A Preview of ESPN Broadband

As you all know I’m a hockey nut.  ESPN was advertising they were showing all games, however four weren’t on the tv schedule.  These four are all on ESPN Broadband.

It pops into a large-ish window and has a SportsCenter/ESPN video game like feel.  I think it’s all Flash 7 (which is fine since they’re catering to a broadband/cable audience).  The video isn’t clickable or right-clickable, I’m going to assume it’s streaming through Flash 7 rather then integrating another format, but you never know.

They’ve got their pipes going strong as the picture quality is very good.  I’m watching Finland beating Sweden 4-3 in the third period right now.  Easily the nicest integrated streaming video I’ve ever seen.  To be able to see the puck in a small window through a live feed is pretty decent work.

Now, this hasn’t been over-promoted, so hopefully if they boost it more, they’ll keep the bandwidth at this high level, the rare stuttering is the only thing that can bring it down.  Even when a live game isn’t on, they have some news clips to watch.  Also, after the game is completed, it’s supposed to also be available on demand.

There’s a “free preview” from now until Monday.  It will be a service available to certain subscribers of cable or dsl companies.  I read how RCN has a deal with them, so this should be included for all RCN subscribers, but I have not read anything about Time Warner NYC (my current provider).  Hope they pick this up if they haven’t already; there’s supposedly already some bitterness between ESPN and quite a few cable services due to the high price ESPN charges per subscriber (and some cable systems even wanting to make it a premium channel).

Posted by David M Singer on Sep 04, 2004 at 05:09 PM

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