Initial thoughts on Morecambe Player

[sgt major]

Had my first experience with Morecambe Player today and I set it up in the York before the England game through my large screen and speaker.

The commentary was great but the features such as Live Table, Stats and team line ups were not working. This is obviously paramount to the success of the service and it was disappointing not to have it.

Secondly the Archive section is not yet available - this would be the killer application that would get me to sign up on a permanent basis but as it is at the mo I will probably stay clear.

[SkinnyShrimp]

I'm with you sgt - my first try and to be frank I felt I wasn't getting what I was told I would be - 14 day free trial is all good but unless you get what it says on the tin you will always feel short changed - if the stats, line ups etc are not avaialble next week then I will also be passing on this service as in my opinion the commentary wasn't that great either although I admit it wasn't the best game for the lads to get excited about!

[quinny]

Chaps
Thanks for your feedback. I will pass this on to Perform but I would appreciate it if you also send them an e-mail through the system as well. If thet are offering this trial they have to to make sure things are working.
I think the more people who let them know that they aren't providing the system they are advertising the better.
I think overall the Player deal is an excellent one - when it does what it says on the tin.
Quinny

[Keith]

...in my opinion the commentary wasn't that great either although I admit it wasn't the best game for the lads to get excited about!

I didn't listen to Player yesterday due to a power cut, so I was pleased to find Quinny doing full match on Radio Lancs, once I'd found an old radio that ran on batteries (how quaint!) What I would say about the quality of the commentary is to bear in mind the guys are amateurs who are getting better with experience. Lance normally flies as wingman to Ockers rather than being in the lead role. They have go noticeably better since they began broadcasting to the Sunflower Club and I think generally it's not bad.

[campdave]

The commentary was great but the features such as Live Table, Stats and team line ups were not working. This is obviously paramount to the success of the service and it was disappointing not to have it.

I noticed that yesterday, but previously this seasno when i've used it (can't remember specific matches now unfortunately) it has been working, so hopefully yesterday just a blip.

[cragbankshrimp]

this is my second season with player (world) and yesterdays commentry was the best yet. without being to critical of Ockers, sometimes i don't know which side is kicking which way, but we always know what food is availible

[Aspers]

Brilliant love it, super, smashing great.

[ockers]

this is my second season with player (world) and yesterdays commentry was the best yet. without being to critical of Ockers, sometimes i don't know which side is kicking which way, but we always know what food is availible

you are being too critical read your post again??

[Aspers]

Don't forget Morecambe Player is the only way of following my team for me so i am a bit biased.
Technical problems happen. That's life, smetimes you travel a few hundred kms away from home and your car breaks down, it shouldn't it just had a service but it does happen

My criticism of the commentary is sometimes it's too fair. I think the guys are funny, have really good knowledge of league 2 and I really enjoy listening in. They also have a professional manner and I believe I get value for money.

I am happy and willing to pay the price for Morecambe player, if I lived in Morecambe I would never even buy it, I'D BE TOO BUSY FOLLOWING THE TEAM LIVE. (We may never win another game but what the?).

So from me a big thumbs up to all concerned and a big thank you to the company that hosts it, lets face it they ain't going to get rich from us!!!!.

Now what I would like to see hapen is a podcast of the live commentary at 7.00am local time each Sunday morning because at the moment with daylight saving I have problems trying to do the late Saturday early Sunday thang.

TBH I think Sean should sort himself and start Radio Ockers, him and the boys could syndicate, I'd buy it, so thats 1.

[Posh]

Just to let you know that Quinny, one of the club's directors and myself have been liaising with Perform Group and Football League Interactive throughout the day.

To be honest the first email we got back was pretty dismissive but confirmed a hardware fault at their end for the problems during the Bradford and Shrewsbury games, which has now been resolved, but didn't accept there was a stats problem. However we escalated the issue through the Football League and they now accept there must have been a problem with the stats. One of their engineers is due back in tomorrow and we should get further news then.

As promised by Quinny everything is being done by him, Sean, and the rest of us to resolve it.

[Christies Child]

[quote="Aspers"]Don't forget Morecambe Player is the only way of following my team for me so i am a bit biased.
Technical problems happen. That's life, smetimes you travel a few hundred kms away from home and your car breaks down, it shouldn't it just had a service but it does happen

My criticism of the commentary is sometimes it's too fair. I think the guys are funny, have really good knowledge of league 2 and I really enjoy listening in. They also have a professional manner and I believe I get value for money.

