Click to ENLARGE. Screenshots from my 60″ TV.Click to ENLARGE. Full SCHEDULE for the 70 league matches. This will help you keep track. See below for downloadable PDF.
I have BOTH ‘Willow‘ & ‘ESPN+‘ subscriptions for cricket (& just for cricket).
I only watch ESPN+ under duress IF there is some cricket that is ONLY available through them. I even check poor-quality ‘YouTube’ before I opt to watch cricket on ESPN+. They just don’t have a clue — though, of late, they grudgingly provide HIGHLIGHTS for matches involving ‘India‘ (& just India).
On the other hand, cricket is Willow’s main business. Though NOT perfect they do a decent job. You can enjoy watching cricket on Willow.
I wasn’t, at first, a fan of IPL. I only got hooked on it in the last 4 or 5 years. During that time I was forced to watch it on India’s ‘Hotstar’ & ESPN+. ‘Hotstar’ is the PITS. Outright crooks. I will never, ever, ever have anything to do with them. I would rather just watch what I can find on YouTube. As I have already said, ESPN+ is not great.
But, having the IPL on Willow is MAGIC. I am delighted. I am relieved.
I just hope they don’t let me down now that I have raved about how happy & relieved I am. That tends to be just my luck — the Reverse Midas Touch that I have been blessed with. SMILE.
Click to ENLARGE. From ‘Fidelity‘.Click to ENLARGE. This was the ‘0.00’ pricing until markets closed on Monday, 7/18/2022.
I was not surprised since this was also what happened post AMZN split in June — option trading had to wait until Tuesday. So, ditto GOOG. I had told you that this will most likely be the case. Anywho, the options are now repriced, if not activates. You can see they grayed out. They look good. I can’t wait.
I already trade AMZN, TSLA, NVDA, ROKU, AAPL, NIO, JD, PLUG etc. etc. options. Now I can add GOOG to this august list. SMILE. My addiction. Option trading makes me happy.
So, here is to tomorrow. Let GOOG, post-split, option trading begin. Enjoy.
Before you do any of the usual suggestions, i.e., removing the channel, restarting the Roku, etc., etc., here is what you need to FIRST DO. Very easy & simple.
Check that you are NOT logged into ‘BritBox‘ from another device, e.g., PC, phone, etc.
That could be the reason why BritBox on Roku is not cooperating. You are logged on somewhere else.
Easy fix.
This should NOT be an issue. But, it appears to be.
I discovered it to my cost yesterday.
I have been using BritBox, on my Roku, with never any trouble, for well over 5 years.
Then yesterday the Roku APP refused to play ball.
I did all the usual. None of that worked. Then I REMEMBERED that I was logged onto BritBox, atypically, from my PC. I logged out of my PC. Bingo. Easy as that.
Click to ENLARGE. 65″ TCL 6-Series 4K TV (from Amazon (who else)).
No, this was not planned as such. No, this was not supposed to be my Christmas in November. It just transpired as such. I kind of wish that it didn’t happen as such. It was too much. Really screwed up my plans & schedule. But, now, TODAY, I am relieved that all three of these major purchases are now in the ‘read mirror’, so to speak.
Getting a new TV, right now, was definitely not, ever, in the plans. The 47″ Philips, which we got in June 2007, a few months after we moved into this house, was old, BUT it still displayed a vivid, brilliant picture. It was better than many new TVs I would encounter. But, at 14 years, it was old. We had been waiting for it to die. It had outlasted all other major electrical/electronic appliances in this house, bar the dishwasher — by years. We are on our 4th refrigerator, 3rd microwave & 2nd set of washer/dryers. We used to joke that it seemed indestructible. But, about 3 weeks ago, while I was having my lunch watching TV, the picture flashed, & the TV went black. I thought it was dead — finally. Not so. When I recycled power, the picture came back, but the left side of the screen was noticeably darker. I tried all the tricks. No luck. It was time for a new TV — after 14 years.
We had talked about getting a 65″. And that is what we did. Got a 6-Series TCL from Amazon. I knew that TCL was a decent brand, & the price was reasonable. Also got a TCL Sound Bar — again from Amazon.
The 47″ TV was not wall mounted. It was on a stand. I wanted this wall mounted. I really had no desire, however, to do the mounting myself. So, I looked around. I would have gladly paid the $450. That was not an issue. But, many of the places INSISTED on a monthly membership program. I did NOT want to sign up for that. I don’t need external support on a regular basis. Plus, ‘Best Buy’, ‘Geek Squad’, was not accepting online bookings. You had to visit a store. I couldn’t be bothered. So, I decided to do it myself.
