of the opinion that some settings on my pc are incorrect, but how am I supposed to detect what it is if I do everything you say and it still doesn't work? It is also unlikely that it will be sorted out by you by issuing web faq extracts and bland statements about it is you not us. That is not customer service in the accepted sense. Your lack of a telephone helpline compounds the problem.

My research leads me to believe that there are a significant number of fellow poolies who are experiencing similar difficulties, somewhere between 10 and 20 that I know of, which suggests to me that there are some scenarios that your setup procedure simply doesn't cater for.

excuse the ignorance - is this a poolsworld problem or something wrong with my settings - the footage I receive is shocking, like watching from a dial up connection, but worse - certainly not "DVD" quality!!!

Although I'm on broadband, the streaming is just unwatchable, I rarely even bother to try any more as it's a waste of time!

It certainly seems to be Pools World (alias Premium TV) that has created the problem. Strangely mine has got better without my doing anything at all to remedy it.

Right, I got this, did all the fooking about, net tests, reading the bad lads ISP page etc etc:

Dear Kev,

Your email to the club has been passed to Premium TV.

The problem you describe is primarily caused by a lack of band width.

The quality of the stream largely depends on the connection speed
you receive from your Internet Service Provider. We provide the
stream at two speeds (300kbps and 650kbps). Please choose the
options that matches your connection. You will need a connection
speed of at least 400kbps to view the stream properly.

Your must ensure that your Windows Media Player is the very latest
version supported by your operating system (WMP 11 is the latest)
and that it is set correctly. Open Windows Media Player and choose
the Tools menu or click the arrow in the top right corner to see
this option. Select Options. Choose Performance tab. Ensure
that "detect connection speed" is set. Ensure "use default
buffering" is set. Click Advanced and reduce the video acceleration.
Click OK.

Limitations of Broadband.
Please remember that broadband connections are shared by location.
This is known as the Contention Ratio. If many people in your area
have the same Internet Service Provider then you will be sharing the
connection with them. For this reason it may be better to view clips
at a lower quality (speed) than normal to reduce the buffering
breaks.

Although ISPs advertise various speeds for their broadband service,
these are maximum speeds and are not always achieved.

You can test your current speed here http://www.speedtest.net/

To save bandwidth, turn off any other browser windows that are open
and close other applications that use the internet. Close as many
other applications as possible to save RAM.

Please also note a number of ISPs use "Network Throttling" when they
detect streaming video: http://www.azureuswiki.com/index.php/Bad_ISPs

Your comments about the highlights and commentary thereon have been
passed to our production team. We trust that they will respond to
your criticism in a positive manner.

The download facility has been withdrawn because of difficulties
with copyright issues. Ther is also the problem of the use of
Digital Rights Management software on the content to protect it from
being copied and posted on file share websites.

It is hoped to restore the facility but as yet no date has been set.

Best Regards,

Pools World - Web Support

I answered that the bandwidth is 576kbps, the Media Player settings are fine, the ISP doesn't choke streaming, the local net was rebuilt in February when all the cables were destroyed in an undersea earthquake, the fookin' thing STILL doesn't work. I asked that they stop restricting valid paying customers because of pirates, restore the downloads and use the time they're spending keeping us lot on a string be used to battle their pirates some other way.

I dunno whether they will like. All I get from the Swindon game is the teams coming out and ten minutes of crowd noise. I can cobble that together meself.

they would obviously rather have their paying customers suffer, than accept running the risk of losing some of their precious copyrighted material to people who haven't paid anything. Now that is NOT how to do business. All that happens is everybody will get sick and stop subscribing. How much money will they lose then?
They need to come up with alternatives to protect their interests, bur for Christ's sake the first, most important thing, is provide the paying customers with what they have paid for!! THAT, Mr PTV, is rule number ONE of business!!!!!

This is what I hall be telling them tomorrow Mr P. Because nothing has happened, not even the courtesy of a reply.