Seagull Player

[Thunder Bolt]

I hear what you say and know its not personally your fault, but its been pants for years even when I lived in Wales the blasted thing used to give up the ghost this while the Albion was playing at Withdean, this fault whatever it is has been there lurking for a long while

It has, which is what I said previously when I made a complaint, as I haven't had to rely on their commentary for quite a few years now.
Perform are rubbish.

 

[Rugrat]

So, from Paul's response we know that not all clubs have a deal to use Player ie it is possible to do something different. We know he wants to do his own thing. We know Player is clearly not fit for purpose and has rarely ever been. We also know he is willing to ditch under performing providers. So....why doesn't he tell Player enough is enough, ditch them and do his own thing?

In my view it's the typical response given to issues. We then all think PB is some super human, fans friend because he responds so nicely to our concerns.

For me I'd rather he wasn't so nicey nicey but actually got something done. I've been a commercial guy all my life and in respect to SP the service is so poor that the club should take the initiative and serve notice. I can't believe the contract doesn't contain minimum service levels, but even if it doesn't the evidence is so overwhelming that the club will be on rock solid ground should Perform try and fight back.

Individuals cancelling will have little effect given we are a tiny proportion of their total subscribers. The only way to get it sorted is via the club and my read is they are doing the square root of feck all apart from making a bit of a complaint which has simply been ignored

 

[Iggle Piggle]

Just got back from Middlesbrough and we should be toasting another magnificent away victory. Instead we spent the majority of the journey home discussing Seagulls Player commentary.

All the comments here are totally justified. At the club we fully appreciate that fans are paying for a product. We know match commentary is one of the main reasons many fans sign up and in this day and age it should be easy to provide.

Furthermore we also appreciate fans are investing time to listen, with some even getting up in the middle of the night, depending on time zones.

The simple fact is that the service should just work.

Paul Barber's email outlines the contractual situation, but in terms of the technical side of things we rely on BBC Sussex to dial into Perform's servers via an ISDN line.

The guys at the BBC studio are reliable, but there is no way of them monitoring the stream, short of sitting listening to the feed (which isn't their responsibility).

Two weeks ago we also tested the system over an entire day, streaming direct from BBC Sussex and the stream worked perfectly. Perform accepted this.

The stream worked well for the last three matches, and it seemed as if things were going well.

Pre match we checked the stream from Middlesbrough and it was running fine. Then in the first half we discovered the stream was dropping out intermittently.

Calls were made to Perform to rectify the situation - but once again there were no answers from the tech team as to the quality of the stream. They still cannot identify why the stream drops!!!

One option at this stage was to redial in (possible to another ISDN number at Perform) but we were reluctant to ask the BBC to do this, as when we did at Wigan we lost it completely for a prolonged period.

Alas, the feed dropped completely anyway. We then called the BBC and asked them to dial in again, and despite several attempts - nothing.

Eventually - after three irate calls to Perform - we were given a new number to dial, and the audio came back for the final four minutes. There were still a couple of intermittent drops in coverage, and still Perform cannot tell us whether this is an issue on the feed coming in, or whether it's an issue on the Player feed.

Moving forward we intend to provide a back-up stream, which we will provide a link to if, and when, the Player stream is not reliable or down - but the point is we should not have to do this, the service Perform are employed by FLi to provide should work

I've long since given up ranting about this subject - The service has been dire for years (see Mackenzie's e-mail which is very similar to god knows how many I've sent over the years). I'm now at the point where I'd like to fix it rather than moan about it and haven't even bothered trying it since Forest at home where the app didn't work and the I/net commentary lasted about 30 seconds.

Please can you ask Perform the following questions. Using a process of elimination we should be able to identify where some of the issues reside ;

What IP addresss is the server used by Perform?
Is there more than 1 server and does the ''away'' commentary reside on the same device as ''our'' commentary?
Are there are any devices (such as Firewalls) which are in the infrastructure which would stop continous PING to the above server?
What service is used to monitor network and server performance? (absolutely nothing I'd imagine but worth asking)

If we have that information, we could, at a network level, eliminate the server or have a smoking gun if the service goes down during a game. If we can get 10 NSC users to run a test file from 10 different locations during a game (I'll write it and co-ordinate it, getting a network time source will be the issue but I'll worry about that), we can at least start to get some facts about where the problem is. As ever in these issues, everyone blames everyone else.

 

[El Presidente]

Just got back from Middlesbrough and we should be toasting another magnificent away victory. Instead we spent the majority of the journey home discussing Seagulls Player commentary.

