The New ESPN 360 Sucks
I thoroughly enjoyed the first 5 or 6 days of the World Cup. I watched a good bit of it on my computer while I worked using ESPN 360. This is the video solution that ESPN offers through a select group of broadband ISPs. So, your ISP is basically picking up the tab for the increased features and bandwidth concerns for the live streaming and hosted, taped content.
ESPN 360 was delivered by its own custom Windows app, which certainly had its negative points, but for the most part worked very well. The video streamed quickly, was clear and the app had little to no issues with crashing or memory/resource hogging.
That all changed with ESPN’s release of their new 360. It is now a browser-based app taking advantage of Flash 8.0’s new video capabilities and things have gone downhill. One of the most noticeable things is that the quality of the video is much lower. This is true of both live and recorded content. There are often stutters and hangups with both kinds of content as well.
There are further issues with the interface. There is no way to “pin” the application window to “always be on top” of your desktop. So, if you watch it while working and want it to float above other windows while you work away, it’s impossible without 3rd-party solutions. This was a feature of the previous player application with a little “pushpin” icon.
The interface also features some sort of auto-scroll thing that moves the content from left-to-right based on where your cursor is within the window. This occurs to display extra content such as headlines and other “interactive” content. I appreciate ESPN’s desire to push more of their programming and, thereby, advertising, but this auto-scroll only gets in the way.
The most egregious addition to ESPN 360 has been the addition of advertising at the beginning of every clip. As a service for which my ISP pays ESPN, I don’t think it reasonable that ESPN subject me to advertising while I am using a paid service. They’ve added banner ads to the screen, as well. This is less objectionable than having to sit through the same commercial 5 times during a 20 minute show because the video has to be restarted 5 times forcing you to watch the commercial again each time.
I used the “Feedback” feature in the player to voice these concerns to ESPN, but since the form didn’t ask for an email address, I can’t expect that they will get back to me in any way. I hope that this post will serve as a message to the developers and executives at ESPN that in striving to do the cool, new thing, they have ruined the user experience. Making these changes at a time when so many users are using ESPN 360 to watch the World Cup seems like an ill-advised move.
January 13th, 2008 at 10:30 pm
yes it certainly does suck, and crashes quite randomly that damn move network qsp2ie07074039.dll–in ie and firefox no less
June 9th, 2008 at 10:35 am
Yes, ESPN does indeed suck, including their televised segments of the current Euro matches, in which they COVER THE ENTIRE TOP OF THE FIELD WITH A GRAPHICS BANNER FOR THE ENTIRE MATCH AND THEN USE GIANT POP DOWN BOXES TO FURTHER COVER THE FIELD WHILE THE GAME IS GOING ON! I cannot begin to express how aggravating this is. It is like trying to watch a game through a set of slats while your head is held in a vise which prevents you from changing your angle of view, thus permanently blocking your view of the field. You often can’t see players moving into position off the ball, you can’t see trajectories of kicked balls, AND they drop these graphic boxes into the middle of the game on left side of the screen as plays are developing in front of the goal, covering up the entire movement of 5 to 8 players at a time.
I assume ESPN is doing this in order to sell more advertising. Advertisers can assume I will boycott the things being sold because it ANNOYS THE CRAP OUT OF ME that the field is blocked, during play, in order to shove these popups, and to maintain this giant hideous banner/slat which covers the top of the screen.
This is so annoying, I will not watch US games on ESPN, even on my DVR (which ESPN ALSO screwed in the US/Argentina match by showing 30 minutes of MORE advertising before starting the game, making my DVR miss the final 15 minutes of the game).
ESPN clearly has non-soccer people running their soccer telecasts, since they don’t understand that soccer is NOT JUST THE GUY WITH THE BALL, but is a game which is played BY THE PLAYERS MOVING WITHOUT THE BALL, whose movements are hidden by the giant, hideous graphics covering the screen.
ESPN=completely sucks at Soccer broadcasting.
June 9th, 2008 at 5:17 pm
Help me !
If my ISP doesnt pay revenue to ESPN for ESPN 360, that means I am not alllowed to watch ESPN 360 even when i am ready to buy Pay per view !
What kinda business model is that ?
ESPN has completely ruined the Euro 2008 !