GoGameGuru BadukTv Competition

[gogameguru]

The sample video works for me now, but there seems to be a bug related to subtitles. A few sentences will be translated and displayed fine, then what seems like entire minutes can go by with just korean and no translations. Sometimes also the words appear on the screen at a different time than the person is talking. The second problem wouldn't be a big deal if at least everything was translated.

In the sample video at about 11:15 they go to a diagram and start showing some variations. The first time I watched this, I didn't have a single subtitle until past the 12 minute mark. I rewinded the video and all of a sudden a subtitle that showed that wasn't there before. It said something like "normally white's first move is in one of the left corners". But that sentence didn't show up the first time. Then over a minute goes by, and they keep talking, but no subtitles appear. Finally at about 12:05 it says "This variation is not played very frequently". So the two problems are first that it seems maybe not everything is even translated, and second that the subtitles don't always show up even for lines that are translated.

Thanks for confirming that it works.

In order to make subtitles compatible on as many devices as possible, we ended up using hard subs. That means the subtitles are burnt into the video images, so they're part of the video. They'll always show up on exactly the same frames. I don't understand how the behavior you're describing would occur.

We wanted to use soft subs (where the software displays the subtitles from a text file), and we may still switch to them in the future, but we didn't end up doing that because of the kind of situation you describe. That is, with soft subs the subtitles might sometimes not work properly on some computers. But we're using hard subs, so that shouldn't be happening.

Not everything is translated, because sometimes they're talking about unrelated stuff. For example, they're just talking about the past winners of the LG Cup and the tournament table near the video for several minutes. If you read the text on the sample video page, you'll see that it says that we didn't translate that part, for that reason.

Everything that's useful or interesting is translated, especially anything about the game. We made the made the decision to not translate every minute detail for the time being in order to control costs. I'm sure you'll understand since you were unhappy about the price. The focus has to be on valuable information and learning rather than minutia.

Regarding price, I'm sure some people here are just going off what others have said, but there are actually three different plans for people with different budgets. $7/month, 19.99/month and $49.99/month

They include different features: http://gogameguru.com/baduk-tv-pricing/

I understand that you, and others, would like to have the plan with the most features, but that's also the plan that's the most expensive to maintain. The price reflects the cost of running it and the more expensive plans also includes all features of the ones below them. It's $30/month for translation work in addition to the subscription for video on demand.

Currently it takes about a day of work and two people to translate one hour of video. I won't repeat why here, because it's written here in detail: http://gogameguru.com/get-baduk-tv/#toc ... 49-99month

We could make it cheaper (we looked into how to do so for several months) and then the quality of the work would be worse. We had people translate videos on the cheap and what we got back was literally unusable. If you want cheap and crappy, Youtube is your friend. If we're going to ask people to pay, we have to deliver a good quality service.

If we have enough customers, we'll look into reducing the price in the future, but at the moment it's $1 for one week anyway. If people sign up for $1 and then give us feedback about the price, we'll listen to them of course. We really don't have time to pay attention to people who say "oh, maybe I'd buy it if it was $x/month", but who won't even join when it's $1. From our perspective, that's an indication of someone who will never buy it no matter what the price is, so listening to their opinion on price is surefire way to go out of business.

It would be nice if such a thing existed for free, but Younggil, Jing and I simply can't work our jobs during the day, and then work on this at night and use our earnings from our day job to subsidize your cheap or free subtitles. If you want free stuff there're already several hundred free articles at Go Game Guru, including nearly 50 free game commentaries. There are also plenty of other websites with free things, like this one.

Regarding HTML5 video, there are two reasons why we still use Flash. Firstly, Flash is more secure and making the videos somewhat difficult to copy was part of the agreement with Baduk TV, so we have to do that. Secondly, HTML5 video isn't supported on Internet Explorer 6/7/8, which is still 25% of the market. Flash is much more widely supported on desktops.

We're very busy at the moment, so we won't have time to trawl L19 for questions. If someone wants to ask a question, please direct them to this page: http://gogameguru.com/how-to-watch-baduk-tv-english/ where we'll be sure to see it and everyone can see the answer. Otherwise, you can always email me if you prefer.

[quantumf]

1. Refresh the page in your browser and try again
2. Still not working? Clear your browser cache and refresh the page again.

