Life In 19x19

Recently Go Game Guru launched a new service called Baduk TV English. It's basically Baduk TV (a Korean TV channel that broadcasts Go programs 24/7) with English subtitles, streaming on demand over the internet.

There were a few other threads about this elsewhere, but they quickly went off topic into discussions about how to run a business and I think that made some people confused about what we're actually offering. So I'll try to explain it clearly here.

There are three different plans, priced for different budgets. You can see the list of plans and their features and prices here: http://gogameguru.com/baduk-tv-pricing/ - it's possible that we'll change things from time to time, so it's best to refer to that page for details, rather than anything written here.

1. Baduk TV Live

Baduk TV Live gives you access to the live stream of Baduk TV, so that you can watch whatever's being broadcast on Baduk TV in Korea at that time.

You can watch live games (with commentary) from most international and domestic Korean tournaments, as well as other Go programs (game commentaries, lessons etc) that are broadcast throughout the day.

The live stream is in Korean and we don't currently have the resources to translate it live, but many people find that the commentary isn't that hard to follow anyway because the commentators use a computer to superimpose moves on top of the position on the board. So you can see other possible or suggested variations being played out for you. It's similar to the sort computer aided commentary you see with many sports these days.

If you're interested in seeing whether you can follow the game commentary in Korean, he's a replay of a live game you can have a look at:
Example Baduk TV Video: Lee Sedol vs Choi Cheolhan

2. Baduk TV On Demand

For many people, the live stream is all you need, but depending on what timezone you're in and how busy you are with work etc, you might prefer to be able to replay games at a time that's more convenient for you.

Baduk TV On Demand, is basically Baduk TV Live (you still have full access to the live stream) with the added ability to play hundreds of videos on demand from a library that's updated weekly (usually daily). We maintain an archive of videos which you can access at any time.

You can replay videos of live broadcasts as well as game reviews (video commentaries) of the best games. In the coming weeks we'll be adding some of Baduk TV's best series to the library, including more lesson type programs. At the moment we're adding a lot of episodes from a show called Searching for Exquisite Games, which reviews some of the most interesting games from the last few decades.

There are other shows coming soon, including Kim Seongryong's 007 Lessons, which is a popular show about how to deal with unusual moves and trick plays and a new series called Becoming 5 kyu which, in typical Korean style, seems to be suitable for most dan level players too (from what I've seen so far).

The example video I linked to above is from the video on demand library, and you can see a sample from Searching for Exquisite Games below.

3. Baduk TV English

So this is the most labor intensive and expensive plan, but it's also the best one.

It includes everything in Baduk Live and On Demand, as well as high quality translations of the best programs in the on demand library. Here's an example video from Searching for Exquisite Games with English subtitles:
Example Video with English Subtitles: Wang Lei vs Lee Changho

I really like this episode, because it shows you the genius and finesse of Lee Changho when he was in top form. It reminds me of why I like Go so much. The game is from 2005.

At the moment we're adding a new video with English subtitles to the library every second day. In the future we'll see about possibly translating more videos, providing translations for live events and providing other plans with different pricing, depending on what customers want us to do next.

For now though, it's one step at a time and not everything can happen at once. What you see now is the result of about a year's work.

Questions

I've been quite busy recently so I haven't had that much time to visit Life in 19x19. If you want to ask a question about Baduk TV, please post it here (I'm subscribed to emails for this topic), or email me and I'll respond as soon as I can. I won't necessarily see if people post questions elsewhere, so please ask your questions here and point other people towards this thread.

You can read more about the details, and get a one week trial with access to everything for $1 on our Get Baduk TV page.

I know a lot of services have it so that trial subscriptions automatically renew into full subscriptions unless the subscription is canceled.

Is the $1 trial like that? I am interested in trying the service out, but I'm very busy and if I get distracted and forget to cancel I want to avoid getting hit with a $50 charge.

Thanks!

It will automatically renew

ProtoJazz wrote:It will automatically renew

Thanks. Not nice, IMNSHO.

Monadology wrote:I know a lot of services have it so that trial subscriptions automatically renew into full subscriptions unless the subscription is canceled.