All the comments here are totally justified. At the club we fully appreciate that fans are paying for a product. We know match commentary is one of the main reasons many fans sign up and in this day and age it should be easy to provide.

Furthermore we also appreciate fans are investing time to listen, with some even getting up in the middle of the night, depending on time zones.

The simple fact is that the service should just work.

Paul Barber's email outlines the contractual situation, but in terms of the technical side of things we rely on BBC Sussex to dial into Perform's servers via an ISDN line.

The guys at the BBC studio are reliable, but there is no way of them monitoring the stream, short of sitting listening to the feed (which isn't their responsibility).

Two weeks ago we also tested the system over an entire day, streaming direct from BBC Sussex and the stream worked perfectly. Perform accepted this.

The stream worked well for the last three matches, and it seemed as if things were going well.

Pre match we checked the stream from Middlesbrough and it was running fine. Then in the first half we discovered the stream was dropping out intermittently.

Calls were made to Perform to rectify the situation - but once again there were no answers from the tech team as to the quality of the stream. They still cannot identify why the stream drops!!!

One option at this stage was to redial in (possible to another ISDN number at Perform) but we were reluctant to ask the BBC to do this, as when we did at Wigan we lost it completely for a prolonged period.

Alas, the feed dropped completely anyway. We then called the BBC and asked them to dial in again, and despite several attempts - nothing.

Eventually - after three irate calls to Perform - we were given a new number to dial, and the audio came back for the final four minutes. There were still a couple of intermittent drops in coverage, and still Perform cannot tell us whether this is an issue on the feed coming in, or whether it's an issue on the Player feed.

Moving forward we intend to provide a back-up stream, which we will provide a link to if, and when, the Player stream is not reliable or down - but the point is we should not have to do this, the service Perform are employed by FLi to provide should work

Thanks for the reply Insider. I hope our whinging didn't take too much of the gloss off another great win!

 

[Willy Dangle]

Response from my complaint after the game yesterday.

Thank you for your email.

Please accept our apologies for the issues you faced with the commentary today.

The issue has been investigated by the relevant team and are working round the clock to implement a comprehensive fix to ensure we do not have these issues again with coming round and to avoid such issues in the future.

 

[KZNSeagull]

Response from my complaint after the game yesterday.

Thank you for your email.

Please accept our apologies for the issues you faced with the commentary today.

The issue has been investigated by the relevant team and are working round the clock to implement a comprehensive fix to ensure we do not have these issues again with coming round and to avoid such issues in the future.

An exact copy of mine - you'd think that their standard emails actually made sense!

 

[glasfryn]

An exact copy of mine - you'd think that their standard emails actually made sense!

you are lucky you even got one in the early days when this happened I along with others got nothing
thinking about this IMHO there are too many people involved in this set-up too many people skimming their little bit off whereas if the club ran their own it would be down to one or two people
come on Albion do the right thing give this lot the big heave-ho and start your very own

 

[Rugrat]

An exact copy of mine - you'd think that their standard emails actually made sense!

Re my previous I think it's pointless complaining to them. They will be aware of the issue, have likely looked at it but haven't bothered to really get to the bottom of it because it's intermittent and will represent a cost to them.

It needs the club to play hard ball. Maybe exit the service completely and fight any threat of legal action. It might be the stimulus that Perform need to fix the thing ... it's not rocket science!

 

[KZNSeagull]

Re my previous I think it's pointless complaining to them. They will be aware of the issue, have likely looked at it but haven't bothered to really get to the bottom of it because it's intermittent and will represent a cost to them.

It needs the club to play hard ball. Maybe exit the service completely and fight any threat of legal action. It might be the stimulus that Perform need to fix the thing ... it's not rocket science!

Personally, I don't think the club should pay Perform's bill until it is sorted.

 

[Napper]

Paul Barber's email outlines the contractual situation, but in terms of the technical side of things we rely on BBC Sussex to dial into Perform's servers via an ISDN line.

ISDN ? Are we back in 1998 ?

 

[Shropshire Seagull]

Don't complain to the club, complain to the provider Perform but copy in the club.

Ok, so... scenario,

You go to your supermarket and purchase a box of cornflakes and for the 60th month on the trot there is only half the cornflakes in the box. You finally complain at the customer services counter and by way of an apology, they give you a free box for that month. Does this appease you?

If you pay your [SP subscription] money to Brighton and Hove Albion FC your contract is with them and so you should only ever communicate with and complain to then.

A much better analogy would be an internet service provider of your broadband service. Ignoring cable [ie Virgin Media] options, lets say you use any one of the many ISPs and pay your money monthly, to say TalkTalk. The ISP relies and uses the local BT exchange and the cables from the exchange to your property.

