Archive for General

When Will You See Your Videos?

April 26, 2012 / The_Teach / No comments

I get asked quite often via Facebook and Twitter when certain videos or even whole series of videos are going to be available for viewing.

So I thought I would post some sort of guide in the blog to give you a rough idea of when you can start to see things coming through, plus I thought I would also describe the process here at Cuesport TV.

‘The Process’

Pretty much everything that is shown on the TV table at a given live event will also be recorded ‘as live’ directly to our system’s hard drive. I say ‘pretty much’ simply because on occasions matches do not get recorded.

After this recording the video files are then imported into our editing suite and most of the time shortened to cut out all the re-racking and boring bits! This in itself can take a fair amount of time for each match, sometimes up to 2 hours.

From here the video file is then exported into a suitable digital format to give us a decent quality file for use on the web. It is this file that is then used to create other multiple file formats. The export process takes between 20 and 60 minutes dependent on the file size.

The files are then ready for upload to our system, this is the bit that takes a lot of time, a 1GB video file takes around 4 hours to upload as we are constrained by the connection speed we have here.

The records are then created on the website that the video’s slot into (or nothing would play) and the files are transcoded, this makes them available in a variety of formats for when we create an app or change video player.

That’s pretty much the whole process and you can see that one video file takes around 10 hours to complete (most of that done by a computer in fairness).

Release Dates

UPC-BUCS 8-Ball Championships 2012 -10 videos from this event have already been released in the 8-Ball Pool Video category. You will need to go to around page 16 to find the videos until the search feature is enabled.

The rest of the UPC content will be available by: Wednesday May 2nd

EBPF County Finals 2012 – I have brought in an extra editor to complete this series of matches to try and speed up the process a little bit and to clear a bit of the backlog.

Available by: Monday May 14th

European Blackball Championships 2012 - This is a popular series of videos as so many players got to play in front of the Cuesport TV camera’s, this series will be edited straight after the completion of the UPC-BUCS videos and will start to come through the system by mid-May.

Available by: Thursday May 31st

GB9 Paul Medati Trophy – Two matches have already been made available from this tournament but in un-edited form, these are the final and semi-final of the Pro Cup event. The rest of the matches from the Pro Cup and the main event will be edited and made available by mid-June.

Available by: Friday June 15th

Any other videos from other events will be after this date. I know we are still due to complete some GB9 content from last year plus we have another live event set for 20th May as well so please bear with us.

I hope this post gives you an indication of what and when you can expect certain things from Cuesport TV, and please do hold me accountable for the dates!

Category: 9-ball Pool, English/UK Pool, General, Live Event News / Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Traffic Up From 32% – 47%

January 23, 2012 / The_Teach / No comments

As a website owner I am constantly measuring the traffic that the sites I own receive. One of those is of course Cuesport TV.

There are a number of in depth analyses that can be done but my basic key performance indicators are Unique Visitors, Number of Visits and then Page Views over a given time period.

Normally I look at 8 KPI’s for Cuesport TV on a weekly basis, but since the release of the embed players last week I wanted to just have a quick look at the traffic levels from this weekend compared to last.

Comparing these two weekends on the three areas mentioned above the traffic levels rose 32% for the number of Page Views; 41% for the number of Visits and 47% for the number of Unique Users.

OK, so this has only been compared across one weekend but it does show that the Embed players will have an impact long term.

For those that may be interested we use Webtrends for the data analysis on Cuesport TV and we use Google Analytics for all of our other sites including this blog. Some of the data that can be farmed is astonishing and I will be looking at some of the more interesting things that come out of this in a later blog post.

If you own a website and would like to have a customised video player (like the one in the right side bar of this blog) built for your site then please contact us on enquiries@cuesport.tv you can tell us the size requirements of the player and can also help in selecting the kind of content you want to show.

Category: General / Tags: , , ,

Finally the Embeds are Working

January 19, 2012 / The_Teach / No comments

Firstly, you will notice a completely updated version of the Cuesport TV Blog, it would be great to hear your opinions in the comments below.

