Your iFollow Experience

[Boletus Edulis]

If you watched your team today on iFollow what was your experience like? Was it positive, negative, value for money or what?

I have now watched three games this week - Carabou, Tin pot cup and first league game - and I am not that impressed. We got a link from the club as season ticket holders, and opened it on a laptop and then linked to our TV. This worked well for us, but on Pasoti quite a few gave up in the end.

Argyle invested in four cameras recently but the EFL allow us to use only one, because of staffing and social distancing issues. The sound can be a bit hit and miss, very often we have two commentaries at the same time, but the picture quality for us was reasonable. I have to say it’s okay, but the EFL have not got a high quality product, and they need to work on
and get a few more technicians in. I can see that a lot of people will have had problems.

How was it for you?

 

[Deepcut Cobbler]

I.follow Problems

I.follow Problems

www.smfserver.com

Our thread starting from last weeks game through to yesterday, with the individual problems.

 

[Kenneth E End]

I think their suppliers have had enough time to get this right, but the quality seems to be hit and miss across the board. In the Championship we get the benefit of four camera positions, so every match feels like a televised one.

The biggest problem has been the audio, which seems to get interference for at least a few seconds every half. I see buffering complaints also, but I have super fast broadband so I probably have a lot more bandwith than some.

I've been using it on and off when I've been travelling as well as since the lockdown - there are gradual improvements, but I suppose for the costs involved and with it being online v a more linear output its not easy. I'm no expert, but a simpler Youtube solution may just work?

I am using a HDMI cable to connect the computer up to the TV anyway, but the picture is still pretty poor. Considering the quality of the pictures on Sky, I don't see why it shouldn't be equalled online? Especially when it is costing a tenner a game.

I'd give it a 7/10.

 

[dannylad01]

Although I wasn't one, Shrewsbury fans logging in to watch Portsmouth v Shrewsbury were treated to a period in the first 13 minutes of watching Sunderland v Bristol Rovers!

 

[Gassy]

Although I wasn't one, Shrewsbury fans logging in to watch Portsmouth v Shrewsbury were treated to a period in the first 13 minutes of watching Sunderland v Bristol Rovers!

Crickey they must all think we’re going to win the league then, as we were superb for those 13 minutes

I’ve been using iFollow every season since it came out and it’s got better every year, although this year the camera seems worse, but maybe that was my internet/Sunderland’s camera.

Back in it’s first year there wasn’t commentary, replays, scoreboard or a timer - just the game. It was nice hearing the crowd louder, but a pain when you had to time the game to know what minute you were in

 

[dannyc5]

I’ve also been watching it quite a lot since year 1, and yesterday’s was by far the worst coverage. The picture was slightly jumpy and the audio was horrendous. We lost all sound including comms for the last 25 mins of the first half. I also believe the Charlton fans had a black screen for their first goal, although unfortunately us Crewe fans didn’t have that luxury and had to endure our poor defending.

It was watchable, but if those problems persist people will start getting pissed off quite quickly.

 

[Casey]

Butting in from league 2. Crawley's Carabao cup game v Millwall did not play until the 30th minute (approx). Because of this the club contacted iFollow and complained. iFollow have said they will email affected fans from Crawley and Millwall to advise on claiming a refund.

Guess what? No email.

Casey

 

[Luke Imp]

The only issue from our end yesterday was that some people were entering their card details and applying the code for the free pass but iFollow wouldn't allow any card information to be accepted. Any other issues were the less tech savvy people not being sure what to do.

First time I've used iFollow yesterday and worked fine for me. Links up well with the local radio commentary.

 

[Kenneth E End]

I'm glad they managed to sort out their server problems fairly quickly. First game after lockdown in late June - half the teams in the Championship had nothing for 25 minutes as their server didn't expect the demand!

 

[Meadow]

Although I wasn't one, Shrewsbury fans logging in to watch Portsmouth v Shrewsbury were treated to a period in the first 13 minutes of watching Sunderland v Bristol Rovers!

