Pro Tour Live Coverage

[XC_Eddy]

Well, I watched the Waco final round live. Gave it a shot after giving up on the first round of the memorial.

It was O.K. rather boring. Nate was getting rather repetitive and the camera work hasn't gotten much better; oh look, Ricky takes a shot, lets focus on his back! What? we're supposed to follow the disc?

Live disc golf just isn't for me. But to be fair, it wasn't for me when Terry Miller was doing it either. I think it has a long way to go before it attracts anyone other than the hard core disc golfers.

Live disc golf as it is currently produced is only appealing to hardcore disc golfers. No one is going to casually happen upon DGPT or Smashboxx live coverage of disc golf and stay to watch it. If you don't already care, it's too slow and too poorly shot to grab your attention. Heck it's even hard for some of us who care quite a bit to sit through a live broadcast of disc golf as it is currently produced. Live coverage of DG has a long way to go. The current model (though it could be executed better: better camerawork, actually showing the disc, switching, etc.) is about the best that can be done with the resources currently available. The ideal live coverage model for disc golf looks more like ball golf coverage: lots of cutting from shot to shot. Not much video of people walking. I'm not sure disc golf will ever have enough money in it to justify that kind of coverage.

Post produced coverage currently has a higher appeal to a casual fan. The higher quality everything is much more pleasurable to the eyes. Live coverage is painful to watch. You have to strain the whole time just to see the darn disc. Good post produced is very digestible by comparison. A high quality one hour package is much easier to sell to people than a meh quality 3 and half hour package. If I'm going to show someone a disc golf video, there's no way in hell I'm showing them live coverage. I'd invite them to watch a Jomez or CCDG vid with me instead.

 

[lyleoross]

My new year's resolution is to be less negative online. That said, I'm really looking forward to GBO.

 

[dorseymatt]

Where are the FPO post-produced rounds?

 

[SkyDog]

Where are the MPO lead card post produced rounds? Why is DGPT is not going to give us what they are not allowing others to film? Second week of missing post production coverage, 0 for two in my book.

 

[brutalbrutus]

Where are the MPO lead card post produced rounds? Why is DGPT is not going to give us what they are not allowing others to film? Second week of missing post production coverage, 0 for two in my book.

They released this statement yesterday regarding postpro and other things...

The round one post-produced coverage at the Waco Annual Charity Open is going to be delayed. Additionally, for the time being, we are turning off the live chat and the comments on our videos in support of our media team which is working hard and is not helped by the barrage of negative comments. The support we have gotten has helped us focus on the task at hand. Intermixed with the online criticism, we have received many messages with words of encouragement. We are working diligently to improve our media process, and we are not yet where we want to be. Thank you for the passion and care that you have for the sport, it is the reason we will succeed.

We are going to release the edited footage when it is ready and not hurry. The goal is to get the final product as good as we can. Once we have reached that point, we will release the edited shot by shot coverage and work to improve the efficiency of the process.

At the Memorial Championship, it became clear that pulling the video for post-produced coverage from the live stream was not high enough quality. For The Waco Annual Charity Open, we switched to editing the footage directly from the SD cards. In making the switch, we had to adjust our process, and we failed in properly anticipating how the process would play out. We continue to make adjustments and improve. This means the post-produced coverage for at least round one will be delayed.

Update Regarding Live Coverage
At The Memorial Championship, we made great strides to improve the live broadcast after a rocky start with YouTube issues and a new crew. At the Waco Annual Charity Open, we have a new technical director due to our previous technical director being on vacation. With a new technical director comes a new set of processes. This resulted in a lack of advertisements during the day one coverage. We also encountered an issue with the Udisc Live graphics which we are working to resolve. As a result of today's announcements we have chosen to disable the chat on the live video. Disabling the chat will allow for our commentators to focus on the commentary, our viewers to focus on the stellar play, and our moderators not being overworked dealing with negative comments that we have brought on ourselves. As always we are working hard to improve our processes, and we look forward to what is to come.

 

[teemkey]

What bothered me most was the frequent loss of focus. Don't know whether to assign that to the switcher or the camera.

 

[turbosteve]

No post-produced rounds is a big no-no for me. I wasn't able to watch live because I had to work. I would have liked to see footage of McBeths first win for Discraft.

 

[brutalbrutus]

No post-produced rounds is a big no-no for me. I wasn't able to watch live because I had to work. I would have liked to see footage of McBeths first win for Discraft.

It will be out eventually. How long? No idea. But you can always just put on the live feed and skip through the dead time and/or the shots by anyone other than Paul and Ricky.

 

[JC17393]

What bothered me most was the frequent loss of focus. Don't know whether to assign that to the switcher or the camera.

Focus as in the picture getting blurry? 100% the camera operator.

