IFollow: Hows it going?

All advertisments are hidden for logged in members, why not log in/register?

I paid for and used it for the Brentford game (living abroad). My internet is poor, but Netflix is fine, but the quality was terrible. Second half was basically unwatchable. Think that's mostly my problem, though.

Annoying bits were:

1. No commentary on feed (even though it says -live commentary as an option when purchasing.
2. No access to full match replay, even though it says that's a feature when purchasing
3. The procedure for purchasing and then finding how to watch the match is unintuitive at best.
4. The lack of email confirmation of your order despite saying it will be sent is worrying.

I sent that in an email to iFollow, and they replied.

"Thank you for taking the time out to provide us positive feedback.
We are glad to be of service. If there are any other issues or questions please dont heistate to contact us via email.

Regards,
Rasal, ifollow support"

It's a great service, but amateur as fuck at the minute.
For those of us in the US who can only see United on Ifollow its a blessing but it is sensitive to download speeds and stutters a lot. But it is worth it....
 

They are now checking to see if the billing address matches the country people signed up from, so i have been told

That proves nothing.

I lived abroad for 6 years, my HSBC card was registered to my parents address in the UK. I never had a local bank account whilst I lived abroad.
 
Anyway, in relation to the thread.... I've watched 3 games on iFollow, perfect picture and no lagging. It's been a godsend for the away and midweek games.
 
Still trying to get used to watching without commentary especially as the past 4 or 5 years I've had the Radio Sheffield live commentary via Blades Player.

Watched the first few games on my PC, decent quality, no problems. Had some friends round on Saturday and thought I'd show them the match by streaming from my ipad to TV via Apple TV. Did it work? Did it fuck! :( Either some muppet has created the App (because I can stream everything else from ipad to TV except for the ifollow video stream!) or they are intentionally blocking it for some unknown reason...

Ended up with us huddled round the ipad, ffs.

Just noticed my laptop has an HDMI port :rolleyes: guess it should be easy enough to hook it up the TV.

My major gripe is with the audio commentary. Used to love listening to the Radio Sheffield build-up, half-time analysis & when Blades Player was feeling generous a bit of P&G too. Now they seem to cut off all of that except the match commentary.
 
Easier said than done. The RS commentary on the internet lags behind the match and can be a minute or two behind. You can adjust the video to match the commentary on a PC though.

Yes, the whole thing lags for me. On Saturday, I got the first goal update from the BBC iphone app a full minute before we saw Billy slotting it home :D
 
That proves nothing.

I lived abroad for 6 years, my HSBC card was registered to my parents address in the UK. I never had a local bank account whilst I lived abroad.
Of course it proves nothing I'm just stating what I have been told, I guess ones that aren't legit will only find out when their service is pulled
 
Of course it proves nothing I'm just stating what I have been told, I guess ones that aren't legit will only find out when their service is pulled

Think thats only for the full season subscription service. The game by game basis doesnt make a difference and lets you purchase purely based on location (I believe)
 
If you find the video is lagging pause it for 30 seconds so it is a little behind the live feed. Worked for me.

You can also pause the audio and video so they sync up together if you have it open in a different tab.
 
Think thats only for the full season subscription service. The game by game basis doesnt make a difference and lets you purchase purely based on location (I believe)
Yes it's the full season subscription
 

Still trying to get used to watching without commentary especially as the past 4 or 5 years I've had the Radio Sheffield live commentary via Blades Player.

Watched the first few games on my PC, decent quality, no problems. Had some friends round on Saturday and thought I'd show them the match by streaming from my ipad to TV via Apple TV. Did it work? Did it fuck! :( Either some muppet has created the App (because I can stream everything else from ipad to TV except for the ifollow video stream!) or they are intentionally blocking it for some unknown reason...

Ended up with us huddled round the ipad, ffs.

Just noticed my laptop has an HDMI port :rolleyes: guess it should be easy enough to hook it up the TV.

My major gripe is with the audio commentary. Used to love listening to the Radio Sheffield build-up, half-time analysis & when Blades Player was feeling generous a bit of P&G too. Now they seem to cut off all of that except the match commentary.

You should be able to listen to p or g on the radio Sheffield website. It's only the live commentary they can't stream from their site.
 
I paid for and used it for the Brentford game (living abroad). My internet is poor, but Netflix is fine, but the quality was terrible. Second half was basically unwatchable. Think that's mostly my problem, though.

Annoying bits were:

1. No commentary on feed (even though it says -live commentary as an option when purchasing.
2. No access to full match replay, even though it says that's a feature when purchasing
3. The procedure for purchasing and then finding how to watch the match is unintuitive at best.
4. The lack of email confirmation of your order despite saying it will be sent is worrying.

I sent that in an email to iFollow, and they replied.

"Thank you for taking the time out to provide us positive feedback.
We are glad to be of service. If there are any other issues or questions please dont heistate to contact us via email.

Regards,
Rasal, ifollow support"

It's a great service, but amateur as fuck at the minute.