Some Portsmouth supporters had the same issue from what I've heard.

Given the longstanding issues we Wimbledon supporters have had with the audio stream - I cancelled my subscription last season - I wasn't holding out much hope. In fact, quite a few friends had problems with the Oxford match last weekend. However, it worked. There was 1 dropout of a couple of seconds but other than that it was okay.

The single camera angle isn't ideal, especially when some of the pitch is in shadow, but it gives us a relatively cheap way of watching our teams play until such time as we're allowed back into the grounds. Plus it gives the clubs some much needed income.

 

[Agombar stool]

Only minor issues I’ve ever had is the sound going a bit doolally at times. This was quickly rectified yesterday. £7.83 well spent in my eyes.

 

[Boletus Edulis]

The sound is definitely worse than the pictures, that said I was very surprised to see that Blackpool were playing in red. It was only latter on Quest On exactly the same tv that it was clear they were indeed wearing their normal tangerine.

From our perspective it is annoying that we have invested in four cameras but are only allowed to use one.

It does seem to me that some of the problems noted, such as watching another match, are way beyond what one could put down as teething problems. I can see a lot of people getting ticked of fairly quickly.

 

[Boz]

The home Carabao Cup tie with Harrogate was fine.

Different story with the league opener at Mansfield. No video footage at all for a number of users including myself, despite a number of attempts at refreshing. Ended up relying on just the commentary.

If the thing with seasoncard passes for home games doesn't work, I will be asking for some money back. No information circulated yet about when the pass for our first game will be sent out, but don't have a great deal of confidence everyone will get theirs in time...

 

[PuB]

The home Carabao Cup tie with Harrogate was fine.

Different story with the league opener at Mansfield. No video footage at all for a number of users including myself, despite a number of attempts at refreshing. Ended up relying on just the commentary.

If the thing with seasoncard passes for home games doesn't work, I will be asking for some money back. No information circulated yet about when the pass for our first game will be sent out, but don't have a great deal of confidence everyone will get theirs in time...

Fairly sure the exact same issues happened with our game too. Codes not working (or not being sent out in time).

 

[Indian Dan]

Never had an issue. I presume every club just uses their local radio team for commentary. This occasionally goes kaput. The incessant replays whilst missing actual match action was minimal yesterday, too.

 

[Boletus Edulis]

Never had an issue. I presume every club just uses their local radio team for commentary. This occasionally goes kaput. The incessant replays whilst missing actual match action was minimal yesterday, too.

The issue with the commentary is that there are points when the same commentary is being repeated, so you have two commentaries at the same time, and sometimes there has been silence. The local BBC Devon radio commentary is very good, you just cannot guarantee that you will hear it clearly for the whole game.

 

[Davidimp]

My only complaint was the lag , the stream we were watching (with my daughter ) was behind the game clearly as soccer Saturday had the goals went in on there before the game on our stream.

 

[GFC4EVA]

Fairly sure the exact same issues happened with our game too. Codes not working (or not being sent out in time).

Yep, had a code from the club, put it in and come up invalid code, 2 others I usually go to games with also had invalid codes, was not impressed

 

[Loyal Dale]

Our's suffered from a significant amount of lag also. For instance, there was usually about 3 or 4 seconds between Swindon getting the ball and our defenders realising what was happening.

No complaints about the picture, or indeed about the commentating team from Swindon, but plenty of complaints about the general standard of play, tactics and effort from possibly the weakest Dale team for 20 years or so.

I know we've signed Humphreys now, but I reckon we are another 3 players short of being competitive in L1.

 

[Casey]

My only complaint was the lag , the stream we were watching (with my daughter ) was behind the game clearly as soccer Saturday had the goals went in on there before the game on our stream.

Sorry to butt in again.

I reckon my lag was six minutes. Didn't notice it until the TV got turned on and I noticed Port Vale had scored again but the stream still had it as 1-0. Kept an eye on the TV and timed the full time on there to the stream.

Oh, in case any Wimbledon and Plymouth fans care. We really missed Camara and Palmer.