On the right hand side of the blog you will see a small video player, this is an embedded video player running a Cuesport TV playlist. On this particular player it is running the featured videos from the front page of Cuesport TV but it can be used to run any selected list of videos from our archive.

Now we have it working (and it’s taken a while) we are offering custom made video players to other websites that may want one. You can have a custom size and also take some part in which videos you would like to have in the playlist.

The playlist is updated and maintained by ourselves and will contain ads, however, if you want a specific video to play on your website then we can adjust the list to suit you.

If you would like a custom Cuesport TV Video player for your website then please contact us on enquiries@cuesport.tv

Category: General / Tags: , , , , ,

Top 5 Most Watched Videos – Quarter Four 2011

January 10, 2012 / The_Teach / No comments

Below you will find our top 5 most watched videos during the final quarter of 2011. Each one will be linked directly to the video on the Cuesport TV website.

Not surprising to be honest that 8-ball pool dominates very heavily in the top 5 list.

1. Richie Oliver v Simon Ward – Welsh Open Final – Takes the top spot for the whole quarter despite only being available since Monday 28th November!

2. European Blackball Championships – Under 23 Singles Final – Part 1 – Good to see the youth getting involved, David Carrie plays Chris Brown.

3. Darren Appleton v Daryl Peach – MMTV 3-Man Team Event – Two World Champions battle it out in a short race in the first MMTV 3-man team event, also the first 9-ball match to feature in the top 5.

4. Dish of the Day – Episode 7 – Gareth Potts – Former WEPF 8-ball World Champion makes it into the list with a nice dish against Oly Bale.

5. Oly Bale v Gareth Potts – Money Match – Part 10 of 10 – Final part of this big money match originally shown live in 2010.

So this is the top 5 according to our statistics but what was your favourite video to watch last year at Cuesport TV?

Category: General / Tags: , , , ,

Quality

January 9, 2012 / The_Teach / No comments

Getting hold of quality live events is becoming tougher these days, so if you have a tournament, money match or exhibition that could do with some live coverage then please let us know!

Category: General / Tags: , , ,

Learning Something New in 2012

January 8, 2012 / The_Teach / No comments

I have been operating websites since 2004 but I have never had more than a very basic knowledge (as in I can just about format text) of coding.

Every time I had a site built it was done so by a professional company built to my requirements, now although I am very capable of running the CMS I have decided to try to learn something new this year and have signed up with Codecademy. The company offers free, easy-to-use, interacyive courses to teach yourself the coding languages used on the web today.

I have blasted through the early lessons in Javascript and find it very easy to just dip in for around half an hour each day or when I feel like it with no requirements for essays or exams. You simply learn at your own pace by typing code snippets where prompted.

If you are interested in the web, run a blog or moderate a forum this might be ideal for you as well.

Category: General / Tags: , , ,

Good Old Days

January 7, 2012 / The_Teach / No comments

Since we moved to the new website back in May last year the focus has been mainly on making available brand new content that hasn’t been seen before. We have made a concerted effort to try and get coverage from live events edited and available much more quickly on demand than in the past (sometimes this is not always possible).

In complete comparison to this there is a whole host of content dating back from 2008/2009 that was at one-time available on the old website. We get requests quite often from players that have participated in these events asking when the footage will be made available again. The biggest constraint is upload time, a 1gig file takes about 4 hours to upload on the connection we have and you cannot do multiple files at once.

What we have decided to do though is to still focus our intention on the main website. As best we can we will be releasing at least 5-10 new videos per week at Cuesport TV. To supplement this we will be making better use of our YouTube presence and will start uploading some of this older content to the world’s second largest search engine. We are not setting a timeline for this but you can be assured that you will start to see more activity from us on YouTube over the coming weeks and months.

If you haven’t done so already then please have a look and subscribe to our YouTube channel here: Youtube.com/Cuesporttv

Category: General / Tags: , ,

Twitter Impact or do I Mean Twimpact?

January 5, 2012 / The_Teach / No comments

I have been involved with Twitter since 2009 and as a marketing tool it is reasonably effective with at times links from the micro-blogging site accounting for 5% of our web traffic (this just dramatically depend on what I am posting of course and varies hugely month-on-month). Not bad for something that is entirely free!