Is the $1 trial like that? I am interested in trying the service out, but I'm very busy and if I get distracted and forget to cancel I want to avoid getting hit with a $50 charge.

Thanks!

If you're busy, just cancel the payments straight away, then you don't have to worry about it.

Anyone can cancel payments at any time and it doesn't cancel your account. You can still log in and keep watching for however long is left on your subscription (in this case, a week).

After that, if you decide you want to continue, you'll have to go through the checkout from the beginning again to recreate the payment agreement, but that's life.

We also have a money back guarantee, so if you ever want a refund you just have to let me know.

The checkout is designed for people who actually want to sign up for the service. Everyone gets the $1 trial regardless of whether they're planning to join up for the long term or not.

We're not going to design a process that forces real customers to go through a convoluted process of signing up again after one week, just to save a few clicks for people who have no real intention of joining.

Someone is going to be slightly inconvenienced one way or the other, so I hope people can understand that our focus is on looking after our customers.

For other people having trouble with paying via paypal:
David and I have established a workaround for as long as Paypal has not solved the issue. Which is simply manual payments via paypal. Don't be hesitant to contact him, he has been very quick and helpful in replying.

PS: Got me 3 months straight BadukTvEnglish, I love it. I'm quite busy as it is, so a new video every 2-3 days fits right in.

Recently Go Game Guru started to sub two series which are currently running on BadukTV:

- Becoming 5 Kyu
A series with various lessons about everything that is needed to become 5kyu. Korean 5kyu that is!

- Kim Seongryong’s 007 Lessons
A series with various lessons about popular trick plays in handicap games.


Just wanted to give a hint at that, since they are very well done imho!

Yesterday I watched a free example video with english subtitles. I enjoyed the video a lot but I would make one request. The subtitles remains viewable for quite a short time. A bit longer enables me to compare what is said with what happens on the board. Actually it should be possible to keep the subtitles visible until they need to be renewed. Software that allows finer control about the position to what is rewinded would also be nice. But probably more difficult to implement. Rewind to the previous undertitles/boardposition for example.

p2501 wrote:Recently Go Game Guru started to sub two series which are currently running on BadukTV:

- Becoming 5 Kyu
A series with various lessons about everything that is needed to become 5kyu. Korean 5kyu that is!

- Kim Seongryong’s 007 Lessons
A series with various lessons about popular trick plays in handicap games.


Just wanted to give a hint at that, since they are very well done imho!

I watched these with a friend recently (as I don't yet have an account myself)

Both of these series are awesome! Now I have to get an account to watch them again.

I bought the trial and enjoyed it A LOT. I made a thread detailing my experince here: http://www.lifein19x19.com/forum/viewto ... =12&t=7134


and I am buying the 7$ a month live baduk package, due to lack of money and the fact it is all you really need, plus it beats kgs+ easily.

cyclops wrote:Yesterday I watched a free example video with english subtitles. I enjoyed the video a lot but I would make one request. The subtitles remains viewable for quite a short time. A bit longer enables me to compare what is said with what happens on the board. Actually it should be possible to keep the subtitles visible until they need to be renewed. Software that allows finer control about the position to what is rewinded would also be nice. But probably more difficult to implement. Rewind to the previous undertitles/boardposition for example.

Thanks for the suggestion. When there's room, we usually leave the subtitles up for 8 seconds. Any longer starts to look weird if they're not talking. The difficulty with the subtitles is that you can't write too much because it covers the board, but sometimes they're talking very quickly.

We try to make all the subtitles stay on the screen for at least 3 seconds, but in places where there's a dialogue of short comments between the commentators, things can move very quickly and short subtitles might only be there for 2 seconds. We try to avoid that, but sometimes it's not easy.

If you scroll down below the video, there's a copy of the transcript from our subtitles. One option is to open that in another window and pause the video when you want to check something, but I know it's not ideal.

Skipping backwards like that doesn't work that well with with streaming and loading the whole video in someone's browser wastes a lot of bandwidth (and money) when someone doesn't watch all the way through. I'll see what we can do about it. Reducing the buffer length would make skipping back faster, but could also make playback more for people with slower internet connections.

If you could let me know which subtitles were too fast please (what they said and at what time) that would help us to make it better.