Step 2 seems to have done the trick for me - its now working on Windows 7/Chrome/Flash 11.3 and Windows 7/Firefox/Flash 10.3

Thanks!

[daal]

Regarding price, I'm sure some people here are just going off what others have said, but there are actually three different plans for people with different budgets. $7/month, 19.99/month and $49.99/month

hey include different features: http://gogameguru.com/baduk-tv-pricing/

For someone interested in the English version (most of us?), there is only one price.

I understand that you, and others, would like to have the plan with the most features, but that's also the plan that's the most expensive to maintain.

I don't want the plan with the most features. I would like a plan that offers the one feature that I'm interested in (English subtitles) for an affordable price. I understand that this is the most expensive and time consuming feature to produce, but it feels like I'm being offered a whole cow when all I want is a steak. Would it not be possible to sell individual episodes?

[Lamp]

The sample video works for me now, but there seems to be a bug related to subtitles. A few sentences will be translated and displayed fine, then what seems like entire minutes can go by with just korean and no translations. Sometimes also the words appear on the screen at a different time than the person is talking. The second problem wouldn't be a big deal if at least everything was translated.

In the sample video at about 11:15 they go to a diagram and start showing some variations. The first time I watched this, I didn't have a single subtitle until past the 12 minute mark. I rewinded the video and all of a sudden a subtitle that showed that wasn't there before. It said something like "normally white's first move is in one of the left corners". But that sentence didn't show up the first time. Then over a minute goes by, and they keep talking, but no subtitles appear. Finally at about 12:05 it says "This variation is not played very frequently". So the two problems are first that it seems maybe not everything is even translated, and second that the subtitles don't always show up even for lines that are translated.

Thanks for confirming that it works.

In order to make subtitles compatible on as many devices as possible, we ended up using hard subs. That means the subtitles are burnt into the video images, so they're part of the video. They'll always show up on exactly the same frames. I don't understand how the behavior you're describing would occur.

I watched it again, and then I couldn't reproduce it, and then I thought I reproduced it again, and now I'm wondering if it was all just my imagination. Maybe the issue is just that the color of the subtitle is occasionally mildly camouflaged against the background of the video and if I'm watching the board then the subtitle passes by without me noticing that it popped up. If I definitively confirm that it wasn't just my imagination, then I'll make a video of it happening.

Not everything is translated, because sometimes they're talking about unrelated stuff. For example, they're just talking about the past winners of the LG Cup and the tournament table near the video for several minutes. If you read the text on the sample video page, you'll see that it says that we didn't translate that part, for that reason.

Everything that's useful or interesting is translated, especially anything about the game. We made the made the decision to not translate every minute detail for the time being in order to control costs. I'm sure you'll understand since you were unhappy about the price. The focus has to be on valuable information and learning rather than minutia.

I understand, I think it's just a psychological thing, however, that once the game starts and they start talking, if there is something you don't understand, your natural thought is that it might have been important. The issue is even more prevalent once they shift to their own board and start showing variations on it. During the actual footage of the game, it's easy to believe that they're talking about other matches, player history, etc, but once they start showing variations and playing them out and pointing to the stones as they're talking? Really really seems like they're talking about what they're doing on the board.

For example, the first minute or so after they start playing the moves on the diagram and showing variations, they're pointing at various corners, moving stones around, showing a 2 space high pincer versus the one that was played, and all the while they're saying things. It's a little bit awkward when you're constantly wondering if that information was important. Even with the assurance that all the important info has been translated, I think it's just one's natural instinct to wonder, and it leaves an unsettling feeling.

Anyway, just take it as general honest feedback, I'm not trying to bring negativity to the table or anything. Usually if one person feels a certain way, there are probably at least a few others who feel the same way.

[keithlard]

As some others have said, clearing the browser cache fixed the issue for me right away. It would probably be a good idea to put this suggestion on the video player page.

I think if you don't happen to speak Korean it's not necessarily the case that you need the premium plan with English translations. If you watch it for a while without the subtitles, it's quite easy to understand what's going on, provided you're not a complete beginner. Variations are played out on-screen and they are usually pretty self-explanatory.

I'm not saying it isn't great to have the translations, just that you can still get a lot of value from watching even without them. Certainly $7/month worth, in my view.

