CueSport TV - The Blog

With the first ever World Six Reds Snooker Championships this week in Killarney already in full swing my question is can the six red game revitalise snooker? Can it become the Twenty/20 game that changed the fortune of cricket?

Something that obviously goes in it’s favour is that fact that with only six reds on the table the game is much quicker, frames are won or lost with one visit.

In order to be certain that you have won a six red frame you need to make six reds and six colours. This probably does add an element of pressure, however most of the top pro’s can make a 60 break at each visit anyway so does it not become a bit of a lottery?

The thing about this World Championships which has been good has been the amateur element, we sure World Ladies champion, Reanne Evans beat John Higgins in the group stage, yet still most of the top seeds got through.

The benefit to the amateurs is that a decent level amateur can also consistently make 50 or 60 point breaks and can really do some damage in these events.

As yet I have not had chance to watch the coverage on Eurosport due to meetings so I would love your thoughts on the coverage, the tournament and whether or not you think six reds has a future.

General Snooker six red, six reds, snooker, world championships

This week there is of course the latest World Snooker ranking event, the Grand Prix.

Whenever there is a ranking event on this blog seems to get more traffic, thanks World Snooker, due to the fact that people are searching for live snooker streaming.

Now as a web tv channel operator, we at Cuesport TV do not condone any of the illegal streams that can be found on the web. I would also beg the question, why would you want to watch one, they are poor quality and generally on poor websites as well.

There are a number of places you can watch the Grand Prix Snooker legally online. I list them below:

1. The BBC Sport Website (UK Only)
2. ViewTV - The BBC channels are available on this video platform for free
3. Eurosport Player (Pay-per-view but open to the world)

If you know of anymore then please let me know.

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Tonight is week two of the 2009 Premier League snooker and Sporting Bet (who have incidentally just partnered with Cuesport TV) are offering a number of odds for in-play and outright performance both for tonights matches and the overall tournament itself.

The best one of the list at the time of writing in my opinion is Judd Trump to beat 7-times world champion, Stephen Hendry 4-2. You can currently get 11/4 on this exact scoreline.

The other match is John Higgins v Shaun Murphy in a repeat of the 2009 World Snooker Championship Final

Have a look at the odds by following the link below:

Premier League Snooker Betting - Sporting Bet

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The most exciting invitational snooker tournament starts again tonight and is live in the UK on Sky Sports and Sky Player online.

Read a preview to the tournament here:

PartyCasino.com Premier League Snooker 2009 Preview

Ronnie O’Sullivan for his fifth title?

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I don’t like to dwell too much on the fact that I am the only person working in this business full-time, but one thing this does mean is that video-on-demand content is always slower to be released than I would like.

However, by changing the way we record things from the live broadcasts it has meant certain matches and tournaments have been quicker to make available, especially where commentary has been recorded on site.

I thought with this post I would use it as a bit of an update post, these are the files that have been added over the last few weeks, some are free and some are only available to subscribers.

Please watch the latest videos and rate and review them if you get chance:

• Paul Davies 127 Break at TCC Snooker Pro-am (Snooker TV - FREEVIEW)
• Mickey Lambert v Harjeet Singh - 8 Ball Super Tour (Cuesport TV - FREEVIEW)
• Martin Chapman v Imran Majid 1 of 2- GB9 Southern Masters Semi Final (Cuesport TV - Subscription)
• Martin Chapman v Imran Majid 2 of 2- GB9 Southern Masters Semi Final (Cuesport TV - Subscription)
• Craig Osborne v Imran Majid 1 of 3 - GB9 Southern Masters Final (Cuesport TV - Subscription)
• Craig Osborne v Imran Majid 2 of 3 - GB9 Southern Masters Final (Cuesport TV - Subscription)
• Craig Osborne v Imran Majid 3 of 3 - GB9 Southern Masters Final (Cuesport TV - Subscription)
• Ben Davies v Arfan Dad - 8 Ball Super Tour Last 32 (Cuesport TV - Subscription)
• Chris Melling v Ronan McCarthy - 8 Ball Super Tour Quarter Final (Cuesport TV - Subscription)
• Emma Cunningham v Ronan McCarthy 1 of 2 - 8 Ball Super Tour Semi Final (Cuesport TV - Subscription)
• Emma Cunningham v Ronan McCarthy 2 of 2 - 8 Ball Super Tour Semi Final (Cuesport TV - Subscription)

Please leave any comments below as well.

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Web TV channel Cuesport TV have this week released two demo videos in 720p High Definition.

The videos are believed to be the first snooker videos to be streamed in High Definition online. The HD content shows the true capabilities of the platform that the company adopted in April 2009.

The HD videos that have been made available were recorded at the recent TCC Snooker Pro-am in Wales. The tournament is a very small but prestigious snooker event that the channel had exclusive access to. The tournament featured top snooker stars such as Mark Williams, Shaun Murphy, Ryan Day and Matthew Stevens. Stevens will feature in some later HD demo’s recorded at the same period.

Managing Director of Cuesport TV Ltd, Pete Williams, commented, “HD video is always something we have wanted to serve but it has taken us a while to reach this stage, the video we have recently made available showcases the capabilities of High Definition as a video-on-demand concept.”

