So i saw the World Cup on OLN show...

[raehl]

And 10-man will never make it as a sport on TV. 12 minutes of watching guys stand there, with the occasional shot of someone walking off the field, to finally see Martinez bunker two people. There was one other bunker move in there somewhere, but it was right impossible to see what was going on. Not exactly the most exciting 10 minutes I've ever seen on TV.

Maybe if they had a little diagram of the field in the corner of the screen with a dot for every live player on the field.... Sorta like the diagram of the bases in baseball on Fox. (Not sure that helps you Brits any.)

Avery and the other anouncer did a bang-up job trying to make something out of nothing though, and the rest of the show was pretty cool.


- Chris

 

[shamu]

Yup, I just watched the OLN coverage tonight and taped it for future viewing

The one hour program broke down about like this (no, I didn't use a stop watch, these are only guesstimates):
- about 20 minutes of commercials
- about 10 minutes of promotional stuff (look at JT's new gear, look at PMI's new stuff, etc)
- about 10 minutes of girls butts
- about 10 minutes of player profiles (Look, it's Todd Martinez! Hey, Maurice Gibb plays paintball! ) and "behind the scenes" (watch Dynasty plan their next game!)
- about 10 minutes of actual games.

They only showed three games - Dynasty v. Ironmen, Dynasty v. 'Shock, Ironmen v. 'Shock (in that order). The game coverage wasn't very good. They could certainly have used some diagrams, explanation of why people are doing stuff or at least some wider establishing shots (a'la Traumahead). The commentary from Avery Amaya (from Texas Storm) was pretty good.

It was interesting to see how paintball would be presented to a general audience. However, I think they tried to cram too much into a one hour program. A little less 'lifestyle' and a little more on the games (explaining how and why things happen on the field)would have been more interesting.

If you get a chance, I'd recommend seeing it. Just don't expect your mom to suddenly understand how paintball works. Mine still doesn't.... sigh

 

[paintpimp]

the problem has never been the product, it's been the packaging.


Take a look at the 2k2 NPPL produced LA video. a Little more along those lines with the announcers and a better venue and you're going strong. Actually produce it and cover it like a sporting event (with multiple camera angles) and you're going even stronger. I also believe that they edited all but the least aggressive bunker moves out of the video.

Just remember if I wanted to show you 10 minutes of a Futbol, Football (US), Basketball, or even boxing match, I can make it look bland and non-aggressive too. I could make it PBS worthy.
I think that's what happened here.


Chris

 

[Mark/Static]

Originally posted by paintpimp
the problem has never been the product, it's been the packaging.

Right on! I totally agree.

 

[shamu]

"the problem has never been the product, it's been the packaging."

Paintpimp summed up in one sentence what it took me 4 paragraphs to say. Maybe I need an editor...

 

[Problem]

I have to disagree. With the conclusion, not the comments, of the above posts. I was surprised at how honest it was, with goggles up on the field and wiping and referee mistakes. But in a manner only we'd probably spot. Non-paintballers would find a familiarity in the formatting and commentary from many other sports shows.

I think the televising of it was outstanding in that it showed how similar paintball is to other sports: outline the rules, show the highlights, talk about the people and find the heroes.

At the same time, the problem of "not being able to follow the balls" was pretty evident too. Chris is referring to the Toulouse 2000 video's player tracking graphics, but that was done in months of post-production work. We'd need to automate it for real-time or near-real time production to avoid having it manually done afterwards. And that may solve the issue of following the balls - you don't need to know where the paintballs are flying if you see the results, which would be graphics to one side showing players moving and being removed.

Maybe X-ball isn't the future. Maybe automation is.

Larry Janecka

 

[CoreOfEvil]

err... what channel is OLN? on satellite...

 

[Mark/Static]

Originally posted by Problem
Chris is referring to the Toulouse 2000 video's player tracking graphics, but that was done in months of post-production work. We'd need to automate it for real-time or near-real time production to avoid having it manually done afterwards. And that may solve the issue of following the balls - you don't need to know where the paintballs are flying if you see the results, which would be graphics to one side showing players moving and being removed.

Maybe X-ball isn't the future. Maybe automation is.

Larry Janecka

If you do an overhead picture in picture and use a telestrator to mark positions and show movement, and color coding or blinking to designate which player is being shown in the tighter shot, that could be done on the fly pretty much. Or we can barrow some of Fox's hockey pucks.

 

[Buddha 3]

So basically we'd need paintball's equivalent of John Madden.....Robbo?

 

[KillerOnion]

To add to Mark's points, what is also needed is a team of expert cameramen who know what's going on, what to focus on, when, and how to do it. They would have to have professional experience in sports filming AND a working knowledge of paintball. It seems that every attempt so far has picked one or the other but not both when both are required to get what we're looking for but haven't seen yet.