Our most popular video this month (so far) is here. Have you seen it yet? What do you think?
Tag Archive for video
Most Popular Through July
This is our second monthly round up of the most popular videos on Cuesport TV, this month we focus on July 2011.
It was University pool that dominated the top 10 last month taking five of the top ten spaces.
Your video consumption in July was still focused on UK style 8-ball pool, this time accounting for all of the top ten positions. You can see the top 10 list below:
- EBA Masters 2011 – Under 21 Singles Final
- EBA Masters 2011 – Northern Ireland U-21 v Scotland U-21
- Oly Bale v Gareth Potts £21,000 8 Ball Money Match – Part 1 of 10
- EBA Masters 2011 – Scotland U-21 v England U-21
- EBA Masters 2011 – Under 21 Doubles Final
- Oly Bale v Gareth Potts £21,000 8 Ball Money Match – Part 8 of 10
- Oly Bale v Gareth Potts £21,000 8 Ball Money Match – Part 9 of 10
- John Kelly v Tony Halpin – 8 Ball Money Match – Part 4 of 4
- 2011 UPC BUCS 8 Ball – Medway 1 v Birmingham 2 – Shield Group Stage
- 2011 UPC BUCS 8 Ball – Manchester 3 v Birmingham 1 – Shield Group Stage
On this occasion World Rules beats Blackball to the highest views contest with 6 v 4 in the top 10 videos for the month. the only videos to stay in the top 10 from last month are the Bale v Potts money match videos.
Save Some Money
There is only limited time to get access to the GB9 Northern Masters live event for the 50% off price of only £2.49!
In order to save 50% on the full price of £4.99 then you will need to purchase before 10:00am on Saturday 6th August, this is when it changes over to full price.
You can sign-up for the event by clicking this link: GB9 Northern Masters 2011
What does your money get you?
Well, that’s easy, access to the hottest national 9-ball pool tour on the planet with no less than five world pool champions including Chris Melling, Daryl Peach, Karl Boyes, Imran Majid and Mark Gray. In addition you will also see some of the best rising talent in the UK game with Jayson Shaw, Craig Osborne, Matt Lawrenson and Arfan Dad also participating.
For the price, whichever you end up paying, you will get two days of live action. This includes the Pro Cup and Main event tournaments.
Live Schedule:
Saturday 6th August – 10:15am until conclusion of the Pro Final (Approx 6:30pm)
Sunday 7th August – 10:15am until conclusion of the Main Final (Approx 10:30pm)
You can sign-up for the event by clicking this link: GB9 Northern Masters 2011
Flash Ah-Ahhhhh!
This week the video-on-demand side of Cuesport TV has moved to a flash video player. There were a few reasons behind this move which I have listed below:
1. Problems with Silverlight Smooth Stream – When we finally relaunched we used Silverlight Smooth Stream video files on the VOD content, there were issues with both the video and the audio ‘pulsating’ this was a bug within the Silverlight system that will eventually be addressed.
2. Compatibility – By using a Flash video player it will save the hassle of downloading another codec, most modern PC’s and laptops already support flash and it is the most widely used video player on the web. This also opens up the possibilty of watching Cuesport TV on other Flash supported devices like the Blackberry Playbook, HTC Flyer, Samsung Galaxy Tab and all Android devices running 2.2 or higher.
3. Video Adverts - For some time we have been looking at integrating with a video ad network, the one we opted for could serve a more varied range of pre-rolls using the flash player. These video ads will help to keep the majority of the Cuesport TV VOD site free to view and will secure the business going forward. Basically the more video that is consumed by our viewers the more that we get paid.
If you have any issues with playback or any questions regarding Flash video and pre-roll adverts then please contact us.
Video Issues and the Upload Process
It has been very slow to get new content onto the website over the last month or so. Last Friday (8th July) we finally got to the bottom of the cause.
I thought I would write a short post explaining what happens when ‘Video Assets’ are added to our system.
1. After a live event or interview session we are left with a raw video file. This comes as a digital capture, a digital file or a tape capture.
2. This ‘raw’ file is then edited and generally shortened for web use, longer matches are created in multiple parts.
3. After the editing process we then ‘encode’ this video to a format which is suitable for web viewing, at the same time this compresses the video size to make it easier for us to upload to the website.
4. these ‘encoded’ videos are then uploaded to our Asset Management System. This takes a lot of time dependent on connection speed and file size. Where our office is located we only have access to a 1meg upstream so a 5 minute video can take around 20 minutes to upload.
5. This is the tricky bit and why videos are taking so long to be available at the moment. On our new website videos are not automatically ‘live’ when added. They go through a transcoding process before they can be made available. What this does is makes the uploaded video available in multiple formats, so that when the time arises you would be able to watch on iPad, iPod, Flash, Windows Media or any other format which suits. It seems that a lot of our videos are failing this process.
