Watch Every NFL Preseason Game Online w/ NFL Preseason Live (Review)

admin | August 13, 2010 | 1 Comment More

For those of you who have been experiencing NFL withdrawal since the last seconds of the clock ticked off the clock in Super Bowl 44, it’s almost time to rejoice. While the real stuff doesn’t kick off for another month, the NFL pre-season gets into full swing starting tonight and this season you can catch every game online with NFL.com’s NFL Preseason Live package. Now, before I go any further, I should mention that this NFL Preseason Live package costs $39.99. With that, you get every pre-season game in full HD, both live and on demand. (exception: local games & nationally televised ones are not shown live)

When you log into NFL Preseason Live, you’ll see the video player and a blank screen, or a game will simply begin playing.

At the top right you’ll find Now Playing, Archived, and Upcoming buttons.

By selecting Now Playing or Upcoming, you’ll see a schedule of games displayed along the top.

At the top left, you can filter and find games by pre-season week or by team. To find the archived (previously played) games, select Archived at the top right and select the team or week or your choice.

To begin watching a game (live or archived) drag one of the available games down onto the viewer.

And your game will begin…

Blackouts

The nationally televised games on the major networks and ESPN will not shown live on NFL Live Preseason. Plus, any home town games will be blacked locally. In other words, if you live in Philadelphia, you won’t get the Eagles games live online. (although they will likely be TV in your area) All games will be available on demand the day after the game. If you aren’t sure whether you’ll be blacked out in your area, check out the Blackout FAQ located at the top right of the video player.

So, what about commercials? Well, there aren’t any. During the Live games, you’ll see a NFL Preseason schedule displayed during the breaks. (see below) When watching an archived game on demand, the commercials are completely clipped out, so you’ll end up seeing a game in about an hour & 45 minutes (give or take) as opposed to 3 hours or so for a full live game.

Watching Multiple Games at Once

The video player allows you to watch up to 4 games at once. Below the play controls you’ll find options for double game view, quad game view, full screen, and picture in picture.

To view multiple games at once, select Double Game View or Quad Game View, and then drag additional games down onto the viewer.

Note: Yes, that is Jim Koch, founder of Samuel Adams Brewery, being interviewed on the sidelines.

You can get a good look at the Double game view below. The yellow outline around the picture indicates which game is providing the audio. Just click on another game to change the audio feed.

Picture in Picture

Below is a look at the picture in picture option. It may be hard to see, but there are buttons to swap pictures and to close out of the picture in picture option.

You have the option to watch either teams video source. So, you can listen to the local tv broadcast crew of either team. You also have the option of listening to the radio commentary of either team, however, I found that the audio and video feeds were off by a few seconds, which essentially made it rather pointless.

Overall

The presentation and delivery of these games really is a home run. The ability to watch multiple games at one time and toggle back and forth is awesome. The video quality is very good for the most part, although at times the picture can becomes a bit pixelated if you are on lower bandwidth or doing other bandwidth intensive work. (I was uploading some large files while watching and the quality dropped during that upload period) My only real complaint would be that the price ($39.99) may be a tad steep for pre-season games, at least for some people.

Before signing up, check out some of the other NFL Access products such as Game Rewind and Audio Pass. (I Believe Audio Pass was called Field Pass last year) You may be able to get a deal if you purchase more than one product.

Finally, I think hard core fantasy footballers will love this. It’s an opportunity to get a look at some of the players (especially rookies) who you (and probably every other guy in your league) have never seen before.

Get NFL Preseason Live

Ready to commit? You can sign up and start watching at NFL.com.

Games on NFL Network

If you have NFL Network, you can actually catch every game live or on replay between now and the beginning of the season. Check here for more info on NFL Preseason Live and an NFL Network schedule of preseason games. So, if you don’t want to drop the $40 and have NFL Network & a DVR, you can still catch all the action.