Live Coverage Came "Of Age"

[edfaits]

Nate Doss / Philo Braithwaite / Ian Anderson rose to the moment with the Conrad Miracle. I thought their commentary all weekend was great, and now they have a call for the ages.

There is nothing like live coverage for these big moments. This was a defining moment for the sport.

Glad I was able to "participate" in that outpouring of joy in real time from 2,800 miles away.

 

[hanger129]

Obligatory "Nate Doss is terrible at commentary".

Now that's out of the way... I really enjoyed the live coverage this week. I tuned in for every round and watching it live is just so much more exciting than post-production. Especially in a field of such talented players, you really lose a lot not being able to see what the other cards are doing. I really liked that Jomez and Gatekeeper partnered together for lead card and chase card check-ins, but I still preferred the live coverage

That being said, DGN still has a lot of room to improve. There were several hiccups this weekend between abruptly cutting away from a commercial to go back to live coverage, interrupting interviews, being stuck on the camera watching the player after they had thrown their tee shot, etc etc.

I'm predicting some kind of partnership between Jomez and DGN for next season. After what happened on the final hole of worlds, it's easy to see the value and excitement of live coverage and it's the direction that all disc golf coverage will ultimately need to move towards. Just imagine what an elevated product the DGN would be with Jomez level production. In fact, I think all the post-production companies are going to need to consolidate or at least form their own network in the near future. There is a ton of advertising money being missed on by having such fragmented production and viewership.

 

[Hampstead]

It was unfortunate that Doss talked all over that moment instead of just letting it be.

 

[Horsman]

Odd move to not have the commentator booth where the finals were

 

[BogeyNoMore]

While I can't disagree with the preceding 3 posts, I will say DG coverage has made big improvements the last few years.

Hopefully DGN, PDGA, DGPT, Jomez, Gate Keeper*, and CCDG can work things out so everyone wins, and keep coverage moving in the right direction.



*I assume GK Pro and Gate Keeper Media are associated?

 

[ru4por]

Not to diminish the moment and honestly I thought the coverage has improved. But, this production is a long way from anything other than YouTube quality, IMO. Discs often hard to follow, questionable camera edits and choices, I think Ian in the booth is an upgrade, but commentary screams of amateurism and seeing crowd control issues on coverage does not look good. I am not even going to comment on the moron in the star/stripes shorts. I would still have NO interest in paying for it. I only watched the finals due to my area having extensive flooding, preventing driving and playing. I do think the chasm between live and post production has been considerably narrowed.

I realize this is only MY opinion. I suspect some will disagree, which is ok. I really don't find disc golf on TV, all that compelling, nor a very good watch. "The moment" certainly made for great watching though.

 

[jmdaire27]

Odd move to not have the commentator booth where the finals were

Agreed. Why not have it near the grand stand at the course the entire field plays three times?? The three of them were so close but weren't even onsite to be a part of it [the shot]. Could tell Philo was bummed he wasn't there.

As far as commentary goes, I thought it was ok, on par with what they normally do.

Doss was standard Doss, with his cliche remarks about pressure and his somewhat obvious observations (and his love affair with P McB… "forget what Sexton is doing, Paul just broke top ten" as Sexton is on a tear…. Come on man..).

Ian is fine, but stop bringing up your Zuca cart during clutch moments, dude (I know he's just trying to help the sponsors).

Philo is my favorite. Is just honest and casual, but knows the sport/shots so well. He also seems less annoyed with jump/step putts than he once was (thinking back to CCDG commentary, and how jumpers always seemed to bug him). He is great in the booth, and does his research (referencing him going out to the course and rangefinding trees on holes to get an idea of where they are; awesome stuff!).

I should watch back, but I don't remember what they were doing during the Holy Shot. I was snuggling with my 10 day old daughter, watching it on my phone, then had to run downstairs to show the wife after it happened, baby in arm!

 

[raceface59]

Years from now when coverage is as slick as a PGA presentation, we can all say "I remember the early days when commentary was just getting it's beginning." I enjoy seeing other companies starting to step up to what JoMez has laid down. We will look back and smile at the early days.

 

[DiscGolfCraig]

Fantastic insights on the playoff hole as they described Conrad's past success on #16. He parks his shot. Then they describe the risk of McBeth throwing a forehand and how it will need to stop fast. His disc skips into the water. That's the insight you're looking for from your announcers. It's the reason so many people like Tony Romo as a color commentator. He sees a play developing before it happens.

 

[jmdaire27]

Not to diminish the moment and honestly I thought the coverage has improved. But, this production is a long way from anything other than YouTube quality, IMO. Discs often hard to follow, questionable camera edits and choices, I think Ian in the booth is an upgrade, but commentary screams of amateurism and seeing crowd control issues on coverage does not look good. I am not even going to comment on the moron in the star/stripes shorts. I would still have NO interest in paying for it. I only watched the finals due to my area having extensive flooding, preventing driving and playing. I do think the chasm between live and post production has been considerably narrowed.

I realize this is only MY opinion. I suspect some will disagree, which is ok. I really don't find disc golf on TV, all that compelling, nor a very good watch. "The moment" certainly made for great watching though.

