Badminton XC coverage is not live via the BBC red button this year

milliepops

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i have really mixed feelings about paying for it - i enjoyed the saturday coverage though had to go out in the middle of it so was irritating to have to wait until this morning to watch the rest. The dressage was quite glitchy.

I would usually attend in person on the saturday and then watch it on catch up later on to see the action we missed. Didn't go this year as too skint but hope to be back next year. i don't fancy coughing up twicethough. I wouldn't mind paying a small supplement on top of a ticket but not both full price.

I know it's a totally different event but the BD convention made it so you could replay it if you'd bought a ticket to go in person and i think that's a nice way of doing it.
 

ester

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The main issue seems to have come that their social media when specifically asked was responding that it would be up shortly after the last horse completed, while the website said Monday latest. I guess next year people will know that if they want to watch it saturday they have to watch it live not plan to do so in the evening.

I haven't even managed to watch the highlights yet, I am wondering whether if you do a membership in a couple of weeks time you can watch this years on catch up and have it running for next year ;)
 

teapot

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Trying to work out whether there is new comms on the xc coverage or not... Not the same without Tina and Piggy squeaking
 

fetlock

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I'd rather have not paid for it all, but once I resigned myself to it, I do think it was value for money. I watched the entire XC live, most of the trot up this morning, the SJ and then the presentation ceremony too and for the price of a takeaway.

I know it's a niche sport and all that but mostly begrudge it because I pay my TV licence fee and increasingly a lot of sport is turning to pay-for services now. Having developed a (surprising, to me) liking for watching England football after last year's Euros, I also had to pay to watch the two friendly matches in March and will do again next month when they play a couple more. Then, there's Burghley - are we going to have to pay for that too? Not forgetting having to also pay for the Olympics last year as well.
 

teapot

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I'd rather have not paid for it all, but once I resigned myself to it, I do think it was value for money. I watched the entire XC live, most of the trot up this morning, the SJ and then the presentation ceremony too and for the price of a takeaway.

I know it's a niche sport and all that but mostly begrudge it because I pay my TV licence fee and increasingly a lot of sport is turning to pay-for services now. Having developed a (surprising, to me) liking for watching England football after last year's Euros, I also had to pay to watch the two friendly matches in March and will do again next month when they play a couple more. Then, there's Burghley - are we going to have to pay for that too? Not forgetting having to also pay for the Olympics last year as well.

Burghley coverage is to be announced in August, Worlds are in September...
 

Ambers Echo

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I’ve loved the coverage. I watched 3 full days - Thurs-Sat. Very few issues. Informative commentary. Will definitely subscribe again
 

teapot

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Is there any update on Vitorio du Montet?

Post on Maxime Livo's fb page yest evening which has been translated as

'What a challenging sport! Vito gave it all to me! Unfortunately, fatigue caught up with us 100m from the arrival
1f633.png

He's doing well and has quickly recovered his impatience and his usual mood!
Thank you Mathou and the whole Badminton Horse Trials team for taking such good care of him and thank you Vito for beating so well
1f64f.png
1f4aa.png
'
 

Tiddlypom

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Whilst I'm still somewhat conflicted about how much I actually enjoy watching eventing these days, I did watch almost all the footage live, including both trot ups. I'm still hooked on watching the big B's apparently, whether in person or on the screen. Nicola Wilson was only competitor no 9, and there's been plenty of grief before her fall, and I almost walked away during the course hold.

The £14.99 proved to be well worth it for me, though. There were glitches, but on the whole it was very good. I'd have been very miffed about the time it took to upload the XC footage if I'd have been expecting to watch it later on the Saturday, though. Wonder if there's a way to get that done more quickly? Break it up into sections, like the dressage, and load up one section at a time?

The only thing I have left to catch up on is the prize giving.
 

Alibear

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I’ve loved the coverage. I watched 3 full days - Thurs-Sat. Very few issues. Informative commentary. Will definitely subscribe again

Totally this and as someone who works for a business that does live streaming. Their turnaround of the Saturday footage was incredibly fast. Would people prefer interruptions in the day's live stream so they can chop it, save and start uploading the sections during the day? As that's about the only other option currently available. Those interruptions would need to be planned in timewise, you wouldn't want to be trying to fit them in when there's a hold on course.
 
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milliepops

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i think a delay in uploading is fine, but as mentioned previously managing expectations is important ;) saying it will take x hours, instead of "be available soon" would help stop the grumbles.
 

