- Joined
- Jun 13, 2005
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I'm looking to see what other posters do. Android has sucked huge donkey balls as long as I can remember for watching highlights in HD. The problem is that sites like ESPN (who can't even develop an app reliably capable of playing video launched from within its own app, LMFAO) feel that they can better decide for me what my web experience should be than me, myself. For example, YouTube lets you choose your own resolution. IMDb, Flixster, Hulu, Amazon VOD...hell, even archaic ass Comedy Central who are still uploading videos in Flash lets you choose HD or SD (Flash has been dead on mobile for nearly 18 months, now). But no, not ESPN. Not NBA.com...who also still uploads HL's in flash. I mean- WTF? This is the website that has won like half a dozen Webby Awards for best sports website.
The result is that if you're on a 3G network or a public WiFi where you pull 3G-like speeds, then the video quality the website automatically streams is like 240p. It's awful. Heads are blocks. To be democratically critical of ESPN, well, they fuck it up on desktop. I've even tried configuring my flash player and web media in advanced controls so that it refuses automatic calibration by a website. Doesn't matter. Doesn't change a thing.
Apps like ESPN Sportscenter are garbage. If you try to navigate to the websites in your browser, and somehow launch the videos externally where you might wield better control via better software development in an app like MX Player, you're screwed, because it defaults you to the mobile site, and attempts to access the desktop video are resisted despite browser toggles, and even if you go to "Full Website", they'll often still feed you mobile streams- possibly deny you access due to the platform (asking for a satellite/cable subscription password).
Crappy apps like "Basketball Highlights" and others are glorified workarounds that feed coding deliberately to sites like NBA.com and ESPN.com in order to trick them into outputting a stream that it normally would in a desktop environment. Better, but still garbage. Still no control of the stream quality. Still no ability to platform it.
I'm just tired of Android sucking so much dick when it comes to sports highlights.
The result is that if you're on a 3G network or a public WiFi where you pull 3G-like speeds, then the video quality the website automatically streams is like 240p. It's awful. Heads are blocks. To be democratically critical of ESPN, well, they fuck it up on desktop. I've even tried configuring my flash player and web media in advanced controls so that it refuses automatic calibration by a website. Doesn't matter. Doesn't change a thing.
Apps like ESPN Sportscenter are garbage. If you try to navigate to the websites in your browser, and somehow launch the videos externally where you might wield better control via better software development in an app like MX Player, you're screwed, because it defaults you to the mobile site, and attempts to access the desktop video are resisted despite browser toggles, and even if you go to "Full Website", they'll often still feed you mobile streams- possibly deny you access due to the platform (asking for a satellite/cable subscription password).
Crappy apps like "Basketball Highlights" and others are glorified workarounds that feed coding deliberately to sites like NBA.com and ESPN.com in order to trick them into outputting a stream that it normally would in a desktop environment. Better, but still garbage. Still no control of the stream quality. Still no ability to platform it.
I'm just tired of Android sucking so much dick when it comes to sports highlights.
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