Pictures straight to your PC

As with all technologies, as soon as someone has come up with a brilliant idea, it’s only a matter of time before someone works out how to use it to distribute pornography. As anyone whose email address has ended up in the wrong hands knows, the internet is no different.

However, spectacular improvement in internet connectivity has had immeasurable benefits for punters as well as pornographers. This, of course, is no clearer than with Betfair: I’m pretty sure that betting in-play on a horse race would be pretty impractical if you had to submit your back at 1.01 by post.

Another great improvement, which many believe is likely to take off in the next couple of years, is TV “streamed” over the internet. Simply put, this is the real-time conversion of TV pictures into formats that are available on your PC. More and more you can find ‘live’ pictures (or commentaries) of football games and horse races that you would have no chance of seeing 5 years ago.

After some discussion we have decided to run a short trial to take advantage of these improved technologies and provide some streamed pictures for Betfair members in the UK and Ireland. The trial will run during 6 football games (including two World Cup Qualifiers - Norway vs Czech Rep and Turkey v Switzerland - two Serie A games and two Uefa Cup games - tbc). We’ll choose / have chosen games that we believe will be both entertaining and that you may not have had a chance to see otherwise. They are also games that will be in-play on Betfair. We will post upcoming games on the site a few days in advance of the action.

A word of caution

Now, regardless of what some providers will tell you, it’s important to remember that the word “live” is over-used in today’s technological age. In all forms of media, there will be a time delay of some sort between an event and it appearing on your screen. When you see a Michael Owen goal live on Sky, you are probably experiencing a time delay of somewhere in the region of 3-5 seconds: this is while pictures enjoy a brief detour to a satellite situated somewhere over the Middle East. With a touch of irony, the quickest you will see TV pictures is when watching over your “old” analogue connection which will be as little as 2 seconds behind “real time”. This is precisely the reason we implement a time-delay on our in-play markets.

This is no different on the internet. With the technological jiggery-pokery and the mixed reliability of some ISPs and connections, when you are watching or listening to an event over the internet, the buffering delays can often mean that you fall 15-30 seconds behind. We won’t name the Betfair member who last year called up to back a horse in-play that was already back in the paddock, because he was listening to a “live” racing commentary over the internet.

So we hope you enjoy this addition to the Betfair service during this trial – as always we like to hear your feedback on any service. If you enjoy it and find it a useful addition, please let us know: perhaps we’re not too far away from Betfair TV after all…