NHL CI/Gamecenter Live

[darthma]

I agree re: GC >> CI. Gamecenter last year for $50 was amazing. The fact that it's super portable made it really worth it for me. I'll gladly pay $150 this year to get it. I watched it on my iPad while in the kitchen, while 'watching TV' with my wife, while working late I would pop it up on the 2nd monitor. Every now and then it can be choppy, but not enough for me to ever be frustrated. It really didn't bug me at all.

[Hanna Sniper]

Originally Posted by Clever_Iggy

OT - anyone know if there's the equivalent for NFL? There's the NFL Rewind but that sounds super lame. Do you have to have cable to get NFL streaming online?

Game Pass
NFL preseason - regular season $205
NFL with playoffs - $255

[Clever_Iggy]

Originally Posted by Hanna Sniper

Game Pass
NFL preseason - regular season $205
NFL with playoffs - $255

What am I missing... I only get the rewind/audio options:

https://gamepass.nfl.com/nflgp/secure/packages

EDIT: nvm... my work computer access runs through the USA... where Game Pass isn't available. Thanks Hanna

[nwflamesfan]

Originally Posted by The Swedish Flame

Is it a legal service?

No it is not. They offer the same illegal streams that you can access from a handful of free websites but they just charge you for them.

[The Swedish Flame]

Originally Posted by skippy

So if sportsnet is showing a game, I can't watch that live on gamecenter but can watch the opposing team's broadcast? Is that how it works?

I think the game would be blacked out completely, on both broadcasts. Someone can correct me if this is wrong.

[calgarywinning]

The game would be blacked out completely. One of the major faults of the product IMHO. Understand they need to protect TV rights, but maybe they should patch into the network on blackouts for seamless service, commercials and all.

[UKflames]

I've registered for GC for the past few years, since they made it available to Europe, and the service is fantastic. The majority of the time I run it through my Xbox, although it did have some problems last year thinking I was logged into too many devices and I had to relog in all of the time.

I shall be going for it again this year, although the blackouts are a pain especially come the playoffs. The NHL sold some games to a tiny satellite channel, that i would never waste my money on, meaning when the playoffs came around i couldn't watch half of them.

BUT overall a great sevice.

[jaydub74]

So for us cable cutters there is no legal online service that will allow us to watch all 82 flames games. We'd only get tsn and CBC games. Anything on sportsnet would be blacked out? Is that correct?

If so that sucks as the majority of televised games are on sportsnet.

[Barnet Flame]

Originally Posted by devo22

really? if I go to NHL.com, it says $99.95 in one payment or $19.99 in five installments

EDIT: nevermind, I wrote a mail to the customer support and they replied:

Registration for GameCenter Live is now available world-wide (except in Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Norway and Iceland). All games are available on-demand. Select games may be blacked out live in some countries. NHL Gamecenter Live costs $149.99 in the United States and Canada and $99.99 overseas.

I love living overseas!

[Barnet Flame]

Originally Posted by vicarious

I cut cable and used game center live last year. There were a lot of technical issues early in the season or the game center app would crash but it seems like the NHL eventually sorted stuff out and everything operated quite flawlessly after the first couple of weeks.

There is a couple minutes delay from the live broadcast and every once in a while the sound would fall out of sync with the picture which was easily resolved by simply reloading the stream.

I have tried streaming on Xbox360, my 6 year old laptop and apple TV. I found the apple TV was by far the best quality picture and stream. Xbox was choppy and would buffer a lot. The laptop was a fallback as whenever there we technical issues with the devices the computer would still somehow work. I have Shaw broadband 50. Not sure if it works as well with a slower connection...

I will signing up again this season.

Every year the same thing happens at the start of the season and then the problems get corrected. I love GCL with all my heart.

[jayswin]

Originally Posted by jaydub74

So for us cable cutters there is no legal online service that will allow us to watch all 82 flames games. We'd only get tsn and CBC games. Anything on sportsnet would be blacked out? Is that correct?