Couple things that stuck out to me in that regard...first, as I've mentioned previously, is too much zoom. Zoom is fine for a stable stationary shot. It doesn't work if the shot has to move, which it does when you're trying to follow the flight of the disc. All the camera operators have to skip the zooms and physically move the cameras closer to the players if they want those close ups. It would help with the focus and blur. McBeth was on Smashboxx last week basically saying exactly that...that the cameras at Memorial were too far away. And that's from a player on the course, not someone watching at home. If he's noticing, they're doing something wrong (or certainly different than past crews).

The other was at least one of the camera operators was trying to be fancy with rack focus. That's where something the foreground is in focus with the rest out of focus, then changing to focus on something further away, or vice versa. Fancy photo trick, somewhat cinematic, but not helpful if the timing is wrong and the action you want to see isn't in focus. There were a couple shots of players putting where they were in focus and the basket was out of focus then he tried to switch the focus to the basket while the disc was in air. Didn't always work.

There were also some funky angles from what I assume was the same camera operator. Not out of position shots, but in position but at weird angles like from down low when showing the player putting. Again, fancy tricks and cinematic but not really what works for a live broadcast. They were shots that would be better as slo-mo transitions in the edited footage rather than the sole look we get in real time.

 

[lyleoross]

Shout out to Uli for reminding the guy on camera, politely, that you can't stand on the tee pad to film while the player is trying to make his drive.

 

[DiscFifty]

One of the guys on the live camera is from CCDG, he was on the closer shots (dude w long hair/hat, Johnny DiscGolf) so you would think he would have better experience framing the closer shots, putts, etc. But..overall..I'd say each round was better than the last as far as camera work. Man..love the Doss's but please stick to full time beer or playing, Val's vocal tone is a bit harsh to listen to for long periods and Nate just seems to try way too hard. "The wind is blowing, the grass is green, the camera work is beautiful", his sidekick was actually much better, but everything was a bit too much "unbelievable". Still..I see promise long term now from DGPT, but I just wish it wasn't so much a "learning on the job" thing.

 

[MountainMan]

I much prefer post-production - especially if I'm able to remain unspoiled - because the CCDG/Jomez crews generally get the shot. I watched the live coverage on YouTube this morning so I could skip all the between shot & between hole downtime. They missed several of the key shots in the round, including what the hell happened on Paul's drive on 15 and Ricky's upshot on the same hole. From the coverage and commentary, it seemed like Ricky had a birdie putt and Paul was going to be working to save his par. In reality, Paul somehow wound up a foot inside a 4+ foot tall fence despite apparently hyzering in from out-of-bounds while Ricky hit a small tree and had a long, obstructed putt. Instead of a Wysocki stroke advantage, they left #15 with McBeth having the lead.

Frankly, I'm not sure we'll ever get good video of Paul's drive, which turned out to be the turning point of the tournament.

 

[Halcón]

One of the guys on the live camera is from CCDG, he was on the closer shots (dude w long hair/hat, Johnny DiscGolf)

I believe this is incorrect. AFAIK, Corey is on his own now, and was out there filming for his own channel. (Maybe Ian can shed some light on this)

 

[lyleoross]

I believe this is incorrect. AFAIK, Corey is on his own now, and was out there filming for his own channel. (Maybe Ian can shed some light on this)

i didn't see anything that looked like Cory. His catch came work invariably finds landed discs not leaving you guessing.

 

[teemkey]

Focus as in the picture getting blurry? 100% the camera operator.
...

There were several camera feeds, and the person on the board chooses which camera's output goes out to the audience. Ideally, a director will be monitoring all the cameras, and telling the board operator which camera has the best shot -- but in the absence of a person to act as director, the (probably overloaded) board operator makes the choice.

 

[SD86]

For the life of me, I'll never understand why people wouldn't want live sports. Even sub-par coverage like we're getting now is FAR better than waiting for it the next day.

Depends upon the reason the viewer is watching. If one is watching for the drama, to see who wins and what happened along the way, then yes; live is the way to go. But if one is watching to see the form used by the players, to admire the throws and just enjoy seeing the DG being played, then post-produced may be a better choice.

 

[Halcón]

If one is watching for the drama, to see who wins and what happened along the way, then yes; live is the way to go.

 

[DiscFifty]

I believe this is incorrect. AFAIK, Corey is on his own now, and was out there filming for his own channel. (Maybe Ian can shed some light on this)

Maybe he was also shooting for his own channel, but they were definitely piped into the camera he was holding.

 

[JC17393]

Maybe he was also shooting for his own channel, but they were definitely piped into the camera he was holding.

No, they were not "piped" into his camera. He wasn't live at all. I'm not sure why you think he was. He's the fourth camera on that card and they only had three live cams, and watching the sequence that screen grab is from (round 2, correct?) you see all three live cams and never once is it from an angle that indicates it's Cory.

 

[dorseymatt]

They released this statement yesterday regarding postpro and other things...

I give them a significant amount of credit for owning their shortcomings so far. So, kudos for that statement. I truly hope they get better in a hurry.