TOC Bad video.

[johnmdesigner]

Forgive me for sounding ungrateful but what's with all the picture breakup?
In town or out in the middle of nowhere the same.
Is it that hard to do this? The Europeans seem to have the knack. What gives?

[Uncle Jam's Army]

There's simply no excuse. beIN sports seems to have figured it out, even though the first week of the Giro has experienced inclement weather. I guess we should count ourselves lucky that we have any coverage whatsoever.

[Rada]

I was wondering about this as well. Seemed pretty crappy all week. You would think the technology to cover this would be the same as available in Europe. Yet it seems every year at the TOC the coverage is spotty.

[johnmdesigner]

The pictures from the Giro in HD have been spectacular.
I don't get it. Why bother to televise the event if you are going to do such a crappy job?
And what's with the male screamer doing the announcements at the podium?
Too much Michelob Ultra.

[1centaur]

If I were the promoters of ATOC I would dig into the technical details until I got the answer. The pictures, the sound from the guy on the motor bike, the excuses despite clear weather, it's all amateur hour and does not makes the teams or the state as attractive to sponsors as they should be.

[FlashUNC]

The whole broadcast sucked. Soup to nuts.

Phil and Paul should be put to pasture, and Christian should figure out something else.

[MattTuck]

I agree that there is no excuse.

However, the producers in Europe have many more cycles over which to refine and improve their performances over the course of the year. Even the Tour gets its own practice stage race, the Criterium du Dauphine, which is basically a dry run for the tour itself.

On top of that, I'm sure the expertise for doing such events is just better in Europe -- years of experience across multiple countries.

Trying to start up a production company each year, probably from scratch, for ToC is probably pretty hard. Pardon the loose metaphor, but it would be like trying to broadcast the superbowl without having done the regular season and play offs ahead of time.

[FlashUNC]

I agree that there is no excuse.

However, the producers in Europe have many more cycles over which to refine and improve their performances over the course of the year. Even the Tour gets its own practice stage race, the Criterium du Dauphine, which is basically a dry run for the tour itself.

On top of that, I'm sure the expertise for doing such events is just better in Europe -- years of experience across multiple countries.

Trying to start up a production company each year, probably from scratch, for ToC is probably pretty hard. Pardon the loose metaphor, but it would be like trying to broadcast the superbowl without having done the regular season and play offs ahead of time.

There's airplanes that fly from Europe to the United States every day. No excuse for not tapping some of that expertise, if that's really what happened.

[zmudshark]

Is there a race in California? I thought it was Giro time.

[vqdriver]

Perhaps more bandwidth restrictions in the US?

Dunno. I'm just grateful for any network coverage where I don't have to dig into obscure websites.

[MattTuck]

There's airplanes that fly from Europe to the United States every day. No excuse for not tapping some of that expertise, if that's really what happened.

That's sort of my point. But can you imagine network bigwigs at NBC suggesting that they may not be the best, and asking for help from Europe? :rolleyes:

I do think there is also something to be said for doing a race every weekend from February through April... lots of lessons learned. I'm sure it is a well oiled machine.

[chengher87]

I'll throw my complaint into the hat. TOO many commercial breaks. I had to switch over to the Eurosport coverage online because Phil/Paul/Christian would say a few words and then, boom, off to commercial, rinse, lather, repeat. At least Eurosport mercifully kept the commercials to a relative minimum (although, even for Eurosport, they seemed to go to commercial more often during the ToC than other race (major or minor races) coverage).

I sometimes complain (although not seriously because those streams are keeping me plenty entertained) about the grainy and sometimes stop and go streaming of steephill/cyclingfans and yet, that is the better alternative to the High Definition coverage NBCsports provided, especially shoving that Amgen commercial (along with plenty others) down our throats.

Seriously, was every announcer saying the "Amgen" Tour of California nearly every second not enough publicity for Amgen?

[johnmdesigner]

That's sort of my point. But can you imagine network bigwigs at NBC suggesting that they may not be the best, and asking for help from Europe? :rolleyes:

I do think there is also something to be said for doing a race every weekend from February through April... lots of lessons learned. I'm sure it is a well oiled machine.

All true.
But if I were a sponsor really looking at this I would be mighty disappointed.
Having old but experienced commentators can't save this mess.
It's NBC. It's a TV program. There's a script. It has a beginning and end.
There supposed to be good at it.
I think they're just not interested or they can't be bothered to understand it.
And yes, they do produce the Olympics.