This last year has been the biggest joke and most depressing for a hockey fan outside north america.
The very early season they played what could only be described as cheap APP ad's for games, apps...
Here is my final post after months of requesting help from the NHL trying to figure out why I had perfect streaming quality up until the mid game, and worsening in the 3rd period.. With expert net guys helping, the NHL support forums is quite literally a outsourced joke of a tech support forum which pretty much says "have you tried turning it on and off again" as their motto.
I spent time with the NHL and its home office about 6 years ago trying to get Iceland streaming to work on Gamecenter. Back then I had some solid help. This year, everything changed, it used to just stream, without problems, but this entire year as I spent hours upon hours with the help of experts with CCIE certs and net guys who could not explain why my connection in Iceland ALWAYS had perfect streaming up until about mid way in the 2nd period and as it got later in the 3rd it became unbearable.
The support on these forums has been a joke, I work as an IT guy myself, and the advice and support I have gotten here has been something you would expect from a tiny company, not the NHL!
I even gave up trying to watch games live, which was after midnight my time, and decided to try watching them the day after, but to my amazement, the NHL was not satisfied with taking my money, but they forced me to watch commercials of games that had already been shown!
NHL, you need to hire a new IT company ASAP, the people running your tech support are a joke, the early season you had commercials outside the US and Canada that made viewers wonder if they had a virus (cheap, APP commercials) that everyone laughed about until you removed them.
I tried watching NHL TV on my phone, on my brothers TV, and on my own TV, the same problem happens every time.
NHL GC outside of North America is a complete joke, the NBA, MLB, the NFL, all have flawless streaming, flawless service and the NHL tries to milk even the few EU and non North American viewers with cheap android/apple app ads, and after enough complaints they finally stop them a month in to the season, then they can't stream a HD game without issues and spend quite literally the entirety of the remainder of the season telling people the problem is on our end, not the mighty NHL and quality that they provide....
__________________ Allskonar fyrir Aumingja!!
The Following 4 Users Say Thank You to Thor For This Useful Post:
Isn't it now NHL.TV outside of North American and it is run by MLB.TV?
I was excited when they made the switch however the new system is not really an improvement. There is still a ridiculous delay, the PVR controls sometimes don't work and are not available on the mobile apps, the ability to choose your stream quality has been removed so you are at the mercy of adaptive streaming, and they still black out pre-game/intermission/post game shows on some networks for some reason.
The only thing is has going for it is a really cheap price and it is legal.
__________________
The masses of humanity have always had to surf.
The Following User Says Thank You to FireGilbert For This Useful Post:
Weird, I don't get any ads on my GC, just "NHL will be back after this intermission" or something to that effect. Also, streaming is near perfect the whole game. Must be the ice up there
The Following User Says Thank You to expatflame For This Useful Post:
Weird, I don't get any ads on my GC, just "NHL will be back after this intermission" or something to that effect. Also, streaming is near perfect the whole game. Must be the ice up there
I think it depends on where you are using it from. I'm in China and I can't log in without going through a VPN (I think because when it signs in it goes through Facebook for some reason).
Anyways, if I am using Japan as my Ip address I will get Japanese commercials, but if I use Hong Kong I usually don't get anything, just like what you said. I'm guessing South Africa, Hong Kong, Thailand don't have any sponsors so they just show the "NHL will be back after this intermission"
The controls are don't often work for me as well. Frustrating when you're trying to fast forward before the commercials come on. And why are there commercials on a paid service anyway? NHL TV does suck, mostly.
Ëxtremelly satisfied customer this season, but mainly, and I mean MAINLY thanks to Kodi addon for official sub. Unwatchable via browser or ps4 app, where it constantly buffers,freezes and changes quality of the stream. But with Kodi addon for official sub it is AMAZING! 60fps 5Mbit flawless stream. It is as good as the Flames are last few months :-)
The Following 5 Users Say Thank You to calgaryboy For This Useful Post:
Mine's been OK. The HD resolution of the streaming is outstanding. Sometimes if it gets very poor when my bandwidth is slow, but I blame that more on my shoddy, cheap ISP than anyone else.