The impact (twimpact?) of a given Twitter post now though seems to have huge changes in it’s effectiveness as there is so much noise. By noise I simply mean useless posts that really have no meaning, of course they have meaning to the people posting and perhaps to their inner-circle but mean nothing to the vast majority.

I realise that these people can just be ‘unfollowed’ but in some cases they are the same people that I am targeting with Cuesport TV posts. One of the keys to success on Twitter is engaging with posts on the site and making sure you follow some/all of these relevant people as that in turn may mean that you get followed back and the effectiveness of your posts grow.

I have to be honest and say that I have started ‘dialing-out’ of some of these accounts, just yesterday I unfollowed around 100 people (some inactive to be fair) that I have not had any interaction with.

I think to sum up (and really get to the point of this post) I have to say that although Twitter is an excellent marketing channel for businesses and brands (if you have a small business and do not have an account then I implore you to do so) it is not just about numbers in order to be successful.

Hard work is of course needed to build a relationship with key people within your niche area but the volume of followers or people you follow do not matter, but the quality of the people following you and that you follow does. You get to this through better interaction and offering something that people want to read.

You can Follow Cuesport TV here.

Category: General / Tags: , , ,

What I’m Reading

January 4, 2012 / The_Teach / No comments

Away from the world of cue sports I do have an interest in a lot of other areas, namely football, music, film and books.

Last year I struggled to get through as many books as I would have liked and didn’t really make the time to do read but this year I plan on reading at least two books per month.

I like to read fiction like the current novel I have on the go The Tiger Warrior by David Gibbins (Aff. Link) but also read a lot of business, technology and Internet types of books as well.

Last year I did manage to finally get around to reading Gary Vaynerchuk’s first book Crush It! where he offers a very interesting insight into ‘cashing in on your passion’. If you have never heard of Gary Vaynerchuk and you are interested in Internet business then he has to be someone that you make a note of, he oozes passion and teaches some very useful lessons.

The next book on my list is actually he follow up called The Thank You Economy, I will try and write a review after I have finished it.

Anything else I should be checking out?

Category: General / Tags: , , ,

Your Product, Book, Club or Service

January 3, 2012 / The_Teach / No comments

Many people that read this blog and access Cuesport TV are players of the games that we all love, however, there are also may of you out there that own a business, have written a book or provide a service (whether this be billiards related or not).

I would like to extend an open hand to you and offer you the chance to promote yourself on Cuesport TV and the related websites that we operate.

January Sale!

Our standard rate for 12 months of banner advertising is a very low £650.00 (+ VAT if applicable), however as everyone else is in the January sales mood I thought we could be as well.

If you sign-up to a 12-month banner advertising campaign in January 2012 you can get it at the introductory price of only £500.00 (+ VAT) a saving of 23%.

Benefits of Advertising with Us:

  • Low Cost
  • High Impact, industry standard large banner sizes (728×90 and 300×250)
  • 350,000 banner views per month
  • 18000-26000 Viewers per month across all sites
  • Change Your banner creative as often as you like, simply send us new files and within 4-6 hours your new adverts will appear at no extra cost. Ideal if you want to run a promotion.
  • Additional promotion via online press release and our Twitter and Facebook channels
  • 79% Male Audience
  • Predominantly in the 18-35 age range
  • Viewers interested in sports, mobiles, TV, film, clothing, alcohol and gambling
We also have a permanent banner placement that appears on the right side of the main Cuesport TV website, this does not rotate and is priced at £3000.00 per year – book now and get this prime web real estate for just £2000.00 for the whole of 2012. We can also do shorter one-month campaigns on this space from £300.00 per month.
Book Your Campaign Now!
If you want to book your campaign now then contact us on enquiries@cuesport.tv or call me (Pete Williams) on 07748 604771.
Likewise if you want further information then please use the same contact methods above, Cuesport TV wants to work with you in 2012.
Category: General / Tags: , , ,
« Older Entries  
Wordpress Theme by ThemeZee