There are frequent discussions on L19 about why Go isn't more widely known or promoted in the West. Surely the availability of an all-Go TV channel is a step in the right direction, and worth supporting.

[Bonobo]

1. Refresh the page in your browser and try again
2. Still not working? Clear your browser cache and refresh the page again.

Step 2 seems to have done the trick for me - its now working on Windows 7/Chrome/Flash 11.3 and Windows 7/Firefox/Flash 10.3

Same here, thank you! (OS X 10.7.4, Chrome)

[ProtoJazz]

I understand why the cost is high , but I do plan to buy the week trial. But can't afford it till Friday.

I kind of wonder how much it would cost to run our own go network (As in North american) I don't know if we could do that yet, but maybe as we get more north Americans pros

[TKP]

Gee some of you guys are good at complaining. I'm retired and $50 a month doesn't seem unreasonable to me for what they're doing. It would cost you hundreds of dollars to get just one video translated if you did it yourself and it probably wouldn't be as good as these ones.

I've been subscribed to BadukTV since May when they started beta testing and I never regretted that decision. Subtitles are very nice to have but they're not necessary. You can understand all the games easily without them because the commentator shows all the variations on the board anyway. For only $7 a month you can get more shows than you'll ever have time to watch. The English one is like a Ferrari when a Ford will do.

What I see here is a lot of people whining about how they can't have a Ferrari and I'm not very sympathetic about that. In times gone by people who wanted something fancy would figure out how they were going to pay for it or set more reasonable expectations. If you need more money go and work hard for it. Maybe you could learn something by watching how hard the Gogameguru kids are working.

The fact that only three or so people showed any gratitude shows how much of an entitlement view of the world people have these days. Have we forgotten basic courtesy? Everyone else first complained about Gogameguru and tried to give them flawed business advice based mainly on their own self interest. Then they complained that it didn't work when I can tell you that it's always worked. There was one time when the live channel didn't work for a few hours and they fixed it right away.

After someone asked David to come here and explain to you how to fix your own computers how do you think he felt when he read all of your comments? If you think you know better put your money where your mouth is. Meanwhile I'm going to keep watching it at Gogameguru.

[Alguien]

Gee some of you guys are good at complaining. I'm retired and $50 a month doesn't seem unreasonable to me for what they're doing.

What's the relation between you being retired and 50$ being reasonable or not for what someone is doing? I could pay it by changing where I take my morning croissant but that doesn't make the price more or less adequate.

Also, reasonable in which country? In some places 50$ is way beyond the monthly salary.


I'm not complaining about the service itself and I think we agree about this thread. I do however think it could be done for a tiny fraction of it's price. On the other hand, prices aren't set by the cost for the provider but by the client's willingness to pay.

Having said that, I do disagree with your first world centered analysis of why 50$ is right or wrong.

[p2501]

Gee some of you guys are good at complaining. I'm retired and $50 a month doesn't seem unreasonable to me for what they're doing.

What's the relation between you being retired and 50$ being reasonable or not for what someone is doing?

Being retired gives a little context on how much of a monthly budget he has available (read: not much, compared to working people - at least the phrasing implies it is not much). So even if 50$ is a lot to him, it is still resonable to him to pay that much for the service since it is of such high value.

That sentence made perfect sense to me.

edit:

Also, reasonable in which country? In some places 50$ is way beyond the monthly salary.

If you argue that reasonable means affordable, yes. But imho reasonable means value worth the price - which has nothing to do with affordability.

[Lamp]

My only concerns about the price were that the price would cause the service to not be successful. I have no problems with not paying for something that I don't feel is worth it, there is no sense of entitlement at all.

To me, personally, it's not a huge deal because even without Baduk TV I have more material than I can consume. But I do wish to see the service continue to exist, and that is why I personally expressed concern for the price.

But anyway, c'est la vie, if you will. I hope it does succeed.

[Alguien]

Also, reasonable in which country? In some places 50$ is way beyond the monthly salary.

If you argue that reasonable means affordable, yes. But imho reasonable means value worth the price - which has nothing to do with affordability.

That only works if you're talking about value for yourself. If you're arguing it's reasonable for others (which he was) you have to compare value/price on different price scales. That would make no sense, which is why one should add conditions when saying, in a worldwide forum, that something available worldwide is reasonably priced.