I do get annoyed that these Apps get dramatically overhauled every year or two. You had a perfectly good Gamecenter app a couple of years ago but I guess they decided they have tech developers on the payroll so may as well put em to use... I'm sometimes glad that my grandpa didn't live to see this era of 'planned obsolescence' – it would have driven him insane.
The Following User Says Thank You to FlameZilla For This Useful Post:
I watch the US version mostly on Roku, and other than 2 outages where the game wasn't available until the second period, the quality has been flawless, silky smooth 60fps. It maybe bufferred 2 or 3 times this whole season, and it is very rare that I see any down rezzing.
I have GC/NHL.TV for the first time this season. Because of this, I was able to cut my cable completely. But it's not perfect. It gets a pass from me, but it's not without issues:
-Sometimes the browser will just completely reset itself. You'll be watching a game, click FF to advance thru the commercials and the window will reset itself. It hasn't done it that much recently, but it was really bad to start the year
-The time bar is often inaccurate and it doesn't even tell you how much time has elapsed. So if the browser window does reset, unless you remember exactly where the time bar was, you have to guess.
-The FF button is a joke. Who the hell FF's by 10 seconds? Why is there no setting to at least change it. Not only does every PVR remote in TV history FF by 30 seconds, but it's a well known fact that NHL TV breaks are 90 seconds. Why the hell would someone make it 10 seconds, with no option to edit it?
-The xbox one app blows. I would actually prefer to watch it on my xbone because it always gets 60 FPS. But when watching a game at a later time and having to FF thru the breaks, it often freezes halfway thru. There is no time bar to scroll thru either, so you have to FF back to you original place. No good.
-Why no 60 FPS feature when using a web browser. The capability is there since over devices can stream it. So why not Chrome??
-The blackouts are stupid. Stupid stupid stupid. 2017 and we can't watch any game we want with a purchased subscription because of stupid blackout rules. Damn you for making me use a VPN.
-Like the OP, I've heard tech support is a bunch of imbeciles who can't/won't do anything to help.
Overall I'll keep GC because I don't want to have to subscribe with cable again. It has it's hiccups, but I give it a 7/10 overall.
The Following User Says Thank You to Huntingwhale For This Useful Post:
hmm. i have had great luck this year in the Netherlands. never buffering though the apple tv, no commercials. the previous 3 years is a different story. I also have mlb and nfl packages and the nhl was a trainwreck in years past comparatively, but this year its been great. the only problem is on the ipad if i get too far from the router upstairs, but same problem exists on the mlb tv and nfl package.
I had the same issues today Thor. There was a massive storm in Brisbane though so I thought that could've lead to issues.
Overall the pre Mlb version was superior. A lot of Canadian expats here are disappointed with the new app. We also get cheap ads and they prevent you from skipping commercials. They also stopped cutting games down after a few hours. The old GC would do that when I'd watch the game later and it was fantastic.
Mlb's app had similar issues when I used it in Australia.
I watch the US version mostly on Roku, and other than 2 outages where the game wasn't available until the second period, the quality has been flawless, silky smooth 60fps. It maybe bufferred 2 or 3 times this whole season, and it is very rare that I see any down rezzing.
Same exact setup for me as well (Roku). Besides the 2 outages mentioned above--I really love it, and have it running smoothly all the time.
Ëxtremelly satisfied customer this season, but mainly, and I mean MAINLY thanks to Kodi addon for official sub. Unwatchable via browser or ps4 app, where it constantly buffers,freezes and changes quality of the stream. But with Kodi addon for official sub it is AMAZING! 60fps 5Mbit flawless stream. It is as good as the Flames are last few months :-)
Will add my appreciation for quality and ease of use with my subscription and the Kodi addon.
Highly recommended versus browser of nhl app
The Following User Says Thank You to EldrickOnIce For This Useful Post:
Cancelling NHL GC after 5 years
