LIVE COVERAGE-The Battle at Vista by SmashBoxxTV- Leiviska, Lizotte, McCray,Sexton

[Ender175]

That should change in the future as the carriers push out the new aggregate standards like cat6 and cat10 lte. I don't know what verizon tops out at but sprint spark on my note 4 is "supposed" to be capable of 150mb/s or something crazy like that. That would be plenty to stream 1080p/30 with minimal artifacting.

We just need to convince the carriers to put these spiffy new cell towers next to the golf course instead of in the stupid cities.

 

[Anon]

ESPN3 has the advantage of having their cameras hard-wired into production as well as a much higher bandwidth output to the ESPN streaming servers. Their loss of picture quality is noticeably less as a result.

Not only that... their cameras that are wireless have amazing (and expensive) wireless systems to send high-quality, latency-free, HD video back to their video routers.

Then the signal gets sent back uncompressed to headquarters by a dedicated satellite uplink. MUCH more reliable (and, again, expensive) than using public LTE networks. From HQ the programs gets distributed out via all the delivery methods that ESPN is currently using (broadcast, radio, live streaming). Baked into this process is layers of redundancy and backup so the signal rarely gets interrupted.

Live disc golf is in an absolutely primitive state when compared to what a sports network like ESPN does just to cover a random game on a Tuesday night. Its pretty much amazing that we can actually sometimes get a decent stream leveraging terrible cellular telephone networks.

 

[Nasty Nate]

When does this start?

 

[BgWvDave]

Live coverage 3:45 est

 

[Nasty Nate]

Awesome. Thanks!

 

[BgWvDave]

Looks like the back ups are already piling up at Fountain. Live coverage has been postponed until around 4:15. Terry just posted this on the SmashboxxTV Facebook page

"Looks like we have a backup of tee times. Currently they are running 40 minutes behind. So, we will push the start of the broadcast back about 30 or so minutes.

Q. "But SMASHBOXX, why don't you just show more disc golf???"
A. Because we have a finite amount of power for our cameras and streaming tools. And every MINUTE we are live costs us money in bandwidth.

Thanks for understanding. See you very soon."

 

[jvphobic]

Thanks!

Hey guys... thanks for everything nice being said. Monday didn't go as we had planned.

BUT... I have just finished cutting together the Monday "Battle at Vista" round for a condensed version. The video quality isn't any better, but we cut out a lot of the in between stuff. And there is less stutter.

We will make it public very soon.

We hope you enjoyed Yesterday's coverage. Looking forward to 3 more days of great coverage.

 

[grotto]

Thanks for the coverage. While I know it's not a perfect science and there are growing pains to overcome, I appreciate the efforts and the time you guys put in to help me through the winter.

Yeah, Mondays coverage was hard to watch, felt like I was watching a color remake version of the Blair Witch Project. But yesterdays memorial was heads above watching any of Crazy Johns coverage.

Keep up the good work

 

[tbird888]

You guys took a big step forward from Monday, and I have no doubt you'll keep taking steps to perfect the feed. Thank you for the efforts to broadcast at all and for working to improve already solid coverage.

:thmbup:

 

[Nasty Nate]

So someone stole Paul McBeth's bag. From Facebook:

"If anyone notices a black grip bag with a bunch of Innova discs with my name on them.... Those would be mine, found out this morning my bag got stolen last night.... That being said today and tomorrow should be interesting."

Super lame. I put a curse on whoever steals discs. I hope Paul's day gets better and that he can find some discs to win the Memorial!

edit: I guess I posted this in the wrong thread? Didn't realize there were so many.

 

[onemilemore]

I'd love to see Smashboxx set up with Terry and a color guy watching remotely while doing commentary, then being able to throw it to a "sideline" commentator when there is air time to be filled between holes. Having to lower his volume pre-throw (and completely stop commenting during the throw), combined with listening to a bouncing voice as he walks down the fairway kind of takes away from the experience.

Curious if any of the Smashboxx crew commenting here can speak to the feasibility of this kind of approach, more like a football game. Thanks.

