Webcasts from the Brier

Today through Thursday, I'm stuck in my day-job office and can't avail myself of the usual flex-time so I can watch the Brier in the comfort of home on our television set. So I'm catching bits of it via webcasts whenever I can over the internet.

The morning draws have been slightly dressed up versions of CurlTV transmitted (at no charge!) through CBC's website. The resolution is pretty poor, the technology is CurlTV, not CBC, and poor Luke is stuck in the booth by himself. In other words, the CBC webcast is not particularly good.

The afternoon webcast from TSN is worlds better. The resolution is much better, making it much more pleasant to watch the full screen version of the webcast. The technology is TSN technology, so we get better spiders (data runners around the action) and more camera angles. And we get more announcers. Russ Howard definitely is too quiet-spoken, and they still haven't adjusted the volume enough on his mike feed. All things considered, though, the TSN webcast is much, much better than the CurlTV/CBC webcast.

I understand why there's a difference. TSN cannot telecast all three draws without bringing in a second crew and/or paying exorbitantly for the labour to telecast the morning draws. So we're seeing the full afternoon and evening TSN telecasts as webcasts. At the same time, CBC isn't about to spend big bucks to webcast the morning draws (remember Country Canada???), so they have made this deal with CurlTV which is slowly improving but simply is not at the same budget level as TSN.

CurlTV and the Canada Cup

This afternoon, Ms. Eclectic was surfing the channels, and she saw that the Strauss Canada Cup was being carried on CBC but some of the later games were not being carried on commercial television. However, CurlTV is carrying those games.

So, with some hesitation, we checked them out. We saw that we could subscribe for the rest of the season for only $40, so we decided to take a chance.

The quality of the internet telecasts is better than last year. Luke is clearly knowledgable, and his microphone presence is improving. Also, the picture is better and has none of the jerkiness that was there last year. And, the piece de resistance, they have a telestrator!

It's worth the $40.

The Final Major of the Season

The Tylenol Championship, with prize money totalling $200,000, begins today in Calgary. Nearly all the top teams will be there, and it will be carried over the internet via CurlTV.

Here are the projected lineups:

Men'sTeams Kevin Martin Glenn Howard Randy Ferbey Brad Gushue Pat Simmons Kerry Burtnyk Jeff Stoughton Kevin Park (Koe) Wayne Middaugh Mark Johnson Joel Jordison Pierre Charette John Base Don Walchuk Jamie King Bruce Korte

Women's Teams Sherry Anderson Jennifer Jones Cheryl Bernard Shannon Kleibrink Cathy King Kelly Scott Crystal Webster Stefanie Lawton Deb Santos Sherry Middaugh Karen Porritt Colleen Jones (Law) Heather Rankin Renelle Bryden Colleen Madonia Darcy Robertson

Meanwhile, here I am in Edmonton -- so close and yet so far, and I'll have to miss my own club's "Spring Thaw" spiel this coming weekend... Oh well.... my team will be better because I'm gone.

Tie-breakers (Round One): Sweden Defeats France 6-5;Germany Defeats Finland 8-5

I watched the tie-breaker between France and Sweden on CurlTV today (with snatches of shots shown from the other tie-breaker between Germany and Finland). Skip Lindholm of Sweden made two absolutely marvelous shots in the 10th end to score two for Sweden. His first shot was a very difficult in-off take-out to get around all the guards and move France's shot rock off the button. And then, after France raised one of their guards to be sitting shot, Lindholm removed it and stuck his shooter to score two for the win.

Once again, Markku Uusipaavalniemi curled a lower percentage than any of the four skips and missed a difficult shot (it looked like a double-raise takeout) with his last rock, allowing Germany to score two in the tenth end. Although, as I had suggested, he improved considerably during the tournament, he just didn't seem as polished as he was last year.

The two teams, Germany and Sweden, meet at 4pm EDT in the second round of tie-breakers, which will also be shown on CurlTV.

What Good Is Hi-Rez If You Miss Seeing the Shots?

I am stuck in my workplace today and must sneak peeks at the 2007 Men's World Curling Championships via TSN's broadband telecasts. I must say the resolution of the pictures is distinctly superior to that of CurlTV. But that isn't worth much in many ways because the TSN broadband telecast kept freezing up on me during the morning draw (I'm writing this before the afternoon draw).

I couldn't believe it: On Glenn Howard's last shot of the 7th end, I could see the rock leave his hand and start sliding down the ice, but then the picture froze. I could hear the rock hit something, and hear the exclamations, but I didn't see the shot. Then suddenly, the picture was back, showing the French team conceding and shaking hands with the Canadians. And I managed to sort of see a replay (but with lots of jerkiness to it).

Hi-res is good if you don't miss the shots. I'm finding the same thing with MLB.com.

Maybe by next year, CurlTV will bump up its resolution and TSN will improve its reliability. Let's hope so.

(apologies: I had to close comments on this posting just to delete one comment I had approved earlier. Please do not post comments that have links to sites with "tribal infusion" or whatever.

French Strategy

Among other things*, I watched the 7th draw of the 2007 Men's World Curling Championships on CurlTV this afternoon. I was intrigued by the strategies of the teams. For the first three ends, the US tried to start by putting rocks in the rings, and the French peeled them. The French managed to blank the first three ends as a result, and the frustration among the US curlers was readily apparent. On the fourth end, to try something different, the U.S. began with guards, and as the end evolved, the French managed to take two points.

