Telus is back for another year of overpriced and mostly terrible
Quebec Major Junior Hockey League webcasts.
The Telus website was updated last week with the 2012-13
campaign quickly approaching. They will once again offer four possible options
to purchase games, including two season long packages.
It will cost you $6.95 to purchase a single live game and
$1.95 for a single archived match.
The first package Telus is offering is for every QMJHL
game this season - live and archived. The package also includes all playoff games.
The cost is $199.95.
Package B will get you every game of a single team – live and
archived. The package also includes archives of all league games. It does not
include playoffs. The cost is $149.95.
These are the same pricing options as last year.
Now it’s time for our yearly rant.
If you pay $200 for the full package it seems fairly
reasonable. That’s 612+ games for $200. But the problem has been the quality of
the broadcasts.
There are often technical glitches. Some rinks are very
dark. Some rinks have polls or whatever in the way and block views of the
corners (Chicoutimi is pictured above). Only a few buildings offer replays. And let’s not forget that many
games are not even broadcast in English.
The only real improvement made over the years has been
some teams hooking up their in-house feed to the webcast, offering outsiders
replay, multiple camera angles, and 50/50 updates. It’s also been great having
team’s radio feeds hooked up as well (although there have been plenty of
technical problems with them).
But, at least it is something. And
who knows, this might be the only hockey we will all be watching for a while.
The QMJHL season begins Thursday at 7pm with the Sea Dogs
hosting the Titan.
Last year, Telus and the Q had a app you could download on your Android phone (No matter if you were a Telus customer or not) that broadcasted all the Q games for free. It may be a small screen but I watched the final game of the playoffs on it last year. If it's on again this year, I am going to try to hook my phone to my PC and my PC to my TV... all for free
ReplyDeleteEvery game or just the select HD games?
ReplyDeleteIt was in the style of telus web cast, not TV quality for sure. I am not sure if it was also televised to Quebec residents or not so I can't tell you that.
ReplyDeleteI just checked the app and they redesigned it so that you can't see the games... I will check back when the season starts but it's not looking good.
ReplyDelete