TV Production People: How Hard is it to get a live shot from a motorbike that doesn't break up

It's not an excuse in Central Park, but the tall Manhattan buildings can cause trouble for wireless transmission.

I'm with you on this...I still can't believe that happened. I was pretty impressed up until that occurred.

ArchArchArch wrote:

It's not an excuse in Central Park, but the tall Manhattan buildings can cause trouble for wireless transmission.

The Tour de France does a much longer race through the high mountains of europe each year. They have brief break ups of maybe a minute or so but never much longer. Maybe ESPN needs some lessons from them. Given the job they do showing the tour surely ESPN can manage to get a decent feed from a race being run through New York.

They should have an actual wire to make things more reliable.

Possibly spiderman could be hired to negotiate the cable through obstacles.

wejo wrote:

Right now ESPN is not showing the men's race because the live shot of the men is out.

Totally inexcusable. This used to happen when I was a kid and watched in the 80s but it was never out for this long. That was 1985. It's now 2014.

I want to know from TV people how hard is it to keep a live feed up?

How expensive is it to have a backup camera or transponder?

I can't believe ESPN botched this but was curious how easy it would be to fix.

You say it is inexcusable but then clearly describe how you don't even know how the technology works or if it is fixable. So how do you know if it is inexcusable or not???

TdF is an excellent example of how to do this. It's very viable.

I don't think the TdF is a good example. The locations and surrounding environment might have a lot to do with it.

Perhaps the TdF is allowed to have lower hovering helicopters to transmit the signal back to a command center? In NYC the helis need to maintain a certain height (don't know if this is true or not). Also, the buildings can interfere with the signal. (again, just throwing things out there). Nevertheless, I agree, it is ludicrous that we missed about 20 minutes of the men's race.

OAN - How hard would it be to give the top finishers a small towel so they don't have to whip their nose on their flag? I am not the most patriotic person, but I find it disrespectful. Let's not even start on the purpose of having flags, but I assume that train has already left the station.

Also, can't their managers give them a jacket to put on after they finish? They must have been freezing waiting for the awards, etc.

For someone who runs a website that is stuck in the 1990s I find any criticism of technology to be funny.

As for jackets after the race: this is a prime time for marketing. Look at NASCAR and even cycling. While there might be limits on ads on competition clothing, is there such a rule about podium clothing (except at Worlds or the Olympics)?

BTW, the Tour has lots of problems with its feeds from the bikes, it just does not go to them unless they know they are getting them and even then they will cut out.

Tree cover over the mobile camera platform in Central Park is still a real factor it seems. I remember the TV techs back in the 1970s being frustrated trying to cover the race.