So, if you are getting poor or intermittent broadband connection, would you complain to TalkTalk or go direct to BT? Contractually, its TalkTalk's responsibility but they have subcontracted the supply of the product to BT [equipment], doesn't mean TalkTalk can excuse the failure or hide behind any BT inadequacies.

 

[Insider]

Personally, I don't think the club should pay Perform's bill until it is sorted.

The trouble is we don't pay them, the Football League do. It's part of the internet deal which expires in 2017.

 

[Insider]

If you pay your [SP subscription] money to Brighton and Hove Albion FC your contract is with them and so you should only ever communicate with and complain to then.

A much better analogy would be an internet service provider of your broadband service. Ignoring cable [ie Virgin Media] options, lets say you use any one of the many ISPs and pay your money monthly, to say TalkTalk. The ISP relies and uses the local BT exchange and the cables from the exchange to your property.

So, if you are getting poor or intermittent broadband connection, would you complain to TalkTalk or go direct to BT? Contractually, its TalkTalk's responsibility but they have subcontracted the supply of the product to BT [equipment], doesn't mean TalkTalk can excuse the failure or hide behind any BT inadequacies.

Subscribers pay their fees to Perform who are employed by the FL (who own the digital rights of all clubs - Leeds and Boro were PL when the deal was struck) to provide this service. It would help if they made this clear on the site.

 

[Insider]

If you pay your [SP subscription] money to Brighton and Hove Albion FC your contract is with them and so you should only ever communicate with and complain to then.

A much better analogy would be an internet service provider of your broadband service. Ignoring cable [ie Virgin Media] options, lets say you use any one of the many ISPs and pay your money monthly, to say TalkTalk. The ISP relies and uses the local BT exchange and the cables from the exchange to your property.

So, if you are getting poor or intermittent broadband connection, would you complain to TalkTalk or go direct to BT? Contractually, its TalkTalk's responsibility but they have subcontracted the supply of the product to BT [equipment], doesn't mean TalkTalk can excuse the failure or hide behind any BT inadequacies.

Subscribers pay their fees to Perform who are employed to provide this service by the FL (who own the digital rights of all clubs - Leeds and Boro were PL when the deal was struck which is why they are not in the deal). It would help if they made this clear on the site.

 

[Insider]

you are lucky you even got one in the early days when this happened I along with others got nothing
thinking about this IMHO there are too many people involved in this set-up too many people skimming their little bit off whereas if the club ran their own it would be down to one or two people
come on Albion do the right thing give this lot the big heave-ho and start your very own

We will aim to have our own back-up stream in place for Saturday, should the stream fail in future. We will then circulate a link to that stream.

 

[KZNSeagull]

The trouble is we don't pay them, the Football League do. It's part of the internet deal which expires in 2017.

Ah, I am with you. So only the football league could stop paying them for our portion.

Essentially then, just to clarify, this is a service imposed on us by the Football League, over which the club has no control other than to try and bang a few heads together at outside contractors, who are not particularly bothered because for the vast majority of clubs, the service works reasonably well.

 

[KZNSeagull]

We will aim to have our own back-up stream in place for Saturday, should the stream fail in future. We will then circulate a link to that stream.

Splendid!

 

[maltaseagull]

This is the reply I got from Customer Services:

Thank you for your email.

Sorry that we had technical issues with the commentary today.

I can confirm our technical team is working at the server end and monitor the commentary closely so that there wouldn’t be any issue for the upcoming games.

Sincere apologies for the inconvenience caused.

Best regards,
Amitha
Customer Services

To which I replied:

Thank you for your prompt reply, however it does not really inspire any confidence as I have been experiencing these technical issues for a long time. Yesterday was just the final straw. Indeed, if you take the time to follow the link I sent and really investigate my complaint rather than supply a template email reply, you will see that a good number of fellow supporters are considering terminating their subscriptions. The club has been advised of this situation and is also taking the complaint further.

I suggest that you escalate these complaints to your senior management and ask them to respond to the subscribers via the club or the website.

I will leave it for the club to deal with from here.

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

We will aim to have our own back-up stream in place for Saturday, should the stream fail in future. We will then circulate a link to that stream.

Thanks. This back-up stream will be much appreciated. Can I ask, if this stream works well I'd be happy to pay money to use it; is a permanent stream possible?

 

[Muzzy]

Still no one has explained why our feed is shit while other clubs works fine?

I've still not received a reply from Perform. Maybe that's because I have cancelled my subscription??