Web Broadcast Update - Open Letter from Jean De Lierre

First things first, we apologize for the technical issues and quality issues with last night's broadcast. Despite our efforts, pre-testing and contigency measures we disappointed and frustrated the very squash fans we wanted to impress with this cutting edge peer-to-peer web broadcast.

You deserve some background.

Without boring you with all of the details and techno-jargon we did a successful test of the technology at the Toronto Pace event and had been running the channel without a glitch all afternoon before show-time last night. Then minutes before the first match we unexpectedly lost our upload capacity, then the sound went off totally, or went off synch.

Re-boots after reboots, we kept tripping. We had come in to Boston with 2 sets of servers and 2 video cards, all tested and functional. Both servers held up fine but one of our cards acted up and jammed both servers on us earlier. That left us with one card to work with that we tried running from both servers but to no avail.

Following a careful analysis of the situation and discussions with the Rayv tech people last night and earlier today, we suspect now that the working video card may have overheated from 6 hours of continuous use. We'll run a shorter test period before show-time so as not cause over-heating again and we'll come in with dedicated cooling units.

Please keep in mind that with a live event we only have one shot with little room for error and full visibility for any mistakes or hardware failures. This is also a relatively new technology, and with anything new comes issues. Case & point, how many updates do you have to install on your computers every now & then to fix things? Well this is one of those times for us.

I hope you will not judge our efforts too soon, nor discount our efforts for the better part of 20 years to give our sport and its players greater visibility.

We are working extremely hard to work through these issues. Thank you all for your support and understanding.

Sincerely yours,

Jean De Lierre

"My apologies, too, for our inability to launch our internet programming last night. Jean Delierre and his Telimage crew have produced a tremendous product and I have every expectation that we will soon be delivering crystal clear Hi Def quality squash to your computer."
- John Nimick, Players Cup Promoter

Comments (7)

I am disappointed
written by Mike Jarson , March 06, 2008

I am extremely disappointed with the broadcast so far - There were some really big words used on the site like "broadcast you will see the ball clearly and will be treated to the close ups " - IN the little I saw, I could barely see the black ball - only guessing based on the player's movement....

Pretty crappy overvall...

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Not as easy as you thought
written by Rik , March 06, 2008

If I were you I would not critise other squash broadcasters before you have demonstrated (not just talked about) your ability to provide as good a service. There is more to it than meets the eye...

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written by a berger , March 05, 2008

Good luck and we will be patient. Based on Jean's past work the quality will be superb when the kinks are worked out.

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Day 2 and another disaster
written by Stevie , March 05, 2008

What a conman !

Totally useless webcast yet again - another waste of time and what excuses will be hear tomorrow or will it be the truth - you are out of your depth !

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written by Steve , March 05, 2008

RayV asks me to enter a channel id, and there's no indication from you what that is. What is it?

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Post last night?
written by Tom D. , March 05, 2008

That's too bad about last night..butas a tech person myself...I understand it happens unfortunately! Would it be possible to post up the archive of last night's matches?

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Jean you are an amateur
written by Stevie , March 05, 2008

No clue about what you are talking about

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