Casey

 

[Bucket_]

As mentioned earlier, on Saturday Pompey/Shrews fans were first treated to a no commentary feed for the first 5 minutes, and then a switch to Sunderland vs Gas for the next 15, so I think a lot of us would say it's been poor..

The video feeds have been constantly buggy and poorly put together since they first started, in my experience. It's excusable at first but not now they're a few years into it

 

[Boletus Edulis]

Sorry to butt in again.

I reckon my lag was six minutes. Didn't notice it until the TV got turned on and I noticed Port Vale had scored again but the stream still had it as 1-0. Kept an eye on the TV and timed the full time on there to the stream.

Oh, in case any Wimbledon and Plymouth fans care. We really missed Camara and Palmer.

Casey

Six minutes! Wow I thought it was normally only a few seconds.

Camara came on as a sub when one of our midfielders got a slight niggle. He did okay. Puts himself about a bit, and has a reasonable pass on him. Suspect he will be a fans favourite because of his effort and the fact that he breaks up oppo attacks.

 

[Luke Imp]

The home Carabao Cup tie with Harrogate was fine.

Different story with the league opener at Mansfield. No video footage at all for a number of users including myself, despite a number of attempts at refreshing. Ended up relying on just the commentary.

If the thing with seasoncard passes for home games doesn't work, I will be asking for some money back. No information circulated yet about when the pass for our first game will be sent out, but don't have a great deal of confidence everyone will get theirs in time...

I'm not sure whether it's the Club or iFollow who send them out/provide them but we got ours two days before the game and that seems to be how it'll work at our end. Gives people time to check the code works and for those it doesn't, to be able to sort by the time match day arrives.

 

[Boletus Edulis]

I'm not sure whether it's the Club or iFollow who send them out/provide them but we got ours two days before the game and that seems to be how it'll work at our end. Gives people time to check the code works and for those it doesn't, to be able to sort by the time match day arrives.

Same here, we got ours on Thursday.

 

[eric read]

I've watched three games on iFollow now, a home Carabao Cup game, a home EFL Trophy game, and an away League One game.

The first game (H v AFC Wimbledon in Carabao Cup) was reasonably OK and the picture and sound worked. Our home games come with Radio Oxford commentary, and although the radio programme starts at 2pm the sound does not come on until 2:30pm on iFollow for some reason. So it involves listening on the radio and then on iFollow once it comes on. Not the end of the world, but an unnecessary bit of pissing around that could easily be avoided.

The second game (H v Chelsea Under 5s in the EFL Trophy) the picture appeared but there was no commentary at all for the pre match, nor until 30 minutes into the game. iFollow were contacted by some of our fans and blamed the club for not switching the sound on, which turned out to be completely untrue, as the fault was at the iFollow end! Not good.

For the third game ( A v Lincoln in the League) it all worked OK, but initially came on with the Radio Lincoln commentary. There is a settings button, in the bottom right hand corner of the screen, press this and select sound and away commentary, and hey presto Radio Oxford (or your team's equivalent) comes on if that's your preference.

Overall it has worked. I've watched the games on my Smart TV via an HDMI cable and it's pretty good quality. However, beware as others have stated, there is a delay so I switch off any alerts and all other media so that I don't get told a goal has been scored a minute before seeing it. Also, we had three of our pre season friendlies broadcast. Away to Crystal Palace, via Palace TV, which was pretty good although obviously it had home commentators, who weren't too biased. Away to Brentford, in the first game at their new stadium, which was surprisingly shit quality both in terms of sound, picture quality, and general production, coupled with a loss of picture for about twenty minutes. The only good thing about it was that one of the presenters was Brentford fan Natalie Sawyer from TalkSport, who was far more voluptuous than I had realised, and well worth the watch on her own! The other game was home to QPR on our YouTube channel and it was superb. We had multiple camera angles and commentary and it was faultless. QPR fans could also get it via QPR TV. Our communications team warned us afterwards that they were forbidden by iFollow/EFL from using multiple cameras for iFollow games so it was back to one camera once the competitive games started, which seems bloody stupid if the club have the ability to provide a better product, but aren't allowed to!

