Bison Zone VIP Pass

[UND_Herd]

I will be 'out of the viewing area' for this season, and very likely the next, as well. *That leaves me with the obvious dilemma of getting game day coverage. *The only real option is buying into the in-forum Bison Zone, but I remember the less-than-stellar opinions people had of the service. *I'm wondering what people think of it now and have a few questions...

1. *Most important - Will I be able to download the game coverage and listen to it on an mp3 player?? ?

2. *Is the audio consistent and in good quality?

3. *How about availability of audio of news conferences, Bison Feedback, etc.? *Archived well?

4. *Is there a history of site breakdowns, member account issues, etc.?

I appreciate any comments.

[kchats]

I have actually been pretty happy with the service. It boots you off far less often and when it does there is an .mp3 backup stream. Ocassionally they have trouble where they cut off at the end of the game because they set a time limit on the broadcast. They do archive most things although I think you have to listen to the feedback and the coaches show before the next one, since they just replace it. That may change this season. I know they are trying to make it better this season and they have sent me an E-mail asking for my opinion about what they should do. They are pretty good at responding when you make requests regarding content that is supposed to be there. I will be paying for another season since I live in Missouri and it is about the only way I can follow the Bison easily. Hope that helps.

[JBB]

1. *Will I be able to download the game coverage and listen to it on an mp3 player?? ? *Yes

2. *Is the audio consistent and in good quality? Yes

3. *How about availability of audio of news conferences, Bison Feedback, etc.? *Archived well? Yes

4. *Is there a history of site breakdowns, member account issues, etc.? dont know. *

In addition you will get all the BB coverage too. *This year that will really be a bonus.

[bisonaudit]

Great question. I'm in the same situation. I remember the web broadcast being a real POS but that was before they implemented the pay site.

I'm on the fence about shelling out the money but there are no other good options, so please keep the feedback coming from those of you who've used the pay service.

Thanks

[UND_Herd]

Thanks for the comments. I'm signing up by Sunday. Since my contact with the internet will likely be limited to 10 or 15 minutes at a time, the ability to download audio is by far the most important factor. Life will be good. Thanks

[roadwarrior]

Bison Zone has todays press conference by head coach Craig Bohl on the site now. You have to be a VIP member to listen to it, and I had to renew my membership from last year before I could access it.

[kchats]

I was wondering when the season was going to be up. I guess I will pay the piper tonight.

[kchats]

There is a new blog up posted by Jeff Kolpak. He also picks the Bison at 6-5 giving a lame reason that there is no coaching chemistry. What the heck does that mean? Our coaches have done so well other teams hire them so we will be worse this season?

[Bisonguy]

There is a new blog up posted by Jeff Kolpak. *He also picks the Bison at 6-5 giving a lame reason that there is no coaching chemistry. *What the heck does that mean? *Our coaches have done so well other teams hire them so we will be worse this season?



I'm no Kolpack, but I believe he used the term 'coaching' in the sense that you cannot coach chemistry, it's something the team either has or not. I don't think it was a knock on the coaching staff.

[Gamehunter]

Wow, talk about a total lack of optimism from a hometown writer....
I kinda remember these same kind of memos written last year. Can we get someone in here that actually has something good to say instead of picking on the negatives all the time? It really gets old.

He made a couple good points though, less the idea about lack of coaching chemistry ??? :-/ However, I think he has it way out of proportion, but we shall see.

However, I still have a pretty good idea what his article is and isn't going to say Friday morning in the Forum. Im not expecting much.

[Bisonguy]

I'd much rather see honesty than sugar coating. :-X

[tony]

You never know how a team is going to turn out. I had almost the same thought - Travis White is a difference maker and I had picked NDSU to go 7-4. Shouldn't they go 6-5 then? Well, I figure the team will pull together and still go 7-4, but after the Boll Weevils, the schedule gets pretty brutal. Oh well, gotta start with a win.

[bisonaudit]

Would anybody be talking about Kolpak's web blog if he'd toed the line and picked us to win the conference?

[kchats]

I asked the Bison Zone support people about highlights from the NSU game. The newscast was late due to the long football games at 6:00 and 10:00 so no sports were on. Here is the dialog from the E-mail.

kchats wrote: You need to get the clips
> up with the highlights of the Bison game vs. Northwestern State. I
> tried to watch the live news clip but the clip ran from 10:00 to 10:35
> which basically only showed the Texas vs. Ohio State game.
>

kchats,

Thanks for the notification about this, however at this present time we will
not be able to get any highlights of the game from the 10 oclock news due to
the Ohio State vs Texas game that ran into the 10 olcock news on saturday.
Hopefully we will be able to soon get a system in where we can get the
highlights in even if there is something that runs into the time slot setup
for the news. If you have any other questions please don't hesitate to give us
an email.


Sincerely,

BisonZone Support
support@bisonzone.com
www.bisonzone.com

[WYOBISONMAN]

That is a shitty answer. When I pay $50 for something I would at least expect the damn highlights!!!

[tony]

Yeah, I've been a defender of BisonZone in the past, but this is crap. No highlights? Are you kidding me?

Obviously, NDSU doesn't have to do anything, but it would be very, very nice to have the coach's show available on the Web.

[roadwarrior]

Are they trying to tell us that they dont have the highlights of the game ANYWHERE so they can make them available?? Just because they didnt make the news that night, doesnt mean that they erased the tapes.

[Bisonguy]

Are they trying to tell us that they dont have the highlights of the game ANYWHERE so they can make them available?? *Just because they didnt make the news that night, doesnt mean that they erased the tapes. *

The highlights were on the 10:00 news(albeit at 11:00 or 11:30) that night. Something's messed up where they upload the news feed to the web. I didn't realize this, but it appears that they only upload from 10:00-10:30, so if the news is delayed, it's not uploaded. ???

[somebison]

they added some tv clips to bisonzone including some game highlights from Sat.

[kchats]

I was way ahead of you guys. I asked them about the tapes of the games and this was my reply. Doesn't make any sense to me. I don't know why they don't run the tape as a broadcast that isn't aired and claim the feed from that unaired broadcast to make the clips for Bison Zone.

Do they not tape all their news broadcasts? Is there no way you can
> make an
> internet video clip from the taped archive of the news broadcast?
>
> kchats
>
>

kchats

Unforanetly at this time we are unable to make a video clip from a
taped
broadcast. We only have the internet access stream which to make clips
from.
However we are going to try to see if we can get it to record the news
even if
the news broadcast starts later than 10 oclock. We hope to have this in
place
soon so this type of thing does not happen again.


Sincerely,

BisonZone Support
support@bisonzone.com
www.bisonzone.com