The reply you received is an absolute disgrace but sadly typical of what we have come to expect in this 'exciting' 21st century world of communication ( don't make me laugh )

I have to disagree that the service is great - it is in theory, but in practice it's a pile of shite, probably cobbled together by some pigtail wearing teckie very much from the Style over Substance school of thought which now seems to be dominating the media in all it's forms.

PS How does Tokyo compare to High Green - quite similar in many ways ?
 
  • Like
Reactions: Dkc
Pretty much my experience, the Derby game didn't buffer once and quality was spot on browser. Mobile app is a different matter though!
Full on foreign viewer, watching through Chrome on a quick i7 PC hooked up to a 52inch, 1080p, plasma TV via HDMI out. 50mbps internet.

Picture quality isn't an issue IMO. No, it's not 4k and '720HD' is the highest it can go but for me, that's been great. MUCH better than the quality of fan streams via phones from the ground. Very occasional stutters in the frame rate - I think it's dropped frames from the upload end - but all in all, 8/10 for quality.

I get the audio feed via another tab, then delay the video by 12 seconds to get them to sync. That 12 second figure has been consistent across 3 games. It's the same audio feed as you'd get via the UK service or the old Blades Player app/site. On the actual video player, there's non-functional options for which audio stream you'd like 'English', 'Home', or 'Away' which makes me think it's all still a bit of a work in progress.

One nice benefit is you can pause, review an incident - there are markers dropped on the time line to show when an incident happened, so finding the action is a piece of piss - and restart the video stream at any point. Once you figure out the audio delay (12 second for me) you can do your own half time recap and then re-sync for the second half.

Moving forward, I'd like to see an on screen timer and the latest score. I think, if you're compare the the quality to SKY etc. then you're going to see the deficiencies but for £130 a year or £5 a game, it's an absolute bargain IMO.
 
PS How does Tokyo compare to High Green - quite similar in many ways ?

Haha, yes mate, lots of similarities: dog shit in the bus shelters, kids doing glue on the swings, bus drivers refusing to stop at Fosters flats from fear, grandads getting their heads kicked in outside the Chinese. Totally similar!

To be fair, I haven't lived in High Green since 1998, grew up next to the Fosters. Pretty much hated it growing up, but now like it a lot when I go back. Seems to have become a much nicer place to live, or maybe I just started to realize the good points as I got older!

Anyway, yeah as a Blade abroad, iFollow has been such an exciting development, but it's not quite working for me, yet. Fingers crossed it starts to step up.
 
I've only watched one game. Purely through shit timing of a wedding and flying overseas I've missed the last 4. Quality was fine for first game. A little eerie with no commentary but I kinda liked it. Still worth every penny for highlights, interviews and previews etc.
 
They have work to do ! 1st half ok but 2nd half is jumpy and dropping frames for most people. They cant sync up the commentry with the video....try plugging the mic straight into the camera ya tits ! Graphical overlays are needed, time and score please. Its a start but they need to get their shit together, people pay for this. Site is great but they need to tweak it a bit for less digital friendly people who have some trouble navigating to the live video feed.
 
Interestingly, I think most people expected that opening football league games to broadcast via an app would have led to them also being available via illegitimate sources. From what I am told, matches available on said sources are still limited to those being broadcast on TV.

I wonder if its purely a matter of time or whether sufficient safeguards have been built in to the legitmate service to stop such content theft?
 
Interestingly, I think most people expected that opening football league games to broadcast via an app would have led to them also being available via illegitimate sources. From what I am told, matches available on said sources are still limited to those being broadcast on TV.

I wonder if its purely a matter of time or whether sufficient safeguards have been built in to the legitmate service to stop such content theft?
There is a unique subscriber number that bounces around the screen for a few minutes, that should deter some from sharing content. However given the fact that you can pay for a single game, I wouldn't be surprised to see the stream being made available elsewhere. They were advertising streams for the cardiff game but none of them worked
 
Bought this yesterday at the start of the game. Was so happy being able to watch the whole game. What a brilliant idea ifollow is. Kudos to the football league.

Just need some better Internet in Kuwait now
 
I paid to watch the match yesterday, but it was a frustrating experience, as the picture kept stalling, and wouldn't load at all for about 10 minutes after the second goal. I thought I'd try to watch it again today, but apparently even if you have paid for the game you can't watch the full replay without paying again. Its a shambles at the moment.
 
It's been great for me so far - not the finished article but enough for me. Synced up the radio OK but I'm happy to listen in silence (+ the crowd noise) if I can watch for myself. A year or 2 ago, I'd never have imagined myself sat at home with a beer, watching united on my tv. Not only that, but watching them outplay championship teams... Happy days.

I read in the terms and conditions that audio isn't included and was still happy to pay, so for me getting the radio is a bonus
 

I paid to watch the match yesterday, but it was a frustrating experience, as the picture kept stalling, and wouldn't load at all for about 10 minutes after the second goal. I thought I'd try to watch it again today, but apparently even if you have paid for the game you can't watch the full replay without paying again. Its a shambles at the moment.
Yeh, had a storming picture for 40 minutes yesterday, the rest of the game was glitchy mad
 

All advertisments are hidden for logged in members, why not log in/register?

All advertisments are hidden for logged in members, why not log in/register?

Back
Top Bottom