Friday, April 1, 2011

HB Day 1

Gotta keep it short, kids. It's late and I don't know much. If you've been to HB before you know what the venue is like; the makeshift plywood boardwalk that leads a sometime winding path of vendors that face the beachfront sidewalk repping the commercial face of paintball. And past the vendors the three fields; the grandstand center field features the Pro play and the ESPN3 coverage. The staccato rapid fire pop of markers keeping the cadence of competition. It was a perfect day for paintball, weather-wise. I heard mixed reviews of the broadcast. Most worrying that people wanting to watch were having problems getting connected through some the various cable outlets. Also, that there was perhaps too much down time but to all appearances everything played out on schedule so I don't know what to think about that particular complaint.
Our day was a little different. With delays due to bad weather most of the team didn't arrive in LA until around 11 pm Thursday night. Our last player didn't arrive until nearly 1 am Friday morning. His luggage didn't arrive. We rolled into our hotel around 2:20 am. Later Friday morning we were due to meet Shock at Camp Pendleton PB park around 9:30 am. Shock arrived early. We were late. We left HB around 8:30 am with our paint but didn't get to the field until around 10 am. Shock was still there and were kind enough to give us a few games. (Keith borrowed enough stuff to play as it was gearbag lost in transit.) When they were done we worked thru some additional last minute details. Scott Kemp of the Ironmen is playing with us for the event and this gave us a chance to work him in. We drove back to HB. Grabbed some lunch and went to the venue to register and watch whatever was left of the Pro prelims. We saw three games. I'ma gonna check out YouTube as soon as I post this. First thing tomorrow morning we head for the field to prep our guns. Shoot some paint. Get our chips implanted and our guns tested. (Keith's gearbag finally arrived. Yeah!) We play our first game around 10 am. That's when the tournament starts.

3 comments:

sdawg said...

I can't watch the webcast because I don't have cable, just internet, and my ISP doesn't have a deal with ESPN to offer ESPN3. That detail was never apparent to many until Friday.

I thought Sunday was when the tournament starts?

J-Bird said...

if there is a local college, you can post up in there -- if im not mistaken, espn3 is available on every college campus in america (i know it is for ALL the major ones)

DanC. said...

Let us know what happens with those chips/ enforcing/ data collection.

Im not sure why people weren't aware they didn't get ESPN3 until now. Its been that way since it was called espn360. The nppl shouldn't be faulted for something that's not their fault. Its not their responsibility to hold your hand and say "little johnny, this may not work for you, it follows the same distribution rules the ESPN3 has follwed for the least 5 years". one Google of ESPN3 will tell you that its hit or miss for ISP's across the country and has been since 2005...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ESPN3
Call your ISP and complain or get a better one.

I really like ESPN3 (paintball or otherwise) I can stream it though my xbox onto my huge ass TV in HD, rather than my little laptop. the sideline reporter is awkward and appears very uncomfortable in front of the camera. There are some Tech issues (sound cuts). the games don't sound particularly exiting because of how quiet the crowd must be. There are some production issues, like matty/guest speaking and describing in detail a situation or a player and what they are doing, but the cameras are zoomed into a completely different person. a 10 minute delay would fix that, and allow graphics to be placed over players heads, like the euro vid.