Williams also said, “It is theoretically possible to stream live Internet video in full HD, however, in reality the UK does not yet have the broadband infrastructure to cope with the demands of HD streaming. The VOD content in this particular demo requires a 5 meg Internet connection as a minimum otherwise a lot of buffering occurs. Once broadband across the whole of the UK develops, as it will in the next 5 years, then live streaming of HD video will become a reality. It is in our interest and within our aims to be at the forefront of this technology.”

In the first four days of the initial trial the company has seen it’s viewing figures rise by an amazing 10%. There are now plans in place for Cuesport TV to capture HD content at all of the major tournaments and matches that the channel has access to and make available both standard and high definition versions to its subscribers.

View the HD snooker videos here: HD Snooker Videos

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This week is the start of our busiest period of the year so far.

On Thursday we have the first two quarter finals and the first semi final of the TCC Snooker Pro-am. This week the feature match live on Cuesport TV will be Ryan Day v Matthew Stevens. This will be followed up by the semi final where the winner of the aforementioned match will play either Darren Morgan or defending champion Lee Walker.

At the weekend (1st-2nd August) we have the eagerly awaited first tour stop of the 8-ball Super Tour (This was the Oracle Super Tour last year).

The cream of the 8-ball crop come out to play in this £44,000 guaranteed World Rules series. Newly crowned WEPF World 8-ball Pool Champion, Phil Harrison, will be in action plus former champions Gareth Potts, Mick Hill and Carl Morris. In addition to the players of championship pedigree a myriad of tournament winners, like Simon Ward, Tom Cousins, Craig Marsh, Ben Davies, Ben Flack, Steve Munro and Lee Clough will also be in attendance.

Both of these events and more are available as part of a Cuesport TV subscription which can be bought from £2.90.

For further events throughout August visit the Live Event Schedule.

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I am back at the TCC Pro-am Snooker this evening with World Number 6 Ryan Day in action.

This week is one of the most exciting of the qualifying rounds with two other professionals competing. Matthew Stevens, who like Day is seeded into round 2, and Daniel Wells who will play in the first round.

Stevens and Day will start their own matches at around 9:15pm after the conclusion of the first round matches.

Tonights draw is below:

Round 1:

Daniel Wells v Jerry Connors
Andrew Pagett v Anthony Davies

Round 2:

Ryan Day v Wells or Connors
Matthew Stevens v Pagett or Davies

Main action starts at 7:30pm and once again is exclusively live to Cuesport TV Subscription holders.

Purchase a Subscription

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Since we have been covering the TCC Snooker Pro-am from Newport each week we have seen a 5% growth in our viewers accessing our video on demand categories.

Some elements of the media suggest that snooker is dying and there is no doubt that it has undergone a decline since it’s heydey in the 1980’s, both in terms of playing numbers and TV audiences.

What these media types forget though is that for the decline in the UK there has been major growth in places like Germany, Belgium, Russia, The Middle East and China.

Although 60% of our website traffic still comes from the UK we are finding more and more of it is driven to access snooker related content. Viewers from all over the globe want to get a regular fix of high quality snooker videos. I would suggest (without any evidence I must add) that this could be due to the fragmentation of pool disciplines. It is easier to search and find snooker content as it is it’s own discipline, pool on the other hand comes in many forms and is a little trickier to find.

I have always said that the growth of Cuesport TV will come about by good quality snooker content and this is what we are finding.

I am hoping to announce another major tournament being added to our live offering over the next week so look out for that.

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Last night saw the first of seven weekly transmissions from the TCC Snooker Pro-am. An event that has been running for 10 years at the Tredegar Cons. Club in Newport, Wales.

This years event has attracted Shaun Murphy, Mark Williams, Matthew Stevens and Ryan Day plus a host of other professionals and top level amateurs.

For us it was our second move into live snooker streaming, and obviously it is key with the move to subscriptions imminent, that we provide a good show. From my own point of view I think yesterday went well, the number of live viewers was small but this was due in part to the event being advertised as a paid event. I think the viewers that did watch probably would have paid anyway.

The key ingredient to the success was the mounting of a ceiling camera to give the typical full table shot we see on the BBC and Eurosport. This was quite comical really, we had brackets designed specifically for the job, however, the camera then would not tilt so all we could see was the light rig - a nice light rig, but not quite what people wanted to see.

Rather than actually start drilling into the ceiling of the TCC we made use of the suspended ceiling and using a plank borrowed from my son’s old bed set about creating a mount for the camera, it paid off and gave us the desired result. Although I was sweating it a bit with the camera precariously over the second table, secure though I must add!

The club is quite small and with 80 spectators crammed in we didn’t think there was going to be space for two cameras, but we did manage to add a second angle through the use of a tripod. The natural lighting in the club was perfect and a great nights entertainment was had.

Streaming at 450kbps is a first for us as we are normally stuck with small standard connections but the stream was smooth with no buffering and very little delay thanks to Virgin Media for that one!

Anyway you can watch the videos for yourself later on this weekend over at Cuesport TV and feel free to make a comment or two.

We will be providing live coverage again next week as well so stay tuned.

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