DirecTV, Fox College Sports "blackouts"?

[JimmyJack]

I live in Wichita, Kansas and tried to watch the game the other night on Fox College Sports channel 623. When the game started, it immediately went to a blank screen and then to a screen that suggested we don't subscribe to that channel. Of course we subscribe to EVERY channel on DirecTV, so we called.

DirecTV claimed the game was blacked out in our area by one of the media rights holders. My source at SDSU tells me that's baloney. After all, the reason the games are on Fox College Sports is so they can be seen nationwide. If Midco was going to black it out, wouldn't it just be in areas they service? And UND... well, surely they want everybody to see their games, right? Just like SDSU.

My question is this: Did anyone else run into this same problem?

I want to get my facts together before I call and rip DirecTV a new one.

[filbert]

Re: DirecTV, Fox College Sports "blackouts"?

It was not blacked out in suburban Kansas City (Missouri side) by DirecTV.

The screen was black with audio for a while, then the Fox College Sports Pacific bug showed up--I suppose all the lights were turned off in the Alerus center for player intros???

I strongly suspect somebody at DirecTV just punched the wrong button or entered the wrong code or something, causing it to be blacked out in Wichita when it wasn't supposed to be. I'd call them back and demand a credit to my account, just to be uppity.

[Jacks#1Fan]

Re: DirecTV, Fox College Sports "blackouts"?

I was in Wisconsin and my brother-in-law recorded it. When we returned to watch it, we had a black screen and a message that said "Due to technical difficulties we were unable to record this program. We will scan to see if any of it can be viewed." We let it run about 45 minutes and nothing ever came up. Sounded to me like FCS Pacific was unable to get the feed from Midco???

[JimmyJack]

Re: DirecTV, Fox College Sports "blackouts"?

Thanks, #1. Sounds like that is what happened. But in Wichita, it literally brought up a screen that told us to call to "add" the channel. Tough to do when you already get all of them. We'll see how the next one goes.

[Hammersmith]

Re: DirecTV, Fox College Sports "blackouts"?

I flipped to the channel in the first quarter and they were showing something other than the game with the scroll on the bottom saying technical difficulties. Within five minutes the game was on. I don't know if the whole game to that point was blacked out or if the problems were intermittent.

If you do watch a game recording from FCS, be prepared for some really bad production in the first quarter. Apparently they had serious teething problems with their new HD truck. The HD feed that went directly to Midco was fine, as was the internet stream that was based on it. But the SD feed they sent up to the satellite got screwed up. They somehow accidentally locked it to a single camera. Worse, the camera was the one used for closeups. So FCS viewers had no score graphics and the camera seemingly bounced and zoomed around at random. Hilarious for an outsider; incredibly annoying for a SDSU or UND fan. They got it fixed sometime around the first quarter break.