Buzz Out Loud Lounge forum: CNET Live needs YOU

Hi Jason,
CNET Live is great but I have one complaint, The header. It is pure ugly. I'm sorry I'm being so hard, but I hate it. I'm not great but I could design a new one for you guys if you would like. Just give me the dimensions. If your not sure what I mean I made a screenshot here http://twitpic.com/8li3y Sorry for being so harsh. The rest is great and I love all the shows.
Alex aka alexthekid

Yeah,I just think it's a bit dull and bland. I think it does not work well with the rest of cnet tv. Maybe you should just get rid of it all together and just put a little Live Thing next to the logo like this: http://twitpic.com/8m2w4.
Also when you are on cnet tv you can't just click on live, you need to choose something in a submenu. Maybe just a player that showed the live show that was streaming at the time and if nothing's on then a random episode of a podcast.

Yes, change is hard, but many thanks for soliciting user feedback! The best part of the site for me is seeing all the available live streams in one place. Show logos are great. Maybe a couple of display options, like what's on for just that day, would make it more usable. I admit to frustrations with the default playing the last show instead of kicking in to the live stream right away.

Keep up the great work and building of something great!

RogueTess

Oh man, I was hoping for some flames or a dancing baby.

I think the chat box takes up too much real estate especially if you don't want to be in the chat room.

I'd like to see a refresh tab or automatically load the show when it starts.
Love the show!

For those requesting a refresh button (and there are a lot of you out there!) here's what I ask:

During the next time that you encounter the need for a refresh button, for whatever reason.... (I imagine it's when a show has officially gone "live" but you don't see it yet) ...Take a snapshot of your desktop and email it to me at podcast@cnet.com. Let me know your browser/PC or Mac setup.

Basically, I totally agree with the need for a refresh button on the page but we want to also make sure that things that *should* be appearing on the page (ie "Stream starts shortly, please standby" or "Watch Live Stream Now!" link) that pretty much do the same thing are appearing during those times. Maybe a big part of the problem is that they are on the page but not placed properly/obviously.

So, take a snapshot of your browser when you are encountering this issue and email it in to podcast@cnet.com. This will help me in building the case for the refresh button on the page.

Thank you!

The biggest gripe I have so far in the WatchBOL-to-CNET Live changeover is that the BOL ep from the previous day autoplays, even in the few minutes (or even seconds) before the live stream begins. I would love it if the autoplay for BOL was disabled in the 30 or so minutes before the live show starts. (In the scheme of things, small potatoes, but it bugs me every time I get to catch the live show.)

And thanks for asking our opinions, raygun01, this is what makes BOL such a great institution (and after 1k + eps, BOL is officially an institution now).

Micah (blrp in chat)

PLEASE, turn off the auto-play feature. If only in the 30 or so minutes before the next live podcast. It makes it so confusing to tell whether or not you're watching the show from the day before or the new live one.

This becomes problematic when you're trying to quickly jump into the live stream and have to wait for the ad (which sucks, but understandable) and then watch 15-30 seconds of the show to figure out if it's prep, current show, or previous day's show, and then refresh again when it's closer to the correct time, wait for the ad for 30 seconds and see if the stream is up yet.

Not to mention chat gets inundated with "Is this live?" questions.

Thanks!

ShaneB

Only problem is you guys tape at 3.30am local time here. So unless I've had a massive night out I'm fast asleep.

Yeah, we had discussed the idea of having a separate room that is actually more or less a pre-programmed playlist of past episodes/content, but streamed to everyone in real time so everyone gets the same video at the same time instead of their own detached playlists... might give people a place to park and talk about content and stuff.

This fits that idea. Thanks!

Hi Jason!

It just happened to me that I was watching the Gadgettes' live stream, I got up to go to a "meeting" with the toilet and when I came back the stream was still there but it had the "Still want more great TV? Click resume" screen on top of it, just clicking made it go away and the stream was fine but it's still a bit annoying.

Thanks! And keep up the great work!
DC1 from the chatroom

I'm not good with time. Ok, so I have finally memorized and gotten in my head that BOL starts at 1:30pm. But there are so many of the other shows that I want to try, and because my schedule is so crazy anyway, it would be nice if the content from http://cnettv.cnet.com/live could be a little easier to get to. The only way I know to get to it is to go to live.cnet.com. Is there another way to get to that page? It would be great for new users discovering the podcast shows as well.

any chance of adding GMT to the podcast schedule too? I know it is down the bottom with the show list, but it'd be handy up the top too.

Figured I should post this to see if anyone else is running into the same issues.

I've had no problems with watching the stream on old/new watchbol or CNet Live up until this morning.

This morning I attempt to pull up the stream and it never loads. It appears as though the player itself doesn't fully load. The flash window is there, with a gradient background, but the player controls never load.

Tried on Firefox, IE8 & Chrome (freshly installed in which youtube plays correctly).

Ill try a restart at some point today and see if its just my computer acting up. Theres a good chance that it could be if no one else is experiencing this problem.

-ShaneB