After months of me talking about it on this blog, Facebook and Twitter, In the Frame, our magazine show, finally launched with the pilot episode today.
This first episode features Ben Davies and Mel Harley and was filmed at Snook’s in Weymouth last month.
The 2nd year Media degree students at Weymouth College were reposnsible for the filming, directing and editing and have done quite a nice job.
The only thing that lets it down is my good self in the presenters role!
We need two presenters for this show in future preferably one male and one female quite young and interested in either sport as a whole or with a specific interest in pool and snooker. If you are interested in this then drop us an email to intheframe@cuesport.tv
You can watch the first 18 minute trial episode by following this link:
Cuesport TV Launch In The Frame - You can still enter the on screen competition!
General
cuesport tv, in the frame, magazine show, pool, snooker
Back last year we trialled some HD streaming using our platform and the results were very nice. The response to the videos was also excellent. It always was the plan to complete full length matches in high definition.
Due to the nature of the web and the fact that people are generally watching on a smaller screen to their TV we have opted to rollout out the full length videos in 720p high definition.
The data rates of streaming a HD video mean a download speed of around 4meg is required to watch the videos without buffering.
The first of these full length matches is now available and is the first round match (Chris Melling v James Kay) at the GB9 British Grand Prix Pro Cup event last year. Please do tell us if we are wrong but we also think that this is a web first. Cuesport TV has become the first streaming channel to provide a full length 9-ball pool match in high definition.
The rest of this tournamnt, a further four matches, will also be HD encoded.
For those viewers that struggle to watch the HD versions due to low bandwidth then a standard version is also available for viewing.
Please let us know your thoughts on the videos and if you experience any problems. The best way to find out if you can view them without buffering is to run a speedtest.
9-ball Pool, General
9-ball Pool, cuesport tv, hd streaming, high definition, streaming, video
I have already released some details over the proposed Tri-nations tournament. At this time it has already been extended to a Four-Nations with France confirming a team. There is also the possibility of Spain wanting to enter as well.
Although that is great news that teams want to play the events, it also poses somewhat of a dilemma.
Finding a definitive calendar is not at all easy as each promoter, tour, governing and nation seem to have their own with nobody compiling an overall calendar.
What I thought I might do is set one up that everyone can edit and add events to. Hopefully this would eliminate date clashes and would actually mean it is easier for players to know what is going on.
On the plus side the contact I have had from other nations encourages me as it shows that high quality Blackball events are required.
English/UK Pool, General
blackball, calendar, dates, four-nations, tournaments
Back in late December I set the challenge of trying to get 1000 fans to the Cuesport TV Facebook Fanpage by January 31st.
I can announce that even with another 4-odd hours remaining we have passed the target.
What this means is, that as promised, we will make a £100 donation to the Paul Hunter Foundation. In addition we will be awarding a £50 voucher to one fan to be used at Billiards Boutique.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone that supported the challenge and have either discovered or continued enjoying Cuesport TV. I now have to think up another challenge and fundraiser to push us over the 2000 fan target and beyond.
Later this year (probably March) we will have an exclusive Guinness Record attempt that will be shown live online throughout the duration. For this we will be asking for donations from our viewers and fans to raise some good cash for an excellent cause.
So once again, Big Thanks!
General
billiards boutique, cuesport tv, facebook, fundraising, paul hunter foundation
It has been a testing time over the last couple of weeks, the last two events we had scheduled had to be cancelled (event still happened we were not there) due to two problems with our vehicle.
This led to us purchasing a new car, nice, but financially not so!
It’s actually quite laughable in hindsight as en route to Bristol we lost the radiator, had that fixed and then on the way to Barnsley we made the end of our road before the exhaust fell off!
Oh, and when we broke down on the way to Bristol we didn’t have our breakdown cover or insurance details, couldn’t remember them between us and ended up having to fork out for RAC cover, live is good!
No such problems anymore though.
I am just sorry we did not make it to the events, sounds like we missed a couple of great tournaments.
There is a lot that goes on behind-the-scenes as with every business I for one am someone that just does not like letting people down, especially when we have made a commitment.
General
breakdown, car, events, gb9, live events, live pool
It has been a while coming but I thought I would post some early news about a brand new show that Cuesport TV are producing called ‘In the Frame’.
The show will have a magazine feel with fresh, young presenters, initially the show will be live for 30 minutes once per month with the possibility of extending this to 1 hour twice monthly based on the results of the trial period.
