beIN Sports 2019-2020

It basically serves as a "sampler" for BeIN with a melange of their programming sprinkled in with some live matches. If that CAF U-23 final wasn't on Connect, then I guess this means at times it's going to essentially serve as Connect channel 9. Should be interesting to check out tomorrow to see what live events it airs.

There's no on-demand component to it, it simply streams through The Roku Channel. Perhaps it'll replay the live matches it shows but we really won't know until we see a schedule.

 

Watching it now, I notice there is a description of the current program with the start and end time in the Roku Channel (where you click to watch), so Roku is receiving a schedule/guide with the channel, there just appears to be no way to see what will be shown in the future.

 

BEIN Sports XTRA is showing Brest - Nantes live now (English commentary), which is a match that is not on any of the other BEIN channels, not even on BEIN Sports Connect channels 4-8.

They are also showing promos for the African World Cup qualifiers.

 

This morning they played Lyon v. Nice--another that wasn't scheduled on the BEinConnect channels.

I don't have BeIn, so I don't pay much attention to their schedule. But I was pretty surprised to see they had several "empty" Connect channels this morning while those Ligue 1 matches were underway.

I thought the whole point of the Connect is to show more matches?

 

Watching this Brest-Nantes match I see they're promoting Espaynol-Getafe (a 6AM Eastern start) and St Etienne-Montpellier (a 11AM start) on Xtra tomorrow. Matches from these leagues in both of these time slots have traditionally been on Connect, but they're both absent from tomorrow's Connect lineup. Ditto for today's Lyon-Nice match. And there are plenty of empty Connect channels where they could be shown.

So this isn't just a channel for overflow matches, they're actually taking matches away from Connect to show them on Xtra, which sucks for those of us who subscribe to Sling or Fubo who either watch these matches on demand or cloud DVR them.

Absolutely shameful.

 

Ehh...at least it's free tho. Not many people DVR games anymore. I know I don't. I only DVR highlight shows and that's about it

 

So BeIN has decided to not show games on channels when people are paying for those channels. And instead they are showing games on a free channel that many of their paid subscribers (through various services) might not access if those subscribers use a device other than Roku. That sounds about right for BeIN.

Their decision this past week have me hoping they go under but then I remember that DTV is not going to make Gol HD again, Fox edited 90% of the Libertadores/Sudamericana games they aired, and African football was not on TV in the US until these idiots started a station.

It's been quite a week for BeIN in my opinion.

 

Not true. You can still watch the Roku channel without a roku. I watched BeIN Xtra using silk browser and my phone

 

But why not keep them on Connect too? What's the $ upside in driving people away from a paid service to a free one?

 

More traffic?? ‍

 

Right now they are replaying the Lyon match, but the description is saying they are showing a Barcelona match!

 

Isn't there a way to DVR content from Roku, at least with the Roku Ultra, which has a USB port?

 

Because I wanted to watch the Libertadores final with English commentary, didn't know if the game would or would not go past the 90 and know that BeIN will edit if a game goes past the 90, and because Connect has looked like garbage lately, I found another option with BBC.

BBC had a pre-game and half-time with Jonathan Wilson and Gilberto Silva (the former very insightful as any football fan would expect and the latter somewhat insightful). BBC also had Tim Vickery doing an audio essay while highlights of previous games and fan shots played in the background. BeIN went with a La Liga league match for their main English channel. BBC 1 - BeIN 0.

Although BBC did push the trophy celebration to their streaming service so that was a drag.

I know Real is a mega-team and I know that many football fans have no idea what the Libertadores is, but it's bizarre that twice this week BeIN went with league matches instead of finals from tournaments that have featured on the channel. I'd think that most (almost all?) fans of a club team would understand if that team aired on delay because the game was bounced for a final. And in this instance, Connect could have been used for the live game and then the Real game shown on delay instead of the Libertadores. Some dumb decisions this past week.

 

Probably by using a capture card but that's about it

 

For sure, but to what end. If subscribers feel like they are paying for content and not getting that content then the teaser doesn't work. Xtra should be used to bring people to the station but shouldn't be used to piss of paying customers who pay for a service (including something like DVR or on demand) only to have the content shown for free minus the full quality of the service (again, on demand or DVR). If they were smart they'd use Xtra as a hook but still show those same games on their regular programming. This is what every movie channel does with their free weekends. HBO doesn't do what BeIN is doing, for example.

 

I don't know myself but with the way BeIN is run, logic is not at their forefront

 

I am watching Toulouse - Marseille on BEIN Sports 5 now and the image keeps breaking up. Is everyone else experiencing that issue with BEIN Connect?

 

Yes, Danielmak and myself have been discussing this a little ways upthread.

 

That would be one way. Another is to purchase an Avermedia recorder and a specific splitter that works for set top boxes (pm me an I can point you to an amazon link). You would then run your Roku or Amazon Stick or whatever other device through the spliter > Avermedia (which records to a portable HDD) > HDMI to your TV. Basically you're creating your own DVR. The Avermedia has a time record. The downside to all of this is that you would need to leave the device on and BeIN running. And you have to hope that your device doesn't quit during the middle of your recording. I've had multiple problems with BeIN through Sling just stopping while I am watching and jumping back to the menu for my Cloud DVR.

Also in reference to your question, Marius Tresor, re: Connect breaking up. You should email BeIN. If I'm the only one emailing them nothing is going to happen. I sent them a screenshot and a video sample (using the process I just described above). I know for a fact they never downloaded the sample because wetransfer sends a receipt when a file is downloaded. So, that's about the state of their customer service: blame it on the user or the ISP.

 

Also...tweet them out on their twitter accounts. I think that can sweat them a bit since the problems would be made public...

 

Good idea.

 

Going from my iPad through my Chromecast, I didn't experience any issues.

 

This seems like an insane amount of work just to record Amiens-Lille. Seems like such a hassle.

Even better than sending an email is tweeting at bein USA with your issue. When I used to watch Serie A on connect, there would always be some problem that needed resolving (multiple channels of audio playing simultaneously, poor video quality, black screens, etc), so I would take a video with my phone and tweet it at them, and in a few minutes they would fix it.

They don't actually watch what's happening in real time the way that users are, so they send information out via the stream, and then they assume it works. If people don't tell them that stuff is a problem, they'll never know.

 

...if only I used Twitter, and BeIN Connect.

 

http://www.beinsportsxtra.com/

on the bottom of the website there is a link for the weekly downloadable schedule. It looks like a mix of live games along with games from last season.