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Worlds is a completely different broadcast/contract situation from World Cups for some unfathomable reason (jk, it's because of money).
Gracia did the French language commentary for red bull's wc streams, right? Any Frenchies got an opinion on how he was at it? Anyone know the intervals between riders in the semi finals? Smaller gaps could make some sense to keep the total broadcast duration from getting out of hand.
Interview with some of the new commentary team on Eurosports.
https://www.eurosport.com/mountain-bike/it-s-going-to-be-flat-out-why-new-uci-mountain-bike-world-series-will-be-so-special_vid1888318/video.shtml
2 out of 3! Thanks, Mister Chris Balls!
now I realize I have no idea how many cameras Red Bull had, if 20 is a lot or not...does that include each drone? The cameras in the booth? Slo-mo finish line camera? And what about that one weirdo who always insisted on filming a tire and then spinning as he zoomed out?--please tell me he's been blacklisted.
The commentary team seems absolutely fine, I will admit. No idea how CG is at that job, but he's definitely still a loose unit, will absolutely make some rad faux pas in the booth. Ric Mic is fine, completely inoffensive. He's into bikes. Anchor seems a pro, she'll surely study the scene and I'll put 500 bucks on the line right now that she's already better at racers' names than Bobby Dubs was...
And boom it's 50 bucks a year...what are you gonna do? Not pay? Just watch the juniors and semis on youtube?
hmm...now that you mention it...
I'm into it. Fine. Let's race.
In...July? June? We doing this?
ugh
ever heard of starlink?
It's not just the uploading time (which can be a problem)
Try storing, previewing, editing, color correcting, and rendering 500 clips in 4K in a couple of hours, and on a laptop.
If you can, you should apply for a job on Discovery right now, we would appreciate it very much!
https://nimbusdata.com/products/exadrive/pricing/
https://news.samsung.com/global/samsung-electronics-begins-mass-product…
M1/M2 MacBooks also devour video footage for editing in a very portable form factor, if that's needed. Even PCs in laptop form work quite quickly when video editing. Technically there are few limits. I mean realistically the limiting factor is the internet uplink, everything else is the same as in the 'civilised world' as you're not uploading raw footage anyway, so storing and rendering is the exact same problem as in Tasmania.
The question is if it's worth it to go head over heels for details like that.
The VitalMTB Law - all threads descend to tech nerding if given sufficient time.
The tech to do it (4K fast turnaround) is definitely there, question is it financially viable for the freelancer squids to buy and transport/maintain all that stuff for what they are paid? If it's official coverage in question, then would think the dollars are there if they want a 4K workflow in the field.
Tasmania only recently got colour TV bro.... wtf is starlink
CG is a great character, he was already commenting in french the Worlcup on Red bull.
He might need to be groomed, his commentary was heavily biased toward supporting the french riders and his old teammates. It was more on pair with the free caster era than a more tech-savvy and polished era... and his accent is really french.
(BTW, something might have happened with Rob Warner and ESO because CG is the proof that it was possible to transition from Red Bull to Discovery)
With all due respect, I have a hard time with Ric charisma for somebody who is supposed to be the sport's face.
So far I might just watch the free content on Youtube if I'm not blown away by the show.
I think Discovery is trying to fix lots of problems that do not exist. Their assumption is that the sport is not engaging enough and hard to understand and they want to bring tons of tech-infography, and drone footage. I really don't buy it. We have been told forever we need to make the sport more spectacular but come on... look at the most popular sport (soccer, tennis, road cycling...) .. they are all boring as hell.. or even Supercross.. spectacular really confusing to watch..
I have watched DH WC with many non-mtb friends and they got it right away ..
On the other side, I think the sport is lacking glamour, a well-developed storyline, and REACH, I don't see how a paywall, not paying the athletes, and being eurocentric is going to help.
I think that Ric can do a very good job. He knows the sport and the athletes, has this kind of "neutral vibe" that so many good presenters have, and seems to be very good with words in front of a camera. Solid.
CG is great for energy, and definitely knows a lot about bike racing. I think he could work a little bit more on being fluent, and probably will have a hard time not to drop the "F" word more than a few times. But overall I like him very much.
The thing is, with Rob W we had the best of both. He set the bar very very high in terms of style, info, charisma, etc. Claudio struggled with English, but his good vibes were great. Also, his track previews were amazing.
Eliot Jackson is another one that has done a great job, specially adding insight in the booth. On the track, Cathro is unbeatable.
Wyn has become so good with interviews, makes them interesting and fun. Keeps us updated with team rumours, too.
And finally I was so surprised with Reece Wilson's job as a reporter/ commentator in hardline this year. He was on par with the best of them, right from the first go. I hope to see a looong racing career from him as a racer before that, though.
