OMG!!!!!

[bad hammy]

There was actually a real live track meet, live on that thing called television, in America, on High Definition TV!!!!

Thank you NBC - it must be an Olympic year.

That said, there were many obvious indications that the HD signal was highly compressed. NBC, you are fooling no one with a real sense of what HD sports is all about. . . .

[Marlow]

Jeez BH, look a gift horse in the mouth much??!! :twisted:
Be thankful that we got this much - I am. The broadcast moved right along, not to many fluff pieces, not totally inane interviews. A couple of blown calls during races, but it's not like the NFL/NBA/MLB, where they have a bunch of spotters feeding info into their earpieces. It's probably just poor WM on a tin can and a long string, sitting on the roof with a telescope! :shock:

[bruce3404]

I went to the meet and DVRed it in HD. It's almost unwatchable with all the audio and video cutouts....anyone else having the same problems, or did my DVR pick a terrible time to go South? Fabulous meet!

[cacique]

this wasn't live, was it?

they didn't show the women's LJ though.

[cacique]

this wasn't live, was it?

they didn't show the women's LJ though.

[lonewolf]

I didn't catch any mention of either Men or Women LJ or TJ

[lefterisp]

Yep, once again the field events were completely ignored. We did get to see a lot of Liu Xiang not running though... why couldn't we see some of the greatest ever american female discus throwers? Women's long jump was full of OG and WC champions. OK, we did get to see some fault shot put attempts and thank goodness for the pole vault american record.

[vikingmatadorbluedevil]

Although it was live (which was nice) why wasn't there any mention of the morning session? It's not like there wasn't time built-in to the schedule (which was available on the meet website).

[Bruce Kritzler]

It is just pathetic to show 5min. of false starts before each race. They could have showed at least 1min of the 10k and 5k.
At least there was no Larry Rawson.

[tandfman]

It is just pathetic to show 5min. of false starts before each race.

That can happen in a live show. The tv people don't know it's going to be a false start until it happens. Of course, what they should do then is immediately switch to a field event during at least part of the down time. Too often, they just stick with the race.

[trackstar]

It is just pathetic to show 5min. of false starts before each race.

That can happen in a live show. The tv people don't know it's going to be a false start until it happens. Of course, what they should do then is immediately switch to a field event during at least part of the down time. Too often, they just stick with the race.

Let me join in on looking the gift horse in the mouth and say yeah, I found it rather amazing that there was no mention whatsoever of Bekele running the fourth-fastest 10K in history and by far the fastest ever on American soil. That's pretty pathetic. Maybe instead of boring us with that "winning with class" thing or whatever it's called they could have taken at least 30 seconds to tell us about that great performance.

And I hope that American TV track producers are seeing these IAAF feeds being shown on ESPN and taking note that, yes, you CAN show field events as they happen in between races. Hint: quite wasting our viewing time interviewing out-of-breath runners telling us "My strategy today was to run fast."

[rabalac]

It is just pathetic to show 5min. of false starts before each race.

That can happen in a live show. The tv people don't know it's going to be a false start until it happens. Of course, what they should do then is immediately switch to a field event during at least part of the down time. Too often, they just stick with the race.

Let me join in on looking the gift horse in the mouth and say yeah, I found it rather amazing that there was no mention whatsoever of Bekele running the fourth-fastest 10K in history and by far the fastest ever on American soil. That's pretty pathetic. Maybe instead of boring us with that "winning with class" thing or whatever it's called they could have taken at least 30 seconds to tell us about that great performance.

And I hope that American TV track producers are seeing these IAAF feeds being shown on ESPN and taking note that, yes, you CAN show field events as they happen in between races. Hint: quite wasting our viewing time interviewing out-of-breath runners telling us "My strategy today was to run fast."

I've been meaning to ask this question, this ridiculous practice of interviewing athletes at the end of a torturous race where they are struggling to breathe, is this an American thing? Do they do this in other parts of the world? Is it too much to allow say 10 minutes after a race so the athlete can breathe normally?

Just asking.

[RAP]

And I hope that American TV track producers are seeing these IAAF feeds being shown on ESPN and taking note that, yes, you CAN show field events as they happen in between races. Hint: quite wasting our viewing time interviewing out-of-breath runners telling us "My strategy today was to run fast."[/quote]

Well stated.
Did the camera folks get their start with football games? Someone should tell them that TAF is different in as much as when a touchdown is scored, they follow the person who scored til the end. In a track meet, they don't need to keep the camera on the winner and forget about who is coming in second/third/etc. Why can't the camera be left at the finish line so we can see the other competitors finish? This only takes a few seconds and then they can go back to the winner. This is my biggest gripe about track on TV.

What ever happened to that split screen thingy? Must have been too complicated so they canned it.

[donley2]

On a marginally related note. Has anyone actually watched the ESPN classic golden league coverage. That video is horrible. Looks like it was shot in the 70's. Are they somehow messing up the conversion from european video to american?

[jeremyp]

Personally I prefer taped meets just to miss the false starts.

At least you guys got to watch 1 1/2 hours. Where I live (SW Fl) they cut in for 45 min of news on a tornado watch. Unfortunately only NBC decided to do that, so I missed Liu's DQ, and lord knows how many other false starts. Poor old Dwight, the best guy there and relegated to interviews. Ed Eyestone seemed to have made a decent debut, though I missed the mile and 2 mile.