I already spoke to the commentary, but the coverage has improved levels of magnitude since when DGPT first came about. Having so many cameras out there following hot rounds, multiple cards, etc, makes the live coverage worth it, IMO. I kind of wish the score ticker at the bottom of the screen would scroll through, say, top 10 or 20, instead of sitting on top 4, though. Semantics.

As far as losing discs in treelines and such, I get your point. think that is going to remain unavoidable for live coverage. I did think the camera-people did a great job at least attempting to keep the disc center frame, and if a kick off a tree happened, they moved too. But, I'm a hockey fan, and most people say the puck is hard to follow, but I've never had an issue; maybe it's like that *shrugs.

Until they have someone that can do shot tracking during live coverage, I think this is what we get.

 

[BogeyNoMore]

As Ru4 said, there still a ways to go.

But if you wanna see just how far it's come...


My, how the music's improved.

 

[ru4por]

As Ru4 said, there still a ways to go.

But if you wanna see just how far it's come...


My, how the music's improved.

Yikes.....has it improved that much? This is over 2 decades ago. Technology has obviously improved, but that video is nearly as watchable as today. I tend to believe that was WAY superior coverage for the day.

I think more eyes are the ultimate answer. The coverage will only advance as far as the money, from fans outside the sport will provide. Where there are views, there will be more money.

It was fun to watch and amazing drama. I don't want to bog down this thread with my pessimistic view (pragmatic to me)of the future of disc golf.

 

[BeRReGoN]

Discs often hard to follow, questionable camera edits and choices, I think Ian in the booth is an upgrade, but commentary screams of amateurism and seeing crowd control issues on coverage does not look good.

Balls in golf coverage are hard to follow but they have the budget to film it well and even often live tracking line (follow flight). Obviously the budget and the technologies used for disc golf if laughable in comparison but still very enjoyable. As for crowd control, I was a lot more nervous at the 18th hole when Phil Mickelson won his last major. Another example is the dumb woman that caused a big crash at the tour de France, large area with a lot of people will always be harder to control.

 

[ShopTom.com]

Problem: Two people talk too much.
Solution: Add a third person!
Everyone: WTF?

 

[biscoe]

Problem: Two people talk too much.
Solution: Add a third person!
Everyone: WTF?

Problem was that one specific person spoke too much. IMO both DGN and Jomez are better with 3 people on commentary.

 

[DatRedDude]

Nate Doss is the Chris Collinsworth of Disc Golf

I would rather they just grab a random dude at the course smoke him out and put a mic in front of him.

 

[Discette]

Compared to this, live Disc Golf has improved.

 

[jvphobic]

Answers...
Why wasn't the booth at the Fort? No hardwired connection. And with 2000+ people we still had cellular glitches on our cameras with 6 modems bonded together, so a booth on a Verizon hotspot would have been dead. Keeping it at Mulligans was the smart move. You gain almost nothing from moving it.

How far have we come? That picture with John interviewing Barrett was a post production shot. Bring up an old DGP.tv video from 10 years ago to compare. I know... I was on the team.

Doss hate. Uggg. So over it. He was not the right person to lead a booth, and when it was him and Val, it was WAY too much for 6+ hours. But he is good as a 2nd or 3rd. People say that he fanboys on McBeth, and maybe so. But guess what. McBeth is the greatest and always needs to be watched. He is our Tiger. When he popped up on the top 10 leaderboard he kept climbing, right to the top that round. That is why you always talk about McBeth and why we always keep a camera on him if he is in the top 3 cards. (PS. I personally like Collinsworth)

We do still cut out of commercials maybe once or twice a round, usually if there is 10 seconds or less on them. It is easier than banking the shot and then trying to get to it in replay quickly. Sometimes we mistime our space we think we have.

We don't cut out of interviews. We show other shots, but put their audio over it.

We also do hang on players after tee shots, it is by design. As I say, going from camera 3 (reacts) to camera 2 (catch). I don't always care about the over the shoulder shot. If it is a wide open shot AND you have seen it already from another player's throw, sometimes I like to show the player reacting in the moment and then cut over to the disc in mid flight or close to landing. We have all seen a hyzer. And I usually do it on players that are out of contention as to not risk missing something crazy happening. I will continue to do it. I like seeing players faces react.

Colab with Jomez. Doubtful. They have not shown ANY interest in doing live production, and I can't think of anything additional they could bring to live. They do a great job with post. What happens with the future of post production is anyone's guess. Maybe it goes behind a paywall for a few days, maybe post production crews start paying huge money for rights, or maybe something else? But Jomez isn't doing anything for live.

There is always room to get better.

 

[Moose33]

It's getting a lot better, Ian is solid and Philo is just as much fun in the booth as on the course. Not a big Doss fan but even he has improved as a commentator.

 

[dehaas]

So I think it's a fair question, and this might be the best place to ask.

How long before the free final day broadcast on YouTube goes away?

I would expect at some point it does. Either once enough people are paying monthly for DGN to prove the concept works, or in order to significantly improve live broadcast capabilities a large cash infusion is needed.