Notwithstanding all of that, I fucking hate watching football this way, find myself far more nervous and edgy than if I was actually at the game, and feel like an outside observer rather than a participant. The sooner we can go back to games the better for me.

 

[Boletus Edulis]

I've watched three games on iFollow now, a home Carabao Cup game, a home EFL Trophy game, and an away League One game.

The first game (H v AFC Wimbledon in Carabao Cup) was reasonably OK and the picture and sound worked. Our home games come with Radio Oxford commentary, and although the radio programme starts at 2pm the sound does not come on until 2:30pm on iFollow for some reason. So it involves listening on the radio and then on iFollow once it comes on. Not the end of the world, but an unnecessary bit of pissing around that could easily be avoided.

The second game (H v Chelsea Under 5s in the EFL Trophy) the picture appeared but there was no commentary at all for the pre match, nor until 30 minutes into the game. iFollow were contacted by some of our fans and blamed the club for not switching the sound on, which turned out to be completely untrue, as the fault was at the iFollow end! Not good.

For the third game ( A v Lincoln in the League) it all worked OK, but initially came on with the Radio Lincoln commentary. There is a settings button, in the bottom right hand corner of the screen, press this and select sound and away commentary, and hey presto Radio Oxford (or your team's equivalent) comes on if that's your preference.

Overall it has worked. I've watched the games on my Smart TV via an HDMI cable and it's pretty good quality. However, beware as others have stated, there is a delay so I switch off any alerts and all other media so that I don't get told a goal has been scored a minute before seeing it. Also, we had three of our pre season friendlies broadcast. Away to Crystal Palace, via Palace TV, which was pretty good although obviously it had home commentators, who weren't too biased. Away to Brentford, in the first game at their new stadium, which was surprisingly shit quality both in terms of sound, picture quality, and general production, coupled with a loss of picture for about twenty minutes. The only good thing about it was that one of the presenters was Brentford fan Natalie Sawyer from TalkSport, who was far more voluptuous than I had realised, and well worth the watch on her own! The other game was home to QPR on our YouTube channel and it was superb. We had multiple camera angles and commentary and it was faultless. QPR fans could also get it via QPR TV. Our communications team warned us afterwards that they were forbidden by iFollow/EFL from using multiple cameras for iFollow games so it was back to one camera once the competitive games started, which seems bloody stupid if the club have the ability to provide a better product, but aren't allowed to!

Notwithstanding all of that, I fucking hate watching football this way, find myself far more nervous and edgy than if I was actually at the game, and feel like an outside observer rather than a participant. The sooner we can go back to games the better for me.

the reason we were told we could not use our four cameras was social distancing and staffing shortages. Yet Mr End suggests that in the Championship they can use four. No social distancing there then. Grr....

 

[Meadow]

Oh, in case any Wimbledon and Plymouth fans care. We really missed Camara and Palmer.

Casey

Unfortunately Palmer's not match fit yet after his op. Hope he's back soon, I have him as top scorer in our prediction competition.

 

[Casey]

I got an email today saying iFollow would be refunding my fee for the disrupted (ie not shown) Crawley v Millwall game. They said to expect it to be repaid automatically within ten days.

I take that to mean they will refund my card....on tenterhooks

Casey

 

[plops]

Used ifollow for the first time to watch Blackpool vs Swindon. Stream itself was very good. Home commentary was as expected biased. Couple of points though

1)It should support Chromecast as watching it on an iPad wasn’t ideal.

2) why are they not publishing viewing figures as I think it’s important that supporters can see if the club they follow is going to struggle due to low take up. Call it a guilt trip If you like (would be interesting to see how many supporters are using international subscriptions and using vpn).

since this is the only way to watch matches they really should scrap the international season ticket as we all know it’s so easy to work around it.

 

[Luke Imp]

You can switch to away commentary if you want to.