Thetownend.com

Does anyone no for certain whether IFollow will be broadcasting our games this season?

For international viewers only, domestic iFollow is going away due to the Sky deal.

https://www.efl.com/how-to-watch/ifollow-and-streaming

Who is doing the audio now?
I take it that BBC are still not accessible on the sounds app

I have no issue watching via iFollow still, always get a season pass but will see this year when games start as to what to do with many on Sky. So may get a season pass still but won't decide until about the 3rd game of the season.

Am going to stand back from matchday postings this season, so happy to pass over to others to keep everyone updated.

Thank you for your service.

You are welcome, time to pass it onto a younger, and hopefully better poster.

Younger sure. Better? They'll have their work cut out.

You are too kind.

Previously a friend of mine living overseas found that he was unable to access Sky match highlights even when using a VPN. He watched iFollow matches using the same VPN without any problems . It appears that Sky can identify the use of a VPN and restrict access where relevant. My friend intends to wait and see if other (overseas) viewers can watch matches on iFollow when using a VPN.
As an aside, the price quoted by iFollow last month was €166 but now appears as €210.

iFollow do that too, they just aren't very good at it.

I'm sure there will be those that do work

From FAQs on iFollow:
Commentary to accompany games on iFollow is managed by EFL clubs.

Maybe it will be as before ...

If your friend is overseas then they don't need a VPN for ifollow. If they're "overseas" then they don't need a VPN for Sky highlights.

Not done the calcs but as a Sky-free home and left feeling slightly nauseous by the Premiership hype, I have always baulked at the cost of Sky Sports

I nevertheless likely forked out close to £300 last year on iPlayer - most aways and 10 odd homes.

Anyone know how many live Town games I might get by signing up for a Sky Sports package?

As an aside, your match day commentaries have been great, Venks.  Thank you.

Be interesting to see how the firestick apps shape up this season if they use the ifollow abroad stream or switch to sky+ where available.

I know on mine the Sky TV channels seems to be maybe half a minute behind but some Swindon games I was watching last season was as much as 5 or 6 minutes.

The promotional guff from Sky says every team will be shown 20+ times per season.

Don’t know if that includes the pisspot & league cup games though

Basically every midweek game and games during the international window will be on sky sports, along with the league cup and pisspot games.

Sky offered me a months trial followed by £20 a month which I've literally planned to only use for Swindon games. (although I watched Hearts v Rangers on Saturday) My IPTV provider got caught so I haven't got that luxury this season. I've tended to find other things to do on a Saturday so will make an effort for the sky games and either go to the games or do something else for the non sky games.

Thanks, I've now signed up for the season  COYR

I've signed up for the season with IFollow. For those with VPN issues, there should be the option of pausing or disconnecting the VPN during the games.

It's possible the VPN location they were using was shared by multiple others, hence making it easier to flag by companies like Sky.

Was happy with my IPTV service last season and have just renewed at £60 for 12 months. I subscribe to a separate VPN provider and had no issues last season.

Where on Sky are these games being shown as I dont see anything for our game on the Sky planner for Friday, just that they are showing Blackburn v Derby and Preston v Sheff Utd.

I think they are part of this new Sky Sports + thing via a red button?

Yeah its red button on sky sports + channel

You need sky q, sky stream or sky glass to watch it though

Normal sky+ hd boxes are not compatible

I have Sky Q but dont have sports so never knew about the red button thing, will watch the first few on Octo probably.

It's free if you have a full Sky Sports subscription - apparently the option for the channel will drop in ahead of the new season

Yeah you need to be subscribed to sky sports to watch it anyway

A bit surprising that this still hasn't happened as far as I can see. You would have thought it would be up and running so that they can be advertising it...

Edit: Apparently it starts on Thursday on Channel 412 Sky Q or 410 Sky Glass...

. Channel starts on August 8th, so you won’t be able to get it before then anyway.

Is that a league two specific channel or just a sky+ channel?

I'm in London on the 24th and we're early kick off but there is two championship games and another league two game on at the same time. Hoping its not too much ball ache to get a sports bar to put it on.

I imagine that's the general Sky+ channel which will be showing whatever they decide is the main game, with a menu to select from all the other games...

Hopefully a decent sports bar with tons of screens can handle the request.

