Badger fans can view football games on the Big Ten Network in residence halls, and now can connect to the channel via the Internet with UW-Madison's Digital Academic Television Network.
The channel's extension is the latest revision in UW-Madison's contract with BTN and made possible by the 21st Century Network Project, according to Brian Rust, communications manager for UW-Madison Division of Information Technology.
It is really important for the Big Ten Network to be available to Wisconsin students,"" said Mike Vest, media relations manager for BTN.
""We're going to have around 70 Wisconsin games over the course of the upcoming year that would include all sports - and about 25 of those will be football or men's basketball games, including Saturday's game against The Citadel.""
Any person in a campus building connected by an Ethernet cord can use the DATN (pronounced ""Dayton"") player by logging on to www.DATN.wisc.edu.
Once logged into the DATN player, live video streams through Quicktime. A user can select from about a dozen of channels, ranging from local and international news to sports games on BTN.
Rust said a speedy connection cannot be guaranteed because the program relies on the loading speed of the network shows themselves. He said computers with processors more than three years old might notice a slower performance.
To improve the DATN experience, he suggested using the remote control feature to turn off closed-captioning and enlarging the video size.
The service is not currently available via wireless connections. Rust said this is due to the contract with BTN.
""We're talking to the Big Ten Network folks right now,"" he said. ""They have restricted us to just the contiguous campus network - so you have to be in a building on campus that gets the 21st Century Network and you have to be wired in.""
According to Vest, BTN, which debuted two weeks ago, is one of the largest launches in cable television history. It is available in 28.5 million homes nationwide, including more than six million within the Big Ten's eight states.
Since BTN's DATN debut, DoIT has not released information on the player's traffic, according to Judy Caruso, a DoIT director of policy, security and planning.
