Universal Giro Commentator

[jaylew]

Ok, this defines the difference in the quality of commentating. I had both the Universal and the Eurosport audio going. The Eurosport audio was about 1 minute behind, so I had it turned down until something interesting would happen then would listen to their comments.

Here are the two versions from the very finish, when the camera zoomed in on Lance going out the back of the front group upon the final accelerations:

Universal - And we will soon find out if Lance Armstrong will be in the Maglia Rosa today.

Eurosport - And Lance Armstrong is going out the back. I guess that answers our questions regarding his form for this Giro

Hilarious!

 

[BroDeal]

Not sure if it makes a difference for you , but I noticed the feed type changed over to Flash today.

That is probably my problem. I will have to play around with things and see if I can get the non-live version to play. Nice of them to suddenly switch.

The video quality of US is much better than justin.tv I watched today. The faces of the riders on justin.tv are almost featureless. It almost reminds me of some scenes in the movie version of The Wall.

 

[md2020]

Here's what Rory Sutherland had to say about the Univ Sports commentator this morning on Twitter,

"watching the giro on universalsports.com the commentator is an idiot... pronounces names like he's a euro or something. He's not!"

FWIW, the second commentator, Todd Gogulski, was a pretty good racer back in the 80's. He's the guy in the back of the pack here from the 1984 Nevada City Classic among some pretty well respected American racers from that time:

 

[Alpe d'Huez]

Cool photo!

Let's clear some things up. Universal first has the live feed, with their commentator from England. I'm not sure his name. He's kind of like a poor man's David Duffield - except the Duffers would get much more excited and could call a sprint.

Universal also has a re-feed, this is commented on by Steve Schlanger and Todd Gogulski. They are a little more animate, but stiff.

If you go to Steephill.tv, they list both "restricted" and "unrestricted" feed. Not sure what the difference is.

I personally am not going to complain. A week ago we might have had no Giro coverage at all. Now, we're getting high quality webcasting for free. I'll take it.

 

[md2020]

Let's clear some things up. Universal first has the live feed, with their commentator from England. I'm not sure his name. He's kind of like a poor man's David Duffield - except the Duffers would get much more excited and could call a sprint.

Universal also has a re-feed, this is commented on by Steve Schlanger and Todd Gogulski. They are a little more animate, but stiff.

Thanks for clearing that up. I haven't caught the live feed yet, only the re-broadcast, and I find them OK except that Schlanger continually interrupts Gogulski and talks over him. Also, he pronounces Tyler Ferrar's name as 'fair-uh' and I always thought it was 'fuh-rar'.

Personally, I'm loving the coverage and am grateful that it's on TV at all. My only complaint is that it's not in HD.

 

[RDV4ROUBAIX]

Would be nice if the current crop of utterly biased, boring, and senile (Phil) cycling commentators were replaced by the guys who do commentary for FIM or the World Darts Championship. These guys could make a race between turtles exciting as hell.

 

[davidw]

I personally am not going to complain. A week ago we might have had no Giro coverage at all. Now, we're getting high quality webcasting for free. I'll take it.

I happened on to some of the Universal Sports guys interviewing Ted King at the Giro start today, and according to them, this was really a *last minute* deal - the deal got signed and they got on a plane a week ago. It's to their credit that they've pulled what they have together... although I haven't seen it myself. I have RAI on my TV

 

[53x11 in DC]

For the Aussies - Is Matt Keenan coming back for 2009 Le Tour? It was a nice change listening to him – although I don’t recall him actually taking a breath when he spoke – a wealth of information and enjoyable – if you could keep up.

I suppose Laurel and Hardy (Phil and Paul) will be back as per usual, disagreeing with each other, being 5 seconds or so behind the TV telecast and generally coming out with some recurring and at times amusing lines….. "And the heads of state have come to the fore..." , "And so, the first pedal has been turned in ANGER!" , "Once you pull on that golden fleece, you become two men..", "He's stamping on those pedals!", "The pirate is about to board the ship." ".....and Lance is hanging the pirate on his own ship" ,“Tap tap tapping out a rhythm”, "He’s pumping those two pistons he calls legs." “that rider is going through all kinds of purgatory”, “this climb is interminable”, "LOOK, LOOK at that infernal cadence", “These boys are descending like stones”. "Complete and utter…”, "Unbelievable, Phil.... this man is all over his machine...", “Big Jens Voigt”, “Big George Hincapie”, “an absolute beast of a man”.....

you are making me "suffer like i've never suffered before!!!"

 

[shawnrohrbach]

I've been watching the television feed and wondered what the negative comments were all about here and just tonight watched the on-line version since the tv feed froze. You are all correct the on line commentator sucks. If you are in an area to get US on cable or satellite, watch that; the commentating is actually VERY good and while I have caught them on a few minor mishaps they do not make themselves the focus of the entertainment like the Versus guys do. With Versus, I always feel like I am watching the commentators and by the way there is this kind of bike race going on in the background.

 

[shawnrohrbach]

My exception to the Versus guys (comment above) is Bob Roll. Guy makes me laugh and that's not easy.

 

[BroDeal]

Not sure if it makes a difference for you , but I noticed the feed type changed over to Flash today.

I got the replay to work by upgrading Flash to the latest version. I think this might be a problem with a lot of people because the "video help" page was updated today and urges people to upgrade their Flash version.