I personally have mostly stopped trying to defend the live product. Some people will never be happy with it. Some think it should just magically be a multimillion dollar production. I am a member of a few live streaming groups for things like sports and corporate events. And some of those people are actually impressed by the production quality that we can attain on the limited budget. Golf is literally one of the hardest sports to cover because the field is so large. And honestly their opinions mean more to me than random internet dudes these days.
For some the length of time will always be an issue. For some the graphics will always be an issue. For some the commentators will always be an issue. You either enjoy live disc golf and the drama or you don't. We will continue to plug away and improve the product year after year as we have done for the past 5 years.
Honestly, it isn't really a tech barrier at this point. It is more a manpower/financial barrier I feel. We can put static cameras at locations, but then they kinda have to be short holes because no one is there to man the camera (island holes usually).
And if we want to start editing in other cards on the fly, you need an entire additional crew per card. Because you need people to man the cameras, someone to video switch that card, someone to record the highlight shots and to feed those sliced shots into the primary feed... and do it all in coordination. So you immediately double your manpower for each card you want to film that way. We can handle 2 cards with PIP options pretty well, but beyond that, it is tough.
So, for me personally I would like to see the broadcast improve in 2 aspects. Graphics quality & picture quality. Both will require a little bit of cash. To improve the graphics we need to up our bitrate we transmit. And that is basically doubling the cost of our data to notice a significant improvement. And the graphics is working with UDisc and a good graphics designer to work some things out. And I am already headed down that path.
JonnyV:
If I could have SUPERniced these comments, I would have. Expectations people. At some point the consumers of the product are going to have to accept contributing to paying for it. Via commercials marketed to them or some other way, we the consumers are gonna have to put in our piece of the cost.
Agree, and this is where I believe this new ownership/management team can help. There have been many posts on these boards that some things are 'cost prohibitive', and I get that. I don't know the numbers, but Jomez, CCDG, Smashboxx, et. al. have to have cost limits. This new team might can get some things 'over the hump'. And that will lead to more incoming revenue.
One thing I didn't see discussed in this thread, though I may have missed it, and I've seen it in other threads: some comments that the disc makers (Discraft, Innova, et. al.) are getting tired of sponsoring literally everything. Related to my first paragraph, I understand that sometimes these companies are paying for some of the media folks to get to a site to film it, etc. This new team might can help ease the cost burdens of those manufacturing sponsors, who then can advertise more on the media broadcasts/webcasts, bringing in more revenue. Might be six of one, half dozen of the other, but it'll all come out in the wash.
Hmmm. I don't see exactly what you're saying here. Is it putting the cart before the horse? I am not on board or I misunderstand totally with the idea that '...Jomez, CCDG, Smashboxx having limits and the "new team" being the possible solution'. Without the expertise of those who've been doing it thus far and improving it continuously, the product isn't going to get better. Steve tried that and it did not succeed..