Honey08

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The BBC coverage is starting to annoy me. If we’re only getting an hour or so of Xc I don’t want the long winded explanations and introduction to riders and the competition! They could have shown another four or five horses without all that!

I’m in two minds whether to subscribe now to watch all the competition. I used to love coming home and watching the red button after having been there. It just bugs me that I’ve already spent £200 on tickets and over £150 on fuel! Money is tighter nowadays. I didn’t buy anything at Badminton and took our own food and drink too. I am in two minds whether I will go at all next year. I might have to whittle it down to just one U.K. five star visit, and Burghley is way better IMO.
 

Kat

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I subscribed, I don't mind paying to watch full coverage in principle, I paid to watch the olympics. However I do think that for the price expectations are going to be high and it didn't really live up to that. I hope that they will consider improvements for future years.

In no particular order some of my complaints/niggles/issues/observations:
- The delay on replays was a real issue, they really need to work on getting this sorted for next year as many people can't watch it all live but want to watch "as live" a bit later. I was hoping to avoid the results and watch it at my own pace but the delays made this impossible.
- Linked to the above, the inability to watch from the beginning or to rewind to the beginning, and pause and pick up where you left off was a pain too.
- Having the XC as one long video makes it difficult to watch bits that are of particular interest.
- While I appreciate they can't show every fence it did feel very much more limited than usual and there were fences that they clearly had cameras at but they hardly showed, the Ford Broken Bridge and the first water come to mind.
- A couple of the camera angles weren't great. For example the Joules Keeper's Ditch, you couldn't see the ditch. The way the camera panned at the Le Mieux Leap and the Ford Broken Bridge made it difficult to really appreciate the jump, I appreciate that there may be good reasons why these angles were chosen but in contrast with the solar panel complex which was shown really well in terms of the lines, and distances it was a bit annoying.
- A better solution for watching on a tv would be really welcome. I found that casting from phone to tv was too much of a compromise (lagging and poor image quality), and the footage wouldn't play via my TV's web browser. Many of us would rather watch on TV than via a phone or tablet.
- On playback the controls were difficult/fiddly to use especially if you had watched parts of the action live and wanted to skip bits that you had already seen.
- The site wasn't particularly easy to navigate and find what you had watched/hadn't watched/had part watched.
- They really needed to edit some of the videos, the interviews were all preceded by an irritating 2-5 minutes of nothing before they started.
- Having to switch to the BBC for the final 10 was a faff and although I understand the reasons I wonder whether there are other ways round this.

I think a huge amount is about managing expectations and communicating what exactly is on offer.

I think offering some different subscription offers might help alleviate some of the issues. So perhaps a reduced price offer for people who have bought tickets, and ones that include only replays or only live coverage. Maybe a collaboration with some other events so that you get coverage of other events included would make it feel like better value too.
 

teapot

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Thing is they only managed to upload the dressage in sections because there are planned breaks. See also the show jumping.

You don’t have that with xc as it’s constant and there would uproar if they pulled the feed at the start of a hold and then missed someone starting again.

Six hours of footage to then whack onto a website will taken some time.
I seem to remember the year BBC had Burghley live on red button, it wasn’t available to watch again until very late into the Saturday evening. Plus the editing work that had to be done. There may well have been discussions over what was left in…

Price wise I think it was fair for almost 25 hours of coverage in total!

As for accessible on smart tvs - most smart tv internet browsers are not powerful enough to handle live streaming. I can barely get simple websites to load on mine, let alone trying to watch something, so I don’t think that is their fault. Whether an app could be produced is another matter, but that only works if the app works on your tv.
 
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splashgirl45

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I paired my laptop to my smart tv and it was fab. There were a couple of glitches but I think they were not only on my coverage so all positive here
 

billylula

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I paired my laptop to my smart tv and it was fab. There were a couple of glitches but I think they were not only on my coverage so all positive here
this is exactly what I did -but with an HDMI cable and had really good coverage, despite not having the worlds best broadband speeds.
 

splashgirl45

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I couldn’t find my cable and thought I was going to have to watch on my laptop but pairing was easy and worked ok. I’ve found my cable now so I’m ready for the next one
 

billylula

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To anyone who might find it useful - if you have a playstation in your house then that has an hdmi cable - just unplug from the playstation and plug straight into laptop. And ignore irritated husband or children!
 
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