I am happy and willing to pay the price for Morecambe player, if I lived in Morecambe I would never even buy it, I'D BE TOO BUSY FOLLOWING THE TEAM LIVE. (We may never win another game but what the?).

So from me a big thumbs up to all concerned and a big thank you to the company that hosts it, lets face it they ain't going to get rich from us!!!!.

Now what I would like to see hapen is a podcast of the live commentary at 7.00am local time each Sunday morning because at the moment with daylight saving I have problems trying to do the late Saturday early Sunday thang.

TBH I think Sean should sort himself and start Radio Ockers, him and the boys could syndicate, I'd buy it, so thats 1.[/quote]

You should have heared him wax lyrical on Radio Lancashire Sport tonight. I'm bloody sure he's after a job as Sammy's PR man. Either that or he's looking for a BBC contract!

Excellent stuff

[cragbankshrimp]

Sorry if ive offended you Sean. The line about which way were kicking and the food was meant as a joke and i certainly didnt want to cause offence. I appreciate all the work you lads do week in week out and again apologise.

[mrpotatohead]

crawler

[Posh]

Perform have replied regarding the loss of stats and effectively it was a one-off and shouldn't happen again. Anyone on the 14-day free trial should see a stats feed throughout the Torquay game.

In the spirit of openness her below is their apology-free reply.

Please find below a summary of what happened with the Stats at the weekend:

• A script exists that imports PA data into our system (created by Java Developers)

• A Unix “cron job” exists on each server, and this manages the schedule for when all scripts/tasks, including the one above, should run (A cron job is a process that is scripted to run at a certain time. The process runs every X number of seconds to parse the PA feed. Delete the cron file (or the appropriate call from within the cron file) and the task won’t get run.)

• The cron job file was accidently deleted from ITG03 server on Friday evening by a member of the Unix Team during housekeeping work

• It was rebuilt on Saturday, but by then the original job (scheduled for sometime between midnight & 14:00) had not run

• When this was identified, David from Java Dev contacted the Unix team and they ran the cron to re-run all the scripts

• The information has now been ingested correctly and should be ok moving forward

In brief, it was a user error as opposed to a technical problem, and as such, it shouldn’t happen again.

[sgt major]

Perform have replied regarding the loss of stats and effectively it was a one-off and shouldn't happen again. Anyone on the 14-day free trial should see a stats feed throughout the Torquay game.

In the spirit of openness her below is their apology-free reply.

Please find below a summary of what happened with the Stats at the weekend:

• A script exists that imports PA data into our system (created by Java Developers)

• A Unix “cron job” exists on each server, and this manages the schedule for when all scripts/tasks, including the one above, should run (A cron job is a process that is scripted to run at a certain time. The process runs every X number of seconds to parse the PA feed. Delete the cron file (or the appropriate call from within the cron file) and the task won’t get run.)

• The cron job file was accidently deleted from ITG03 server on Friday evening by a member of the Unix Team during housekeeping work

• It was rebuilt on Saturday, but by then the original job (scheduled for sometime between midnight & 14:00) had not run

• When this was identified, David from Java Dev contacted the Unix team and they ran the cron to re-run all the scripts

• The information has now been ingested correctly and should be ok moving forward

In brief, it was a user error as opposed to a technical problem, and as such, it shouldn’t happen again.

Thanks for both replies - I used to work in the telecoms industry and was used to techie replies to problems.

Will now get the whole system cranked up for this Saturday when we play Torquay, if it works I will just carry on the subscription until the end of the season.

[ockers]

Cragbank Shrimp no worries fella just keep dialling in as you can see from Perform's response and Mike and Quinnys hard work we will get there and bring you some great coverage
w ejust want to get as many people on board so we will will make sure we give you all a good shout out on saturday
myself lance and julian wilson will be there with the twitterings msn shrimpsvoices and of course the live commentary
we will try our best to get a player interview or two at half time if we can too and some interactive features as well so non stop from 245pm onwards
watch this space
Sgt Major a splendid idea in the york can you get some pics taken if anyone listening in could use them for an article in the programme and website
just booked Lance and myself into......Bentley Lodge

[Mark S]

And when you get the photos, you can count up and charge for each listener!

maybe we could all club for one subscription and they could broadcast it in the cinema with a 60ft picture of you and Lance on the screen?

