OOTP Developments Forums - View Single Post - NHL Game Center Live

archibalduk · 10-04-2013, 04:05 PM

I've been subscribing to NHL streaming games for the past 6 years IIRC. I used to use ESPN360 but changed over to GCL about 2 or 3 years ago when ESPN lost the rights. GCL is a really good service (although the site could be a little better laid out and the PS3 app is apparently a bit temperamental).

Assuming you subscribe to the full package, you can watch any game live and on demand. However some games are blacked out if you live in certain Euro countries. It depends on whether there is a TV channel which owns the broadcasting rights in your country. For example, in the UK a satellite channel called Premier Sports bought the UK rights prior to last season. Any game they broadcast is blacked out. So you can't watch the game live and you have to wait about 48 hrs before you can watch it on demand (but you can watch the condensed game immediately). This isn't much of a pain during the regular season because Premier Sports only broadcast 1 or 2 games a day IIRC. However it becomes problematic during the playoffs because virtually every game was blacked out (especially the later rounds).

So you'll need to check whether any channels in your country have broadcasting rights for the NHL.

A couple of pointers come to mind whilst I think of it:

- Approx 36-48 hours after a game finishes it is archived. This means that if you watch it on demand the bit rates available are much lower. If you want to watch the game on demand at a high quality bit rate, make sure you watch it before it gets archived.

- If you have a games console, use your console's NHL GCL app to watch the games. The bit rate is much higher on the console than the PC. This equates to a slightly better image quality and a much better frame rate. It is however possible to access the higher bit rate stream on a PC using XMBC.

- Check out unblock-us if you want to avoid the blackouts. It's about $4.99 per month. It was a god-send during the playoffs because otherwise I wouldn't have been able to watch any games. On unblock-us, set the country to Denmark - that seems to lift the restrictions. They offer a free trial too.

10-04-2013, 04:05 PM	#7
archibalduk All Star Starter Join Date: Oct 2011 Location: UK Posts: 1,209	I've been subscribing to NHL streaming games for the past 6 years IIRC. I used to use ESPN360 but changed over to GCL about 2 or 3 years ago when ESPN lost the rights. GCL is a really good service (although the site could be a little better laid out and the PS3 app is apparently a bit temperamental). Assuming you subscribe to the full package, you can watch any game live and on demand. However some games are blacked out if you live in certain Euro countries. It depends on whether there is a TV channel which owns the broadcasting rights in your country. For example, in the UK a satellite channel called Premier Sports bought the UK rights prior to last season. Any game they broadcast is blacked out. So you can't watch the game live and you have to wait about 48 hrs before you can watch it on demand (but you can watch the condensed game immediately). This isn't much of a pain during the regular season because Premier Sports only broadcast 1 or 2 games a day IIRC. However it becomes problematic during the playoffs because virtually every game was blacked out (especially the later rounds). So you'll need to check whether any channels in your country have broadcasting rights for the NHL. A couple of pointers come to mind whilst I think of it: - Approx 36-48 hours after a game finishes it is archived. This means that if you watch it on demand the bit rates available are much lower. If you want to watch the game on demand at a high quality bit rate, make sure you watch it before it gets archived. - If you have a games console, use your console's NHL GCL app to watch the games. The bit rate is much higher on the console than the PC. This equates to a slightly better image quality and a much better frame rate. It is however possible to access the higher bit rate stream on a PC using XMBC. - Check out unblock-us if you want to avoid the blackouts. It's about $4.99 per month. It was a god-send during the playoffs because otherwise I wouldn't have been able to watch any games. On unblock-us, set the country to Denmark - that seems to lift the restrictions. They offer a free trial too. __________________ Webmaster of The Blue Line Eastside Hockey Manager & Franchise Hockey Manager community and resource Last edited by archibalduk; 10-04-2013 at 04:09 PM.