Yeah, it's a general Sky Sports + channel as they are doing similar with the rugby as well

Not sure if this has been covered already, but it looks like you'll be able to watch all of the Sky+ streams via NOW TV day/month memberships

Bit the bullet and added SkySports to my package. Got it for an extra £18 a month, so not too bad.

Does anybody know how it works if you're using Sky Go? Do you just watch through the Sky Sports app?

Preston v Sheff Utd is the default game they are showing on that channel with Blackburn v Derby being on Main Event or whatever 401 is called these days

Does this help?

https://www.skysports.com/football/video/31312/13192657/watch-sky-sports-plus-on-your-mobile-with-the-sky-sports-app

Wouldn't have thought it would be any different to watching on normal TV...

That's very good. I got skysports for free for a month followed by £20 a month for 2 years which I thought wasn't bad.

Was a ballache just getting through to an advisor though, the standard upgrade price was £22 which the phone system kept prompting me to do via their website, but managed to get through to someone in the end and get it for £18

Doesnt work on sky go

You need to use the sky sports app specifically

I refuse to pay Sky any more than I am, I currently don't have a Sky sports subscription so I will watch this season on Octo or via iFollow itself again with a season pass which works out at £3.91 per game still which at £180 is still cheaper thanSky and you get to see every game in the league rather than less than half.

This is why people pirate. As far as streaming goes as well, most illegal streaming apps are more user friendly than a lot of the bigger ones with a fraction of the content.

Its actually harder to do it the legit way and pay more money sometimes.

I think I've just purchased a video pass for tonight's game from I follow for £2.50. Does that sound right? Anyone done the same. It was via the official site

No. That sounds too cheap and the game isn't available through ifollow unless you are abroad, or they think you are.

Are you sure that's not an audio pass.

I think they've messed up and that is an audio pass even though it says video
(https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20240809/da88dc971692213ce84f583df07f8d7e.jpg)

That sounds cheap, only have to wait and see if it works!

I think £2.50 is for an audio pass mate.

Going for the iFollow game by game route.  Obv. not cheap but not prepared to risk the season long fee and find that there are VPN or connection problems. 

Will probably duck and dive with Sky on Now TV (day or month pass) depending on what STFC games are envisaged and any other sports that interest me (mainly cricket and rugby but NOT Premiership) and on when I am able to attend a game in person (usually a dozen a season). 

This looks like requiring quite a bit of research and planning unfortunately.

PS  Thanks Posh Red for your pointer a few days back.

Some might even call it an admin error

Happy listening 😊

Small steps and all that but just to record that, as a regular VPN user, my fears that this might lead to connection problems, proved to be unfounded - last night at least.  The usual solid commentary from Andrew Hawes and, last night, comment from Jonathan Smith.

Sky had a different commentator and it froze a couple of times. Was ok though

Mine froze briefly on about 89 minutes. The commentator was OK, not as good as Hawes but infinitely better than the usual biased Northerner I used to get on ropey Ifollow.

Watched on Sky+.... The commentator sounded like one of Sky's regular ones, can't think of his name. Obviously that won't normally be the case. It froze for me also round about 89 minutes and I just backed up out of it and selected the game again and it was fine. Overall I have to say it was excellent...

Watched on iFollow as usual and it was a really good service TBF much better than iFollow usually does, worked fine again from Germany so will get the season pass again.

Not 1 single cut out and there were way way less adverts and replays than usual.

Lots of options now too with the front end interface.

On the OS now, it looks like you only get the 2 minute highlights with no option of extended 10 minute highlights or full match replay which is a bit of a bummer*

*unless they just haven't gotten round to putting them up yet. They always used to go up pretty quickly though...

I think the Sky commentator was the usual Sky reporter who has filled in for Phil King in Hospitality occaisionally, forget his name, but he seems to have a link with Swindon.

Chris Hull.... didn't think it was him but it could have been...

https://www.swindonweb.com/job/index.asp?m=1159&s=0&ss=0&c=6478

Yeah, I knew he worked (or had worked) for Nationwide... didn't think it was him commentating but I could be wrong...

Whoever it was talked a bit at the start about Swindon fans being unhappy with the board, but didn't go into much depth on it.

I couldnt help you there mate, I listened to iFollows commentary team of Hawes and Jonathan Smith.