Wednesday, October 29, 2008

World Wide Webshow

If you missed it – and odds are you did – you missed out on the best live presentation of competitive paintball ever shown. Hey, I don't blame you. Either you were at Cup or you were, you know, busy. Seriously, this was a quantum leap forward in the professional display of paintball. Cameras on the field, cameras in the pits, live play-by-play and a totally bitchin' digital scoreboard. I spent a few minutes in the control room on Sunday to see it all in action and it was amazing. And best of all – it will only get better. Even as the production was in process new ideas and better ways of doing things were added to the master list for next time.
It cost the league a substantial chunk of change to launch. A chunk they won't likely recover for a while but it was/is a worthwhile investment in the game and the league. Awesome job, Pat, Matty and everybody else. (Now I gots to figure out a way to attend events AND see the show.)
It will be interesting to see what comes out of all the recorded data in post production. Perhaps a multi-disc NXL set of World Cup '08? A Sunday Finals?
Great as it was there were a couple of "problems" I've heard about from a few peeps. One was drop out, losing the feed. I don't know how extensive that issue was nor how often it may have reoccurred but obviously it's important to limit the occurrences. The other thing I'd like to see is some sort of full field shot – if not an overhead shot (which seems like it would be hard to do given the normal set-up) perhaps something set up from opposite back corners? With a split screen you could see the whole breakout and it would, I think, make it easier to put each point into perspective. Just a thought.
Does the possible appearance of the mini-jumbotron (Is that like jumbo shrimp?) mean we might see a field layout with the X on, say, the D-wire? [There's discussion already about using the digital scoreboard display from the webshow on site broadcast to a big screen. Cool huh?] I know Damien has a few really unusual designs tucked away. Just saying.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

It was good, I only watched friday because I dont have money.
I hope they add another camera on the dorito side, because I had no idea what was going on over there. More cameras would be a plus, but I don't think that will happen for a couple more events.

Anonymous said...

I agree with your opening statement; the PSP Webshow was the best live presentation to date...and I'm excited at the prospects of it getting better. I forked out the $9.95 as I was having trouble dealing with the fact that this is the first Cup I've missed in many years. A sad weekend indeed. But, getting to watch live action coupled with intelligent and relevant commentary was a nice consolation. Matt Marshal did a great job. Rich Telford wasn't such a hit with me, though. I think he was the weakest announcer...he was trying too hard to be funny but falling short.

I would love to see the two breakouts happen simultaneously...maybe a camera mounted up above each penalty box would work. A camera inside each penalty box would be great too -- seeing / hearing a player's reaction when he gets put in the box would be interesting...maybe even better than seeing inside the pits.

I know there's only so many cameras...and I'm certainly not interested in an argument as to who will pay for the additional equipment. (Why is it every time something like this is criticized, someone always has that question as their trump-all response?) The answer is obvious: whomever bought the existing equipment is who will buy it, IF it is feasible. If not, there will be no more equipment and we'll all make due with what we have.

Anyways, great show. I look forward to watching NPPL's free show from San Diego to see if they make any notable improvements.