I did 3 weeks of research, off-and-on. I agonized about it. Finally, after much searching, found a SLIDING, full-motion mount. I bolted it to the walls last night. It worked out flawlessly. It was exactly, 100%, what I was looking for. It wasn’t too hard to install.
Click to ENLARGE. The sliding, full-motion mount.
This morning I hired a big, strapping 15 year old boy from the neighborhood to help me lift the TV. He was here for about 40 minutes. He got quite the deal. In addition to me paying him (over the top) for 1 hour, I also gave him, per his wish, the old 47″ TV, the Philips DVD/Sound Bar & the TV stand. He was happy. He was going to put it all in HIS room. So, it all worked out.
Right now I am still using my 9 month old external ‘Roku’. I didn’t have the time or energy to mess with the built in Roku.
On a Roku you can get ‘Willow TV‘ cricket in one of two ways: as a channel on ‘Sling’ or directly via the Willow APP.
As of now the Willow APP is NOT just the best way to access cricket being shown on Willow — one could argue that it is the ONLY meaningful way to access Willow.
Sling, with its new user interface, has crippled Willow TV! I warned you about that a week ago.
But luckily the Willow APP is now world class. The Willow APP is a joy to use (though, I will admit, the REW & FF feature could be improved).
Yes, a few years back, the Willow APP on Roku was extremely primitive & limited. All you could do was watch live matches. That is it. This was specific to Roku. It was the Roku-version of the Willow APP.
Well, that was then & this is now.
The current APP is full-featured as my images above will show.
You have live, archives as well as selected videos. All of it is logically laid out with graphical headers & GOOD descriptions. You can see exactly what is available & easily decide on what you want to watch.
Yes, when it comes to highlights they, like ‘Hotstar’, are now catering for the limited-attention span of most Indian viewers. So, a la Hotstar, they offer numerous short highlights in addition to the proper (& main) highlight package. Well, you kind of have to get used to skipping over those that do not interest you — without reading too much of the narrative — focusing on finding the highlights. I have kind of got good at this. I can quickly find the main highlight packages — skipping over the rest.
Bottom line. Willow on Sling is no longer an option. Do NOT subscribe to Sling. Get the Willow APP directly. You will be happy & thank me for giving you this heads up.
The ‘Sling’ APP. on Roku now has a new, & supposedly much-improved, user interface. This was as of the last couple of days, i.e., as of say August 7, 2021.
This new, highly-graphical user-interface might be fine for the main channels on Sling — BUT it definitely cripples ‘Willow’ (as in ‘Willow TV’ that is the dedicated 24×7 cricket channel). Why?
Because the new interface doesn’t allow you to GO BACK, i.e., you can only view channels LIVE or record shows that are scheduled for later. You can’t go back, e.g., select a show that was shown yesterday. Past show are supposed to be available in the ‘On Demand’ section or in your DVR (if you had scheduled any recording). This new set-up totally & utterly CRIPPLES Willow.
Central to Willow was the ability to go back a FULL-WEEK in terms of the matches shown. So, you could go back & pick highlight episodes you wanted to watch. NO MORE. The ‘On Demand‘ section is bare. Yes, I am trying to record some future episodes. It is a MESS. It is so bad that I cancelled BOTH Willow & Sling!
I am going to try the Willow APP on Roku, directly, without subscribing through Sling. I will let you know — but it might take me a month or more. I am in no hurry.
Click to ENLARGE. The ESPN channel will look like this …
Click to ENLARGE. Posting on ‘Roku Community’ forum.
On Saturday, June 26, 2021, I clicked on my ESPN channel on my Roku (so that I could logon to ESPN+ to watch the T20I between the West Indies & South Africa). The ESPN channel would NOT LOAD. Got a blue screen similar to that show above. I first thought that the ESPN servers were overloaded given that I knew that there was a lot of soccer taking place in Europe.
Tried a few times on Saturday. No luck. Waited until Sunday … today, i.e., June 27, 2021. Still no joy.
Couldn’t REMOVE the channel. Why? Because I had an ESPN+ subscription. I worked that out. I cancelled the subscription. I knew it was easy enough to reinstate. Bingo. Could remove channel.
Reinstalled channel. Restarted Roku. Nothing. Problem persisted.
Checked the ‘Roku Community‘ forum. Did my own post. Googled the problem. Saw that a number of folks were saying ‘Contact ESPN‘.
I thought it would be impossible to get in touch with ESPN support. I was wrong. I was able to get CHAT support in under a minute. Yes, when through the inevitable preliminaries. Then I told them that I had seen that folks were talking about ‘blocked IP-addresses‘. She agreed that that probably was the problem.
Gave her my IP-address.
She unblocked it. Bingo. I was back in business.
She said that the ESPN engineers weren’t sure why some IP-addresses were getting accidentally blocked — but they were invariably those associated with Roku devices.
