Indeed that seems a good thing (free streaming). Except maybe that (from what I've heard... I haven't really tried them) they don't seem to have a great track record in providing good quality streams. If they make it 100% free the demand should go up and only put more pressure on their streaming platform. Also, "Xtra" is a great name for a service like this. Except maybe if you've already used the brand "Xtra" for your daily sports news program. Maybe it would be a tad less confusing to come up with something else like "Plus" or "+" or whatever. I'm all for their offering free streaming. But I hope, for their sake and ours, that they have their act together on this.
True. And all the more reason (I'm sure primary is a commercial partnership) to roll this out only on Roku, who provide phenomenal streaming video delivery. So their going with reliable delivery and not an enormous bandwidth load. I haven't used beIN Connect much on Roku but I would assume the picture delivery is better than via laptop or other device apps.
Would be nice if they were like almost every other streaming service out there which offers soccer, and offered an on-demand feature so those of us who want to catch some of their non-linear offerings didn't have to subscribe to Sling or Fubo in order to record them.
BeIn showed the Oman-India WCQ on BeIN5 today. It was just dumb luck on my part that I saw the TV listing on their web guide since the Sling guide listed no content. They showed one other AFCQ on Thursday (if I remember correctly) but that one showed up in the guide. Does anyone know if they showed anything else from AFC WCQ over the weekend or on Monday on Connect? Nothing was listed in the guide but it might not be too late to go back through on demand. FYI commentary is Arabic for this one and some of the digital image problems I described on the previous page of this thread feature in this match.
BEIN showed several AFCON qualifiers and a few Asian qualifiers over the last few days. Some of them were on BEIN channels 4 through 8 in the USA. Sling did not list some of them on BEIN channels 4-8, but if you check the live time of the game and go back through Sling, they are there.
This is something you still find in countries other than the USA, Europe, and East Asia. Venevision, for example, Venezuela's highest rated over the air channel still broadcasts live in 4×3 SDTV.
So now that I'm home I decided to check out BeIN Xtra. At first I thought it was a new Roku app but after being unable to find it and reading the press release a little finer, I see that it's available through The Roku Channel app and it can be found under Live Sports/TV. Right now it's showing a Real Madrid-Real Sociedad from last season. As there's very little going on from this moment until Friday in the world of soccer, I'm going to reserve judgment. I've never used The Roku Channel before so I don't know if there's some kind of guide embedded in the app but I couldn't find it, and neither does there appear to be one in TV guide at BeIN's site. So right now there's no way I've found to figure out what's going to be on it in the future nor will I likely be bothering since I subscribe to Sling's World Sports Package and get all the Connect channels live and on demand through March.
I have compared the Roku BEIN "channel" with the BEIN channels on Sling on Roku and the Sling version was always a better quality image, for all of the BEIN channels. But the frame rate is messed up on BEIN channel 3 (La Liga channel) on all platforms. It looks like a slide show at 10 frames per second! Is this BEIN XTRA a new BEIN Roku "channel"? I will have to check to see if Roku adds something new if I add the BEIN Roku channel again.
As I mentioned in the post above yours, it's not a new standalone Roku channel but rather a "channel" within The Roku Channel, which itself is a standalone Roku channel (pretty sure it's pre-loaded on all Rokus so you don't have to download it)
Thank you for that. I was wasting my time trying to find it in the Roku BEIN Connect app. It is buried in the Roku Channel app (where the Fubo Sports Network is too, which is also free on Roku, even without a Fubo subscription). The video quality is very good, better than the channels in the BEIN Connect app on Roku. As an aside, I would like to know why the BEIN 3 channel (La Liga Channel) has such a low frame rate (it looks like a slide show!). Anyway, this new BEIN Sports XTRA channel looks like a "best of" BEIN Sports channel, based on their promos. They are advertising it as not needing any logins. They are showing a La Liga highlights show now, but I saw promos for most of the other current BEIN properties in the USA. Hopefully, they will have some unique content too. One difference I see from the "regular" BEIN full time channels (BEIN Sports HD and the Spanish version) is real major brands commercials. That is interesting.