6. After transcoding the videos are then available to set to ‘live’ and this is when you as a viewer can watch them.
I hope this gives you a bit of an insight into the process we go through to make the videos available, if you have any questions or comments please feel free to ask or post them in the comments of this blog.
Cuesport TV’s Top 10 Videos in June 2011
Below you will find links and short stats to our top 10 videos for the month of June 2011. This is a post that we will write every month to keep you up to date with what everyone is watching on Cuesport TV.
- UPC 8 Ball Championships 2011 – Edgehill 1 v Nottingham 1 – 563 views
- UPC Singles Championship 2011 – Will Jerram v Tem Dixon – 485 views
- UPC 8 Ball Championships 2011 – Aston 1 v Kent 1 – 335 views
- UPC 8 Ball Championships 2011 – Manchester 3 v Birmingham 1 – 326 views
- Oly Bale v Gareth Potts £21,000 8 Ball Money Match – Part 1 of 10 – 214 views
- Terry Humphreys v Anthony Doble – Part 5 of 10 – 212 views
- Mark Gray v Phil Burford – 10 Ball Challenge – Part 2 of 8 – 153 views
- Oly Bale v Gareth Potts £21,000 8 Ball Money Match – Part 9 of 10 – 149 views
- UPC 8 Ball Championships 2011 – Medway 1 v Birmingham 2 – 147 views
- Oly Bale v Gareth Potts £21,000 8 Ball Money Match – Part 4 of 10 – 146 views
So the month of June is dominated by 8 Ball content and namely World Rules 8 ball content, with this ruleset taking nine out of the top ten positions. The only other video to feature was a 10 ball challenge match between Mark Gray and Phil Burford.
What will dominate in July – any thoughts?
Category: 10-ball Pool, English/UK Pool, General, money matches /
Tags: 10-ball, 8-ball, cuesport tv, pool, video, world rules
Own a Website?
One of the main changes to the new video-on-demand website that has been developed for Cuesport TV is the ability to embed videos into any webpage (like YouTube).
When you hover over the main video player some options appear at the bottom, one of them is ‘Share’, you can post the video directly to your Facebook or Twitter accounts, send it by email to a friend or copy the embed code to be pasted into a webpage. You can see what an embed looks like below:
A New Beginning
Only a few people, who are close to me, will know that Cuesport TV will be going through its biggest transition to date in early March.
I am off to London (on a train as I type) to put the finishing touches to a contract with a new video platform provider.
The new platform will still let you access all of our content but will be about a number of changes that will make things easier to use and also offer better opportunities for us to monetise what we provide.
I will be very open about this as I feel it is massively important, in March live events will no longer be free, they will only be able to viewed via pay-per-view. Rest assured though that signing up and paying for an event will be as easy as shopping on Amazon.
With this will come a preview function, you will get 1 minute to watch for free, if you like what you see then you pay for it.
Video-on-demand for themes part will be advertising funded but some premium or exclusive content will be paid.
The new site will look a lot different but I hope that you as a viewer stays with us. It is an exciting time.
Latest Video Links
All of the videos from the second Money Match TV event are now available for viewing at Cuesport TV. The direct links to the videos are listed below:
Dave Bagg v Jamie Yates
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8
Chun Hao Man v Craig Dixon
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5
October is a slow month for us in terms of live events with only the Money Match TV 5 event in the calendar on October 23rd.
What this means though is that a lot of content will be made available on demand throughout October. Anthony Doble v Terry Humphreys, MMTV 3, MMTV 4 and the GB9 Southern Masters will all be having the editing treatment.
The easiest way to find content is via the search function or clicking on Media Catalogue.
Match Video Downloads Now Available
Ever since we launched Cuesport TV back in 2008 we have been talking about a suitable way to make videos available for download in a cost-effective way.
That time has now arrived! From today selected content from Cuesport TV will be available to download on a paid service.
At the moment we are looking at around £2.49 ($3.99 approx) to download an entire match to your hard drive.
Longer videos like money matches will command a higher fee as storage and delivery costs are increased.
As fans of the site you are going to have to tell us what videos you want to download. Only selected content will be available at any one time and certain videos may only be available for limited periods.
The downloaded file comes as a ZIP file, within the compressed zip the actual WMV videos files will be contained that you can play back on your PC or Laptop. MAC users will need to download VLC media player or Windows Media PLayer 9 for MAC. VLC is a great player and plays almost any video file thrown at it!
With your purchase you get 48 hours access to download the video files. Once on your computer they last for as long as you want them to.
Payment can be made with credit or debit card but you will need to login in order to purchase.
Currently available in the download store:
Craig Marsh v Kristie Caulfield – EBA Masters Final 2010
Tony Drago V Jayson Shaw – GB9 British Grand Prix 2009 – HD
Chris Melling v James Kay – GB9 British Grand Prix 2009 – HD
We need your help to make this a success, please download the videos this will help towards keeping live and on-demand video free. If you want to see a certain match/video available then please drop us an email or comment on this blog.