There are many others that would do a great job commenting. Bernard Kerr or Minnaar would be great. Dean Lucas could do it. Emilie Siegenthaler could do it.
The bottom line is, we have so many good choices! The sport is better than ever in terms of riders level, tracks, videos/photos, broadcast and overall show. Drones are getting soo good. Just don't ruin it by giving the mic to a generic sports TV anchor that has no clue about it and just reads last year's results from a piece of paper. Please.
My dream team for DH would be:
- Main narrator: Rob Warner
- Comments: Bernard Kerr or Reece (someday) Currently Eliot Jackson
- Interviews / focus videos: Wyn Masters or Emilie Siegenthaler
- Lines / practice analysis: Ben Cathro
- POV track preview: Bernard Kerr following Goldstone or Kade
sorry for this brick lads
Mmm, I'm a big fan of Bernard, but I remember him partnering Cam McCaul in the booth for a Crankworx DH race a few years ago. I lost count of how many times he used the phrase "that's right Cam" and overall it was a pretty hard listen. Maybe with some training and experience he would improve, but that appearance wasn't great IMO.
I fully agree with you about Reece at Hardline though, very impressive.
Rob had a lot of training done on him over the years... Repeating the single phrase just might be a small case of the nerves in a new situation.
That could be the case, equally maybe not. Rob has had a lot of training, but he seemed to have a natural flair for the job from word go, I'd say the same is true of Reece. The fact you've competed at a professional level doesn't automatically mean you'd also make a good commentator. This is true in any sport.
With the first XC world cup coming up this week, I've been keeping an eye on the Eurosport schedule (I get Eurosport as part of my cable TV package). Seems like both XCC and XCO finals will indeed be live on *gasp* actual TV...for those who have been clamoring for "mainstream recognition" of our little sport, these are dizzying new heights (or did we travel back in time to the 90s)... The programing alternates between Eurosport 1 and Eurosport 2, where MTB either fits around or after other minor items like the Giro d'Italia , World Cup snooker, Formula-E, PGA tour golf etc...there are also some enduro replays on or around these dates, from the Maydena and Derby events earlier this year. We'll have to see what the broadcast quality is like before passing any further judgment, and of course, we've yet to see what the DHI schedule will actually look like as well, but things are looking pretty decent so far. What if the glass was half full?
Don't go being all reasonable, we want to be pessimistic and grumpy!
i posted this in racing talk but figure here's a good spot too
if my google skills are correct, jr xc in nove mesto starts in about an hour or so. i haven't found any links or placeholders to the free youtube live webcasts yet, but here's the world series youtube page and live tab. hopefully something shows up soon.
https://www.youtube.com/@uci_mtbworldseries/videos
https://www.youtube.com/@uci_mtbworldseries/streams - live stream tab
Yeah I don't know what got into me. But let's not get ahead of ourselves, I'm sure it'll suck! haha
I think the free stuff will be on the new GMBN Racing channel: https://www.youtube.com/@gmbnracing/streams
Looks like Nove Mesto coverage starts there as of May 13 with the U23 racing.
That's U23 short course that is today, and I don't think there is any coverage (that I have found).
Live U23 races are just XC I believe, not until the 13th.
ahhh thanks! i thought thursday felt early HAHA
Hey everyone, I am guessing this is covered, but in the United States we will not have access through Discovery +, but need to subscribe to GCN?
just invest in a starlink dish, problem solved. do you live under a rock?
Doesn't make sense to have all the free live streams on the GMBN racing YouTube. They obviously have their reasons, but fans now have to keep track of the official UCI MTB world series pages, the GMBN one and then figure out if they want to or can pay to watch on Eurosport, Discovery or GCN. So many acronyms and places to consume content. Bit of an oversight if you ask me.
Ideal scenario is surely to have all content availbe on a UCI MTB world series website (embedded YouTube if needed) and also have the linear TV options.
It will all work out fine once the fans get used to it. But it just seems unnecessarily complicated
that's what it seems like. discovery+ doesn't include "discovery+ sports" which is where the WC racing is. logged into d+ i tried searching for "mountain bike" or "bike" or "world cup" and nothing came up. went to google to find it and the difference was being able to login at discoveryplus.com (for a regular subscription) but not given access to discoveryplus.com/ie (which is where WC is) with the same login info. i'll be buying a GCN membership to watch.
looks like you get different subscription depending on your location. here in austria i'm getting all the live streams with normal discovery+ subscription. I got this because I also want to watch sport climbing...
Yeah it’s funny you go read Discovery Sports page and they act like they own the rights to a lot of things they don’t have world wide yet only a couple times go as far to say that we don’t have rights in this county. Basically they are a euro company they are trying to figure out there is more then Europe. If Max when it comes out end of the month has coverage cool if not it will just like world champs I will find a way to get it elsewhere.
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