Each show will feature two guests, interviews, ‘Rackrunner Challenge’, news, events calendar and competitions. A date and guests for the first show are not yet confirmed but it is likely that snooker professional Ricky Walden and Managing Director of Global Snooker, Neil Tomkins will take part.
The live show (and video-on-demand) will be completely free and there is the possibility of website owners taking an embedded version of the show to place on their own websites.
Each month will take a different feel with guests from the world of pool and american pool lined up for future editions. It is not only about the playing side of the game however as cuemakers, manufacturers, coaching and media pundits are also lined up for 2009/10 onwards.
When the date is confirmed I will post again but please look out for this one it will be a celebration of cue sports every month!
I forgot to mention that it is being produced in conjunction with Weymouth College Media Dept. Students on the degree course will be given the opportunity to take part in all aspects of the production as part of the work experience element required on the course.
More information later.
General
cuesport tv, in the frame, pool, ricky walden, snooker, weymouth college
I have just sent out a number of tweets via @cuesporttv mentioning the fact that we seem to have had a number of video files go walkabout!
I must thank Jon Shapland for letting me know in detail what the issue was otherwise we may never have found them. It seems when we moved content from Cuesport TV across to 8-Ball Pool TV some of the files decided to find a new life in the etherworld. Good luck to them!
Thanks to file-cloning we have managed to track down files with a similar gene pool and are slowly integrating them back into the system.
If you find any videos or other media on any of our channels that come up with ‘Media Off Line’ then please let us know, no need to call the authorities we don’t want to be shutdown for video file neglect.
Thanks for your help.
General
8-ball, 8-ball pool tv, cuesport tv, jon shapland, video files
Absolutely gutted!
We were supposed to be at the 8-ball Super Tour event this weekend and left this morning at 8.00am for the relatively short drive to Keynsham.
All was well until we reached Dorchester (about 12 miles) and then smoke started pouring out of the engine, I suppose in hindsight the temperature gauge being above the red should have been a sign, in fact if it could have gone any further round it would have been back at zero!
Pulling over was the answer and then loads of phone calls later we got the RAC out, this was £129.50 well spent! We had breakdown cover with our insurance but as we didn’t have the details with us nobody could help.
A trip to a garage in Dorchester confirmed the problem as the radiator. No replacement available until Monday and no courtesy car available until Monday either. Bugger!
We drove home and are still here, needless to say there will be no live coverage from the 8-ball Super Tour this weekend. We do apologise if this has cause anyone any inconvenience but it is unfortunately something we cannot help.
Hopefully we will be fighting fit next week so we can return to action.
Again our apologies.
English/UK Pool, General
8-ball super tour, breakdown cover, car breakdown, live pool, rac, radiator
This last couple of weeks I have spent a lot of time adding brand new video content to Cuesport TV. Never has there been so much video added in such a short space of time. It is my belief that this is what will drive the channel forward in terms of revenues and viewers, which incidentally go hand-in-hand.
Anyone trying to make revenue from video online with either a subscription or advertising model firstly needs viewers. Without people accessing the channel (or channels in our case) then there is never a chance of revenue being made. This is a very simple thing to write, but in essense is not overly easy to achieve without the right kind of optimisation or funding.
It is something that we have always wanted to develop, and it would be interesting to know how many people are actually searching for pool and snooker related video. What would also be interesting would be to know where they are searching. My estimate would be that most of these searches are carried out on video sharing sites like YouTube. If that is the case it calls into question the business model. The only other way to drive high levels of traffic is to have relevant content and then to pay for it.
We have peaked at around 42,000 viewers in a calendar month and on average viewers are watching for around 26 minutes. The new platform has made it easier for a viewer to find content yet we don’t seem to find people sharing it, I would love to know why.
Have we reached our peak in terms of viewers? What can be done to generate more interest for what we do? Is there really not a massive market for what we offer?
I think I will develop this in a future blog post, if you have any thoughts, good or bad please let me know.
General
cuesport tv, internet, online video, optimisation, traffic, video revenue
I have always seen the potential of Cuesport TV as that of an online community, at this moment, the users have not quite embraced this though.
I am coming up with a few things like getting users to send us their own content, this is both video and of course photos. But how can we further develop Cuesport TV as a ‘community hub’?
I would be glad of any ideas.
The first thing I am looking for is amateur videographers/photographers to showcase some of their work with us, as long as the video work or photographs have some element of pool, snooker or billiards then we are interested.
You can email us with any ideas to enquiries @ cuesport.tv or post a comment on this blog.
General
community, cue sport, cuesport tv, cuesports, photographs, pool, snooker, video