Just a guess, but maybe if this is deemed the most popular channel/content (La Liga) that they lowered the frame rate so as to support the streaming demand without bringing their platform to its knees?
I don't think that is it because the La Liga Channel mostly shows replays, and when it shows live games they are always also on one or both of the 2 main channels.
Will be interesting to see, as the English channel is opting to show Real Madrid-Real Sociedad live and join the final in progress, while it's live on the Spanish-language channel and on BeIN Connect 5. Technically it's not one of the "overflow" games since it's being shown live on the Spanish channel so there's a chance they throw one of the Ligue 1 matches on there instead.
Well, BeIN programmers prove their inept qualities once again. They have shown all group games and the semi-finals for the CAN U-23. But they have no scheduled broadcast for the Third Place match, which is a final Olympic qualifier. And they have no live broadcast for the final. I get that this is a niche tournament, but they have shown the entire tournament up to this point. Realistically the final is not as important as the third place match. But still, they have 7 connect channels. And if the final goes to ET or penalties, I'm sure the delayed broadcast will be cut. Fools. And even with a niche tournament; it's certainly no less attractive than a Turkish league game.
You might try scanning all 8 channels at game time (or 7, because the La Liga Channel will not have them). Sometimes the games just show up, without showing up in the guides. Of course, that is bad marketing, or maybe the opposite of marketing, but I suspect that the USA broadcast rights are just thrown in with some more valuable rights in other countries. Or maybe those games will be exclusively on the new BEIN Sports XTRA Channel?
So I tried out the new Xtra channel via Roku app and it was playing some La Liga game. Then I checked what was playing at that time on BeIN sports 1 that was a league un game. So what are they putting on Xtra? And how does it relate to their other channels? Ps. Shouldn't Xtra be its own channel on Roku so you could put it on the home screen? Rather than buried in the Roku app, and you have to do a search for it?
The Xtra channels show everything not on beIN Sports and beIN Sports Espanol, from my understanding. The overflow stuff you'd also find on Connect channels 4-9. Not sure about LaLiga TV. And I'm sure this content deal between beIN and Roku is aimed at promoting Roku's channel, so the point is to drive more users inside the Roku app to look around. This is more about Roku than it is about beIN.
Knowing that there are live matches in both La Liga and Ligue 1 right now, I thought I would check out the Roku Xtra channel. Well, they are not playing either game (which according to their website are being played on the English and Spanish channels, respectively). Right now they are playing, however, the LIVE CAF U-23 Final, which is kind of cool. According to the beIN site, the CAF final is not being shown on the BEIN Connect channels in the US. I wish they would publish a schedule for xtra. I initially thought it would be like the MLS channel on Pluto that just shows replays and I was resigned to just using it to channel surf and randomly come across 90in30 replays when I m bored. But it looks like there is some live stuff. It will be interesting to see what they show this weekend.
Haha classic beIN move to release a new streaming channel and not publish a schedule. Everything they do has a sloppy release or implementation and we're deeeeeep into their American life.
Yep. Poor marketing, as usual. Hopefully, they will at least publish a guide/schedule for the new XTRA channel. I also hope they show some of the games they have rights for and show outside of the USA, such as more of the Asian World Cup qualifiers, since it does not seem that anybody else is showing those in the USA. Also, does anyone know the easiest way to record from Roku?
BeIN geniuses. BTW, the U23 third place game did not air at all on BeIN. During that time slot, BeIN1 aired La Liga Show, Paid Programming Larry CNN guy infomercial, La Liga highlights, Paid Programming, This is Paris. Meanwhile the Connect channels simply had placards listing the league games that would air this weekend. Is that BeIN Xtra channel only live broadcasts or is there any on demand features?