 

[Anon]

I'd love to see Smashboxx set up with Terry and a color guy watching remotely while doing commentary, then being able to throw it to a "sideline" commentator when there is air time to be filled between holes. Having to lower his volume pre-throw (and completely stop commenting during the throw), combined with listening to a bouncing voice as he walks down the fairway kind of takes away from the experience.

Curious if any of the Smashboxx crew commenting here can speak to the feasibility of this kind of approach, more like a football game. Thanks.

Not from Smashboxx but I work in live event production.

Its definitely feasible but in the end it all comes down to money. The budgets that disc golf broadcasters are working with are absolutely tiny when you get into the world of REAL broadcasting logistics, equipment, etc.

I think the fact that they have managed to add multi-cam to their live production (albeit only one more cam) is a HUGE step up and is more expensive than most people could even imagine (because now you need a switcher).

 

[onemilemore]

Not from Smashboxx but I work in live event production.

Its definitely feasible but in the end it all comes down to money. The budgets that disc golf broadcasters are working with are absolutely tiny when you get into the world of REAL broadcasting logistics, equipment, etc.

I think the fact that they have managed to add multi-cam to their live production (albeit only one more cam) is a HUGE step up and is more expensive than most people could even imagine (because now you need a switcher).

Thanks for the insight. The reason I brought it up is because Terry thanked his crew back in the studio. Perhaps he could stay there, comment on the feed without interrupting players, and then throw to the sideline guy for insight between holes, like "McBeth has really been leaning on his Firebird today," or "I talked to Ricky's caddy and he told me the new sponsorship has taken some learning." Might cost more, yes, but would be more watchable.

 

[JC17393]

Thanks for the insight. The reason I brought it up is because Terry thanked his crew back in the studio. Perhaps he could stay there, comment on the feed without interrupting players, and then throw to the sideline guy for insight between holes, like "McBeth has really been leaning on his Firebird today," or "I talked to Ricky's caddy and he told me the new sponsorship has taken some learning." Might cost more, yes, but would be more watchable.

The studio is some guy's basement nowhere near the tournament.

What you're looking for is sort of what Disc Golf Planet does with their live broadcasts. Crazy and Greenwell in the "studio" and occasionally someone out in the field (Rebecca Duffy typically). The frustration with that set-up is there's no real time communication between the field and the studio. There's no conversation between field reporter and studio announcers. The studio folks are relying on the same live scoring updates as we are at home, so we usually know the scores before they can announce them.

Terry's out there with his smart phone probably getting texts and tweets, but if it has to do with the broadcast he's getting info in a very delayed fashion. By the time the studio (or a viewer at home) sees something, texts Terry about it and Terry responds (by text or on air), a minimum of 60 seconds has passed, probably longer. It's just not that conducive to going back and forth effectively.

 

[onemilemore]

The studio is some guy's basement nowhere near the tournament.

What you're looking for is sort of what Disc Golf Planet does with their live broadcasts. Crazy and Greenwell in the "studio" and occasionally someone out in the field (Rebecca Duffy typically). The frustration with that set-up is there's no real time communication between the field and the studio. There's no conversation between field reporter and studio announcers. The studio folks are relying on the same live scoring updates as we are at home, so we usually know the scores before they can announce them.

Terry's out there with his smart phone probably getting texts and tweets, but if it has to do with the broadcast he's getting info in a very delayed fashion. By the time the studio (or a viewer at home) sees something, texts Terry about it and Terry responds (by text or on air), a minimum of 60 seconds has passed, probably longer. It's just not that conducive to going back and forth effectively.

I hear ya. I think it comes from my expectation of a professional level of coverage (which I know we are not at yet, but we are getting there). It would be nice to have the quality of broadcast we're getting from Smashboxx with some higher level commentary is all. And I am not knocking Terry. I think it is more a function of him following the players in close proximity. He simply can't say much unless he wants to distract them, which he doesn't.

If we had Smashboxx-level views with some in-the-booth-style broadcasting (similar to what we get from the post-production Spin TV stuff) it would be the best of both worlds.