Unreal: Flotrack $30 feed cut out mid-race, then they went to a commercial!!

How can Coach Rowbury provide a 40 minute FB live video which was 100% clear and without any bounce while he ran around chasing the field and supposed "professional" outlets provide an awful view of the race all while chargine $30 for the race?

Ronald Dump wrote:

How can Coach Rowbury provide a 40 minute FB live video which was 100% clear and without any bounce while he ran around chasing the field and supposed "professional" outlets provide an awful view of the race all while chargine $30 for the race?

A handheld gimbal, as I mentioned in the post above. Cost: $100, a little more for a fancy one.

Flotrack is not selling their product to adults, mostly targeting high school kids. They don't care about the quality of their videos.

A mostly video based running website that puts our grade school quality videos.....selfish pigs. They should fire half of their announcers/commentators and save some money.

Start with firing Gordon.

The Guru Matt James wrote:

Letsrun.com complaining about an advertisement interrupting and ruining their web experience? Oh the irony.

Exactly. How many effing times am I going to have to read "CONGRATULATIONS! You're a winner!" and reset my phone before something is done to the site?

I was at the meet. Did not see a single sign of FloTrack anywhere -- no logos, no gear, absolutely nothing. Including the lead cart that was filming the runners and the cameras set up in the fields.

If I had to guess, I'd say FloTrack didn't have anybody there, just the NCAA people doing the filming. I'd guess all FloTrack did was take the feed from the NCAA and rebroadcast it. Someone in the know can prove me wrong but that's what it looked like.

I only woke up in time to see the D3 races on the west coast, but was very disappointed in the quality.

For $19.99 ( x however many viewers) I was hoping they'd have more coverage than what seemed to be a camera or two in the middle of the field, and more information for the viewer than what one could decipher on their own from the timing website.

Posted too soon.

That all being said, I'm cancelling my subscription now and sending them a scathing email which they will unceremoniously delete without reading.

Jzs wrote:

Why don’t you two and letsrun crew get off your dead azzes and do it better. I’m thinking it won’t turn up any better. On a positive note I hope you and yours had a chance to look at the fantastic job the NCAASports network did a number weeks ago with the conference meet actually held there at the Tom Sawyer course ... couldn’t have been better..! Continue to complain about the coverage or maybe spend some of your money and do it better.

SO..... if someone complains because a particular service that they over pay for sucks, the are not allowed to complain? Their only option is to do it better themselves (5th grade thinking)? Since when did that come into play? Letsrun does not have photo equipment, the personnel, a [greedy] NCAA work contract, etc. They like all of us are a-thing-called......CUSTOMERS. Have you ever heard of a paying customer?

So then, you think if someone complains because a runner who is expected to run 10K X-C in 29:30, runs 29:45, only those who can break 29:30 have a right to complain, right?

What a Bunch of BS.

Another Unsatisfied Customer wrote:

Posted too soon.

That all being said, I'm cancelling my subscription now and sending them a scathing email which they will unceremoniously delete without reading.

If enough people refuse to pay, they will listen.

Katey B. wrote:

If enough people refuse to pay, they will listen.

However, I would wager that someone from Flotrack read this thread and the next event will be the first with a handheld gimbal. So at least they will have improved.

Flo Track is the best.

Jzs wrote:

Why don’t you two and letsrun crew get off your dead azzes and do it better. I’m thinking it won’t turn up any better. On a positive note I hope you and yours had a chance to look at the fantastic job the NCAASports network did a number weeks ago with the conference meet actually held there at the Tom Sawyer course ... couldn’t have been better..! Continue to complain about the coverage or maybe spend some of your money and do it better.

Flotrack paid the NCAA for exclusive streaming rights, so LRC couldn't do it without paying more. Schools are allowed to do their own videos on youtube showing the meet, but random companies are not.

Sdfsdfsdfsdfsdfsdf wrote:

Flotrack paid the NCAA for exclusive streaming rights, so LRC couldn't do it without paying more. Schools are allowed to do their own videos on youtube showing the meet, but random companies are not.

This.

Could Letsrun use their connections to "help" a qualified school or schools in each division put out a high quality feed?

As someone who's been getting all of my running news from here for fifteen years and has probably not paid for any of the content, I'd gladly make a donation to such an undertaking. (I do suspect the money would need to be divvied up between LRC and the schools).

Schools can't put out a live feed. They can film for later.

lollerama wrote:

Katey B. wrote:

If enough people refuse to pay, they will listen.

However, I would wager that someone from Flotrack read this thread and the next event will be the first with a handheld gimbal. So at least they will have improved.

Doubtful, I have been complaining for years about their lack of a tripod in basic interviews... and I have seen little improvement.

I was really disappointed that they didn't broadcast the awards presentation!

My feed cut out 10 minutes into the men's race. I tried refreshing and it kept giving me error messages like "The stream could not be found". Same thing when I tried on a second computer. After 5 minutes of that, the feed would load but only for a few seconds before freezing again. I never got a commercial though. Finally at about the 20 minute mark, the feed started working again.

I opened a support ticket with FloTrack and they didn't get back to me until after the event.

20 Second PR wrote:

My feed cut out 10 minutes into the men's race. I tried refreshing and it kept giving me error messages like "The stream could not be found". Same thing when I tried on a second computer. After 5 minutes of that, the feed would load but only for a few seconds before freezing again. I never got a commercial though. Finally at about the 20 minute mark, the feed started working again.

I opened a support ticket with FloTrack and they didn't get back to me until after the event.

I hope these clowns refunded you.

Katey B. wrote:

If enough people refuse to pay, they will listen.

No. NCAA is a monopoly. They don't need to listen to anyone. The price is the price.

Ronald Dump wrote:

20 Second PR wrote:

My feed cut out 10 minutes into the men's race. I tried refreshing and it kept giving me error messages like "The stream could not be found". Same thing when I tried on a second computer. After 5 minutes of that, the feed would load but only for a few seconds before freezing again. I never got a commercial though. Finally at about the 20 minute mark, the feed started working again.

I opened a support ticket with FloTrack and they didn't get back to me until after the event.

I hope these clowns refunded you.

Did anyone ever get back with you?

I re-watched the D3 women's race last night to see if the quality would be any better, thinking maybe the freezes and lags were because of so many people logging on race morning. I was able to watch the whole event this time without getting the errors we experienced, but it was still a terrible production. I give the announcers credit for trying to cover and continue talking over the shots of the tall weeds blowing in the wind when the lead cart camera was not working, which was the majority of the meet. You would think they would have at least in the archived version, adding in the actual final results of both team and individuals beyond the top 9 individuals!?! Having the awards presentation would have also been appreciated, but it's obvious that FloTrack cares little about customer satisfaction!