If so that sucks as the majority of televised games are on sportsnet.

Yeah, that's why I can't believe there's so many cable cutters out there. I just don't get it. I've tried watching online streams and game centre feeds, and they all bug me. Like enough that there's no way I'd cut my cable, where I get all 82 Flames games until there's an alternative that offers me all 82 Flames games in HD quality, with ZERO choppiness.

We spent how many years getting to the point where we could have all Flames games televised in HD, and now we get there and everyone's going "Meh, whatever, I'll catch the games I catch, or watch illegal **** streams or whatever." I'm just not there.

[UKflames]

Originally Posted by Barnet Flame

Every year the same thing happens at the start of the season and then the problems get corrected. I love GCL with all my heart.

+1 for those of us stuck on the wrong side of the pond GCL is the best thing since cold beer

[Coach]

How does the CI package work for playoffs. Is it a separate charge?

[MoreDrank]

Originally Posted by MattyC

How does the CI package work for playoffs. Is it a separate charge?

Not included in Gamecenter or Center Ice. Last year, the reasoning was NBC was streaming them online as long as you lived in the states and bought cable there. Canadians were left out in the cold. The only online option was to watch the series the CBC had the rights to.

[Coach]

hmmm sounds like ill be re-installing cable for a couple months in the spring...

[nfotiu]

Originally Posted by jaydub74

So for us cable cutters there is no legal online service that will allow us to watch all 82 flames games. We'd only get tsn and CBC games. Anything on sportsnet would be blacked out? Is that correct?

If so that sucks as the majority of televised games are on sportsnet.

Seems like a lot of people have success buying game center, and using proxy/vpn services to make it look like they are in the US, and thus get every game. I figure as more and more people do this though, one of the rights holders (who are in many cases, the cable company) will raise a stink and get the NHL to crack down on this. So, you do take a small risk that you will buy GC for that reason and get shut down part way through the year. Also, if you care about such things, your money is going to the nhl, vs the 3-4/month you were sending the Flames through your cable subscription. The easy rebuttal to that though is that the greedy rights owners could sell you a stand alone online package of Flames games, but choose not to.

I am surprised at people thinking the quality of GC is acceptable though. The picture is clear enough, but the frame rate is just awful to look at. They are only sending half the frame-rate of what we get through regular HDTV, and hockey looks too jerky. I'd take a smooth 480p over the jerkiness, as I just can't enjoy sitting and watching 30fps hockey. It kind of gives me the feeling of motion sickness or something.

So if sportsnet is showing a game, I can't watch that live on gamecenter but can watch the opposing team's broadcast? Is that how it works?

No, both coverages would be blacked out for all games that are on sports net. The reason for this, is Roger's buys the Flames rights, and gets exclusive rights to all the games they buy. The NHL agrees not to compete with them by offering other ways to view the games.

[Barnet Flame]

If you are in Europe, GCL includes the play-offs. But in the UK we don't get live coverage of the semi finals and SCF because some two bit pos channel has exclusive rights

[UKflames]

Originally Posted by Barnet Flame

If you are in Europe, GCL includes the play-offs. But in the UK we don't get live coverage of the semi finals and SCF because some two bit pos channel has exclusive rights

Do you know if they have the rights this year as well, i cannot find how long the contract was for??

I never understand how the NHL feels this is a better deal than everyone subscribing to GCL.

Edit: I think we have this conversation every year :-)

[Barnet Flame]

Haha, we do.

Unfortunately PS are only entering the 2nd year of a 4 year contract. You'll note that this will be their third season but the first year was a one year agreement.

Even though I subscribe to PS, I despair that they have the rights. Their heart is in the right place but it is an extremely amateurish outfit and it shows.

At least now, they have premier player for streaming, but stupid glitches such as screenshots showing the ####ing score of the game you're about to select pissed me off.

[UKflames]

@Barnetflame Seiously you subscribe to PS, stop encouraging them and they might not renew