Below is a message from David Jackson regarding the streaming issues that were encountered today.

Go ASU TV Subscribers and fans of Appalachian State Athletics, It pains me more than you know to have to write this letter to so many of you that have been loyal supporters of our programming efforts for many years. Let me be among the first to apologize for the technical issues we had with the GoASU TV stream on today’s Sun Belt press conference. As many of you can understand, we wanted nothing more than to put our best foot forward on one of the most historic days in our department’s history. Unfortunately sometimes things occur that are out of our control, and today was the worst possible occurrences of “one of those days.”

Without getting overly technical, I can tell you today’s issues had nothing to do with server overload. We have handled as many as 18,000 concurrent streams during football broadcasts over the years and those numbers were never threatened today. The issue today had to do with a failed patch that was pushed out to correct our baseball streaming glitch a few weeks ago. That patch actually worked this time, but in its wake, caused another set of issues that was not able to be seen until the stream went live. This only affected certain viewers – those that were watching through a web based browser. Those watching through the iPad App could watch in its entirety. Needless to say the majority of our viewers watch over the traditional web. Once the technical staff identified the problem, they were able to recalibrate the stream and it started showing normal (depending on how often your internet provider updates caches) during the 4:15-4:20 timeframe.

I realize this sounds like another set of hollow excuses, and I don’t blame many of you for feeling that way. I can tell you that my staff and I work tirelessly to avoid these issues. We tested our setup about a half-dozen times today, but the issues only manifested themselves after the stream became live. We will continue to work with our provider until these issues get solved. Our intention is to put the best product forward with the resources we have available, and we will continue to do so. We take a great deal of pride in being able to tell and share the Appalachian story with each of you, and today was a story we’ve been waiting to tell for quite some time. We will have a full archive of the press conference posted online at GoASU.com shortly. Our intention is to make the baseball broadcasts this weekend the absolute best they can be.

While we are not blessed with the infrastructure and resources that some other similar programs may have, I guarantee that no one has a staff that wears their work on their sleeves like we do in our office and the offices throughout our department. We will stop at nothing to get these issues resolved.

I thank you for your patience, understanding, support, and trust, and I look forward to each of you enjoying this great time in our department amongst the rest of the Black & Gold nation.

Please feel free to contact me direct with any questions or concerns.

David Jackson
Associate Athletic Director

Its amazing what a sandbox and a few tools can do for you. Unfortunately tech departments in most colleges are lacking in brain power and motivation these days.

Glad I didn't have to write that letter. I know David was sick to his stomach when that stream wouldn't go up.

They keep having to apologize for problems with that company.
That should have been the straw that broke the camels back.

Drop NuLion as soon as practically possible. It's amazing how much better you can do it on your on. The product we deliver now is like night and day compared to last year when we were contractually required to use them. Just watch one of our baseball streams sometime, they're absolutely free. In fact, after we played UGA this year in baseball, quite a few schools contacted our media guys to figure out who we were using to provide our streams. That's how good it is.

It makes so much more to do it yourself. The only glitch we had yesterday was reporters being dumb and not using the microphones so you could hear the questions. I can deal with that.

Wraith beat me to it. NuLion was awful. As much as our staff tried to fix things it only seemed to work 30% of the time. When we finally dropped them, it was literally night and day. Hope you guys can start running it in house soon. I know how irritating it is.

At least you have someone there that will send out a real email like this explaining what happened. WKU has had web streaming problems for years and all we ever get is the generic, "Thank you for your concern, we will fix it" email. Now that pretty much everything is on ESPN3 it hasn't been a problem. The only problem now is that ESPN3 crops the feed to 4:3 when it is being send in 16:9. Very aggravating.

(03-28-2013 08:43 AM)freshtop Wrote:  At least you have someone there that will send out a real email like this explaining what happened. WKU has had web streaming problems for years and all we ever get is the generic, "Thank you for your concern, we will fix it" email. Now that pretty much everything is on ESPN3 it hasn't been a problem. The only problem now is that ESPN3 crops the feed to 4:3 when it is being send in 16:9. Very aggravating.

