How many think NBC is doing a poor job of covering the U.S. Open? They have way to many commercials (every 6 minutes) and too many fluff pieces. I find it hard to keep track of what's going on because they are leaving out some of the key shots of the leaders. There is a bright side though, I did get to watch a good bit of the AVP volleyball becuase of the excessive commercials.
I guess we get spoiled with the Masters. Maybe we can get Martha Burke to cause an uproar with the USGA and they will cancel commericals for the U.S. Open to.
I recorded the entire broadcast today, thanks to DVR technology. It shaved at least 3 hours off of the running time, just fast forwarding through the commercials. It is unbelieveable though at the amount of commercials compared to golf coverage, can't say enough how happy I am that I upgraded with my cable company.
The other bad thing has been the HD broadcast. Well, today it was alright but the first two rounds, it took them about 25 minutes of a 2 hour broadcast before they finally fixed the resolution to 16x9 on the HD broadcast. Today, it took them about 5 minutes to get it right. Now, this is the first time I've been able to watch golf in HD since I'm always up at college during the Masters and my folks just got the new HD cable box (we have one of the older HDTV's that doesn't have a tuner in it and recently we switched out our old cable box). Anyway, I have seen other things broadcast in HD and they always come on the air in 16x9 right off the bat, including NBC's coverage of hockey lately. So is it just that they don't really know what to do with broadcasting golf in HD yet or what? The first couple of rounds it really bothered me because that was a lot of the coverage (25/120 mins. = about 21% of the show not in HD) but today I was a lot happier when they fixed it really quick.
I finally got to the TV after their coverage had finally started only to find yet another 20 minute fluff piece about Johnny Miller and 1974 - the same stuff that had been on all week.
I thought there was a rain delay.
Why pre-empt live action on Sunday for the same tired features? So Bob Costas can hear himself talk?
I am a DVR and HD guy too, and I also foward through all of the commercials until I catch up to 'live' coverage. The HD broadcast was great. It seemed like a few cameras were not HD but they were being shown 16:9. But that is ok with me. I understand how many cameras are involved in a golf broadcast so just having it in 1080i for 80% of the cameras is FINE BY ME!
Regarding the broadcast team...
I stand by my earlier statements, Johnny Miller is getting tough to listen to. Every shot and putt is easy to him. Then, toward the end, all he did was ask questions of the on-course commentators. "This is going to break to the right, right Billy?" "Just inside left, Bill?"
And I think Costas is grown into this huge ego-maniac. I believe he just wants to be seen at these big events now. I don't feel that he adds much anymore...
Costas wore thin on me years ago, but I did get a good laugh out of one comment he made. He was promo'ing whatever was to follow the golf and said "I know that will disappoint all of you who were looking forward to another re-run of the Britney Spears interview".
It's amazing to me that the network producers find it adequate to trade live action golf at the most prestigeous and awaited golf tournament on American soil for their "fluff pieces." Did they ever consider that this may cause aggravation? These must be the same idiots that cut from the Superbowl for the great film "Heidi."
June 17th, 2006, 10:50 PM
Linear Mode
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