The Great Wimbledon Video Match-Up: BBC Vs Wimbledon Live

Wimbledon face-off

Strawberries and cream, under-performing Brits and… online video? The last one isn’t immediately associated with the quaintly old-fashioned Wimbledon Championships, now in to their second week, but fans can now watch every minute of Andy Murray’s route to the final (hopefully) online. And in this grand slam contest there are only two contenders: the official, paid-for Wimbledon Live streaming service and the BBC’s online VOD coverage. We see how they match up…

Wimbledon Live: The All England Lawn Tennis Club this year relaunched its own streaming service, Wimbledon Live. So you can buy a day pass for $9.99 (£6.06) of a full tournament pass for $19.99 (£12.14) and for that you get a choice of watching any of the six show courts (Centre, 1, 2, 3, 4 and 18). I watched Roger Federer overpower no.30 seed Robert Soderling in straight sets; the video quality is clear and continuous, even on my 8Mbps maximum BT (NYSE: BT) ADSL line, and there is a choice of “Lo” and Hi” quality. The Flash-based played allows for Mac viewing too. Run by sports rights group Perform, it’s the same video feed that is streamed internationally to networks such as NBC in the US, as my colleague Staci reports.

The audio match commentary is supplied by the BBC: I listened to former British no.1 and now Beeb pundit Tim Henman explaining Federer’s match (I’ve asked the AELTC to clarify the BBC’s involvement). Wimbledon is traditionally shy of corporate branding — the Champsionship still isn’t officially sponsored by anyone, almost unique for a blue chip global sporting event — but banner ad space is found for tournament partners Evian, HSBC and IBM.

bbc.co.uk A paid-for Wimbledon streaming service may never really take off in the UK because you can get exactly the same content on the iPlayer for free. bbc.co.uk offers live interrupted coverage of Centre Court and courts 1, 2, 3 and 4 (one less than Wimbledon Live) plus streaming coverage of BBC One and BBC 2. But: I immediately encountered video buffering delays on the BBC video and had to switch to the lower quality version to get a continuous picture and even that had its occasional moments of stuttering. The dreaded “loading” spinning wheel for several seconds at times — not good in the middle of an exciting rally. In full screen mode, on low quality, the picture is just that: grainy and unappealing, though it looks fine in high quality. The Beeb’s player says you need “at least” 1Mbps to view in high quality — perhaps the large volume of people watching means you really need more than that. The video player size is smaller than Wimbledontv’s, but both support full screen.

Wimbledontv is not primarily aimed at UK sports fans who naturally rely on the licence-fee funded BBC. But die-hard tennis fan may want to invest in the reliability of a Wimbledontv pass — which at $1.53 (£0.92) for each day of the tournament represents good value. In terms of quality at least, Wimbledon Live wins it.

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