Is it really being sent at 16:9 though? I wouldn't really see ESPN being the one to crop that.

(03-28-2013 06:50 AM)GoApps70 Wrote:  They keep having to apologize for problems with that company.
That should have been the straw that broke the camels back.

I agree, thats how GSU was a few years ago too. Our video streams and video editing has been outstanding the last couple of years though. It will get better but i'd suggest a new company asap.

(03-27-2013 10:56 PM)Wild Bill Kelso Wrote:  depending on how often your internet provider updates caches) during the 4:15-4:20 timeframe.

4.20 solves a lot of problems.

(03-28-2013 08:43 AM)freshtop Wrote:  At least you have someone there that will send out a real email like this explaining what happened. WKU has had web streaming problems for years and all we ever get is the generic, "Thank you for your concern, we will fix it" email. Now that pretty much everything is on ESPN3 it hasn't been a problem. The only problem now is that ESPN3 crops the feed to 4:3 when it is being send in 16:9. Very aggravating.

Ditto. I don't know why it is, but very few organizations, private or public, have the courage to say "it didn't work, we are embarassed and we are doing our best to fix it."

Stupidest customer service move you can make is to not do that but few have the courage to do it.

ok this ASU crap is officially on my nerves. What happened to rebranding as App St?

(03-28-2013 08:43 AM)freshtop Wrote:  At least you have someone there that will send out a real email like this explaining what happened. WKU has had web streaming problems for years and all we ever get is the generic, "Thank you for your concern, we will fix it" email. Now that pretty much everything is on ESPN3 it hasn't been a problem. The only problem now is that ESPN3 crops the feed to 4:3 when it is being send in 16:9. Very aggravating.

Has ESPN3 said anything about fixing that?
You probably have not heard, but good thing for some of us to email them about.

(03-28-2013 09:56 AM)WinstonTheWolf Wrote:  ok this ASU crap is officially on my nerves. What happened to rebranding as App St?

App State is changing everything to App State from ASU, even this site we are talking about will not be GoASU.com soon.

(03-28-2013 08:51 AM)GaSouthern Wrote:  

(03-28-2013 06:50 AM)GoApps70 Wrote:  They keep having to apologize for problems with that company.
That should have been the straw that broke the camels back.

I agree, thats how GSU was a few years ago too. Our video streams and video editing has been outstanding the last couple of years though. It will get better but i'd suggest a new company asap.

+1. Two years ago this would have been us. Our old hosting service was TERRIBLE. You guys need to ditch that and upgrade ASAP.

(03-28-2013 10:01 AM)GoApps70 Wrote:  

(03-28-2013 09:56 AM)WinstonTheWolf Wrote:  ok this ASU crap is officially on my nerves. What happened to rebranding as App St?

App State is changing everything to App State from ASU, even this site we are talking about will not be GoASU.com soon.

Yeah, well, we need to get Wild Bill on board asap. Did he get the memo?

(03-28-2013 10:14 AM)WinstonTheWolf Wrote:  Yeah, well, we need to get Wild Bill on board asap. Did he get the memo?

Why? You putting covers on the TPS reports now?

(03-28-2013 10:01 AM)GoApps70 Wrote:  

(03-28-2013 09:56 AM)WinstonTheWolf Wrote:  ok this ASU crap is officially on my nerves. What happened to rebranding as App St?

App State is changing everything to App State from ASU, even this site we are talking about will not be GoASU.com soon.

Typing in "appstatesports.com" (the soon-to-be URL) actually already redirects to GoASU. Personally I'm a huge fan of the rebrand and am perfectly fine with Ark St having full rights to "ASU" in the Sun Belt

(03-28-2013 09:56 AM)WinstonTheWolf Wrote:  ok this ASU crap is officially on my nerves. What happened to rebranding as App St?

ASU will be gone at the end of this academic year. App State will be the only thing used over the summer. They can't just make the changes (buying new website domains, creating all new merchandise, ridding of all "ASU" on campus, etc.) within a week of being added to the Sun Belt. Patience, grass hopper.

That said, some App fans will still type ASU on the message boards, but context clues should make it pretty clear to which school they are referring.