Hopefully Sammy will delay the half time team talk until after your interview?

Now what would be worth the subscription would be getting live coverage of the team talk!

Keep it up, and remember to tell us which way we are kicking as it makes all the difference on the commentary!

[ockers]

oh dear lance was on about linking up a webcam so it could be done
ill make sure that th ecamera is ppointing lance's way or maybe grab hells bells if shes there i think sgt major would have to freeze frame that image
i think we could get a player whos not involved to give us the half time team talk or a fan
were going down friday so im sure we will come up with some ideas Mark
if were close enough to our fans we could grab someone for a half time natter as well!!!
will remember if were right to left or left to right

[mrpotatohead]

whos lance

Does he run morecambe player

[sgt major]

oh dear lance was on about linking up a webcam so it could be done
ill make sure that th ecamera is ppointing lance's way or maybe grab hells bells if shes there i think sgt major would have to freeze frame that image
i think we could get a player whos not involved to give us the half time team talk or a fan
were going down friday so im sure we will come up with some ideas Mark
if were close enough to our fans we could grab someone for a half time natter as well!!!
will remember if were right to left or left to right

Just an idea for the future - instead of everyone getting onto twitter, msn etc - would it be possible to have a system where we can type a message on the actual player and get replies on there - like Justin TV

[ockers]

oh dear lance was on about linking up a webcam so it could be done
ill make sure that th ecamera is ppointing lance's way or maybe grab hells bells if shes there i think sgt major would have to freeze frame that image
i think we could get a player whos not involved to give us the half time team talk or a fan
were going down friday so im sure we will come up with some ideas Mark
if were close enough to our fans we could grab someone for a half time natter as well!!!
will remember if were right to left or left to right

Just an idea for the future - instead of everyone getting onto twitter, msn etc - would it be possible to have a system where we can type a message on the actual player and get replies on there - like Justin TV

im sure lance will come on here and have a look at it mick im not sure how that works
but it sounds a good idea?

[Aspers]

Don't know what got into me.

Time for me to crawl back into my Asian Cup hellhole of Australia V Oman live on oz TV NOW

[marky No.1]

just booked Lance and myself into......Bentley Lodge

That makes you about 200 yards from our front door Sean, so watch out!

Would'nt mind tapping into your Wi~Fi tho'

[ockers]

just booked Lance and myself into......Bentley Lodge

That makes you about 200 yards from our front door Sean, so watch out!

Would'nt mind tapping into your Wi~Fi tho'

excellent mark we shall be in touch im sure
930am start tomorrow for us!!!

[Morecambe Player]

Just to answer a couple of queries:

Mr Potatohead...Haha, no, Lance definately doesn't run Morcambe Player. Quinny, Posh and Ockers are the legends that put it all together. All I've done is to offer some ideas to try and make the service more enjoyable so that Shrimps fans can interact with the commentary team. I know that the messenger and tweetings aren't part of the official service, and what we don't want to do is to compromise that service. What it does do, however, is to offer a means of contact so that you can A) give us feedback and make requests, and B) let us know if anything has gone wrong. As far as I'm aware there isn't an official way of doing this as the commentary is taking place, but I'm sure anyone would agree that making the efforts we do so that people CAN tell us stuff or if something has gone wrong has to be better than nothing. I'm aware that things haven't been perfect but the alternative would have been simply not knowing what was happening and the commentary team being blissfully unaware of any problem until after the event. There is a certain element, I suppose, of people being spoilt by the interaction too and therefore expecting instant fixes to problems once we know about them, but it isn't always that simple unfortunately.

Mick, I'm not sure whether instant feedback on the player page is possible, that's one for Quinny, Posh or Ockers I should think. It is a good idea though and would make sense, although when you think about it, I'm not sure how many, if any other clubs try to be as interactive as us. Player is still in it's infancy for Morecambe so I'm sure there will be lots of testing of new ideas at some stage. As ever though, any suggestions are welcome.

From a bit of a selfish point of view, I realise that it IS a paid subscription service, and people do have a right to complain when things go wrong, but don't forget also that the volunteers doing the commentaries do so at their own expense. For example, to bring you the service this weekend alone, each of us are paying the equivalent of 3 seasons subscriptions when you consider fuel and hotel costs...I know the vast majority of people appreciate this, but I hope it puts things into a bit of perspective and makes people realise just what good value the subscription is, despite the odd problem here and there. It's only going to get better too!