For example. It wouldn't make any sense for me to say that 1$ is a reasonable price for a liter of milk in a public, worldwide, forum that has people who live in places where it costs less than a tenth of that.

I could say It's reasonable to expect american public to be willing to pay that amount, or not. But that's not what he did. He used his own economical environment to affirm that a price is universally reasonable and that people everywhere (since there were no conditionals) would (should) be able to pay it with minimal effort.


As a second example of what I'm trying to explain, the sentence: "It would cost you hundreds of dollars to get just one video translated if you did it yourself." would be totally wrong for a reader in Ecuador, or in Thailand where it would most certainly not cost hundreds of dollars to translate one video.

[p2501]

Also, reasonable in which country? In some places 50$ is way beyond the monthly salary.

If you argue that reasonable means affordable, yes. But imho reasonable means value worth the price - which has nothing to do with affordability.

That only works if you're talking about value for yourself. If you're arguing it's reasonable for others (which he was) you have to compare value/price on different price scales. That would make no sense, which is why one should add conditions when saying, in a worldwide forum, that something available worldwide is reasonably priced.

For example. It wouldn't make any sense for me to say that 1$ is a reasonable price for a liter of milk in a public, worldwide, forum that has people who live in places where it costs less than a tenth of that...

I think I get your point now.

But in the end it only means his statement is not true for everyone. But I think it still holds true for most members of this forum, as well as for the targetgroup of this service. The pricing is not suited for people from countries where it is not affoardable obviously - which can't be the goal since the production costs and not the profitrange are the limiting factor.

[Alguien]

I think I get your point now.

But in the end it only means his statement is not true for everyone. But I think it still holds true for most members of this forum, as well as for the targetgroup of this service. The pricing is not suited for people from countries where it is not affoardable obviously - which can't be the goal since the production costs and not the profitrange are the limiting factor.

Exactly. That why I said I agreed with him, just not with the phrasing.

[daal]

Gee some of you guys are good at complaining. I'm retired and $50 a month doesn't seem unreasonable to me for what they're doing. It would cost you hundreds of dollars to get just one video translated if you did it yourself and it probably wouldn't be as good as these ones.

I've been subscribed to BadukTV since May when they started beta testing and I never regretted that decision. Subtitles are very nice to have but they're not necessary. You can understand all the games easily without them because the commentator shows all the variations on the board anyway. For only $7 a month you can get more shows than you'll ever have time to watch. The English one is like a Ferrari when a Ford will do.

What I see here is a lot of people whining about how they can't have a Ferrari and I'm not very sympathetic about that. In times gone by people who wanted something fancy would figure out how they were going to pay for it or set more reasonable expectations. If you need more money go and work hard for it. Maybe you could learn something by watching how hard the Gogameguru kids are working.

The fact that only three or so people showed any gratitude shows how much of an entitlement view of the world people have these days. Have we forgotten basic courtesy? Everyone else first complained about Gogameguru and tried to give them flawed business advice based mainly on their own self interest. Then they complained that it didn't work when I can tell you that it's always worked. There was one time when the live channel didn't work for a few hours and they fixed it right away.

After someone asked David to come here and explain to you how to fix your own computers how do you think he felt when he read all of your comments? If you think you know better put your money where your mouth is. Meanwhile I'm going to keep watching it at Gogameguru.

I guess that part of this is directed at me, and I'd like to say in response that while I applaud David for his efforts to promote and improve go in the Western world, his offer isn't attractive to me personally. I don't feel that I ought to be getting something for nothing, but as someone who belongs to the relatively small circle of targeted customers, I have to say that I'm not interested in watching something in a language I don't understand, and I'm not interested in having unlimited access to the service in English. I simple don't have the time or money to take advantage of it.

If his offer suits you and enough other people as well, that's great. I wish David success, not just for him and his business, but also for the western go community as a whole. Making BadukTV available to the go playing public is one of the more exceptional developments that I've heard about recently. My concern is that if there are not enough people like you, who want BadukTV at these conditions, then it might be a long time until someone else drums up the courage to attempt such an ambitious enterprise. Nobody asked me, but I don't see what's wrong in saying that I'd be more interested in a related product, such as a dvd with several episodes.