I recently got a chance to check out PSA Squash TV, the online service that provides streaming video coverage of professional squash. Squash TV covers all the major events from the men’s professional squash PSA World Tour. Squash TV also covers some of the major events from the women’s WSA World Tour.
Thanks to the traffic I get through this Website, the folks at Squash TV were kind enough to provide me with a trial of the service, which is available through psasquastv.com.
I recently watched a significant portion of Squash TV’s British Open coverage, and I have to say I was extremely impressed. The quality of the streaming online broadcast was excellent. It was easy to watch the action — I had no problem seeing the ball and all the on-court action very clearly. There were a few different camera angles, so you could see the play in a variety of ways, which kept things interesting as a viewer.
The sound quality was also excellent. You could hear noises from the court, like sneakers squeaking and the ball smashing into the wall. You could also pick up ambient noises, such as the crowd reactions.
I really enjoyed the match commentary. For each of the men’s matches they had two commentators in the booth calling the action. The banter in the commentary booth was great. The guys (the commentators were all men) were quite funny and all-around entertaining. I also enjoyed their insights into each match.
The women’s matches were also covered, though there was no commentary, and there was only one camera angle. It seems like Squash TV does its best to broadcast some of the women’s matches for major events that have both men’s and women’s draws, but this is not their main focus. Still, I watched many of the British Open women’s matches.
Another cool thing about the Squash TV coverage was the embedded chat function. It showed a stream of comments from people all around the world who were watching the matches. If you have a Twitter or Facebook account you can easily log in and join the banter.
While the live tournament coverage is a big part of the Squash TV service, it isn’t the only thing. They also have an archive of matches, including recent tournaments of course, but also classic matches going back as far as 1997. And they are continuously adding new matches to the archives. There’s a wealth of amazing squash play available to you on demand as soon as you sign up.
One problem I encountered with the service was that it went down for a couple of hours for all users. It turned out that this was caused by an Internet outage in the O2 Arena, where the British Open was being played. I suspect this was a pretty unusual occurrence, and they got things back up and running relatively soon. Still, it’s a reminder that this isn’t like watching the World Cup — problems can still crop up.
Another problem with the coverage is that is was really bad for my productivity at work! I’m based in the US, so the matches were on during the mid-day for me. I had the coverage open in my browser and would check it once in a while. OK, maybe I was glued to it. Oh well.
I encourage you to check out Squash TV. Even if you don’t subscribe, they have some good highlight videos that are free to view. Might as well check it out and see some great squash!
I definitely recommend Squash TV for all squash enthusiasts. I like it so much that I signed up for their affiliate program, which means if you sign up for the service through any of the links on this page, I’ll get a small commission, which I’ll put towards the upkeep of this site. Thanks for your support!
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