Later, in the 6th end, the U.S. was forced to take just one with the hammer, evincing even more frustration. But then they stole one in 8th, so the teams were tied 2-2 going into the 9th end, with France having the hammer. France then scored 3 in the 9th end and 1 in the 10th to take the game 6-2.

I was intrigued by the French strategy. It seemed to frustrate the US team. In fact, the US out-curled the French team in terms of curling percentages 85% to only 77%. It is not often that a team on the short end of that big a difference wins the game, but in this case there was a combination of strategy and luck that allowed or even caused the French to win. It will be interesting to see how others react to this strategy.

If I had been there as a fan, I'd have been tempted to boo the French by the third end, just to register my disapproval, not of their strategizing, but of games that have three blanked ends in a row -- they frustrate the fans at least as much as they frustrated the US curlers.

*I also watched a lot of baseball this afternoon, much of it via mlb.com's premier broadband service. Their 700K telecasts have great resolution, compared with CurlTV; however, the constant re-buffering and freezing up make the overall package considerably inferior to that offered by CurlTV.

Curling on Broadband: TSN vs. CurlTV (again)

By the end of the 2007 Scotties Tournament of Hearts, I had had a chance to watch both TSN and CurlTV several times on broadband. Here are some general impressions:

• As I said before, the video resolution on TSN is better than that of CurlTV.
• But CurlTV's signal was much more consistent and reliable. It seemed as TSN's picture often froze up just as a shot was being made.
• TSN had more camera angles, more stats, and more graphics (as one would expect from their budget).
• Luke, the play-by-play announcer on CurlTV concentrated on curling and didn't mess with all the idle chit-chat on TSN.
• CurlTV has a feature allowing me to watch in a pop-up window, which seems to be the only way I can transfer the image to our television set from our old laptop that we use to watch curling at home. When the games were shown on TSN, we were stuck watching the broadband telecast in a small picture (when it wasn't on TSN).
  

All things considered, I prefer the reliability of CurlTV over the bells and whistles of TSN. I hope both keep working to overcome their weaknesses. And no matter what, I'm glad they're both there, and I'm absolutely delighted to have curling available via broadband for days when I'm working at my office instead of at home.

Poor TSN

Well, I can imagine that TSN would much rather have let CurlTV have this morning's draw instead of having to pay overtime for its cast and crew to cover all three draws today. With three games ended early by lopsided scores, and the only remaining game being between teams that will not make the play-offs, TSN will not have made much, if any, money on this draw (especially not if one assumes it was the one they'd have dropped if they had decided to cover only two draws today).

TSN's Broadband Coverage on Thursday

I'm stuck in the office today, but I confess I'm taking a peek, now and then, at the TSN broadband coverage of Draw 15 from the Scotties 2007 Tournament of Hearts.

As I posted earlier in the week, the resolution of the coverage and the use of their regular large cast and crew and many cameras makes the telecast superior to that of CurlTV.

At the same time, though, the number of times the video freezes up is annoying. And if there's a massive freeze-up, and you have to start the reception de novo, then you have to sit through over a minute of loading time and promos for TSN, which is pretty annoying.

Also, TSN does not allow the viewer to play the video in a pop-up window, as does CurlTV, and for some reason it is only via the pop-up window that we are able to watch the matches using our television as a monitor.

I expect that the drain on the server at times causes the freeze-ups, but I may be wrong. If so, as broadband telecasting becomes more popular, either commercial or subscription, we should expect to see increasingly bigger and better servers. As a commenter noted earlier, broadband telecasting may not be all of what we'll see in the future, but it will surely play an important role.

Scotties: The Field is Spreading

Going to Draw 9 of the 2007 Scotties Tournament of Hearts, it looked as if the field of competing teams had pretty much divided itself into two groups: the contenders and the others. Saskatchewan looked unbeatable, and Manitoba, Team Canada, Ontario, and BC all had very good records. But now the field is beginning to spread out a bit, with a few of the weaker teams with good records losing and a few of the better teams with bad records picking up a win or two. And who knows how Saskatchewan will perform after having two draws off in a row.

Nova Scotia and New Brunswick are clearly not as good as the other teams, and they are still winless. And Newfoundland's performance seems more in line with their abilities, confirming the suspicion that their making the play-offs last year was a feat that would not likely be repeated this year.

PEI has some flashes of brilliance at times and looks tremendously over-matched at others. I remember having the same impression of their rink last year, when they played in London. With a record of 2W and 4L, they are not likely to make the playoffs, but they might be good enough to cause trouble for some of the contenders along the way, as they did for BC this morning. The NWT seems about the same.

Alberta, on average, looks better than PEI, but I'm not sure they are good enough to crack the top four.

The real puzzle for me is Ontario. They have a great record so far, but their wins have mostly come against the weaker teams. They were blown away by Saskatchewan, but they looked quite good in their 11-end loss to Canada. They certainly seem to have improved considerably since last year.

And although Manitoba started with a loss to Saskatchewan, they have come on strong. Here's hoping I get to see more of the head-to-head matches between the top teams as the week progresses.

I had the opportunity to sneak a peek at the Ontario - Canada draw in my office, now and then this morning, via CurlTV. It sure is nice having that service available, even though there are many ways in which it can be improved.

Another information source that Alan and I discussed at length last year is CurlCast, which provides regular updates of scores and tonnes of other data. I see they still have not made their window resizable (which I would love, so I could put it up top of my screen and keep working), but the information they provide is absolutely amazing.

CurlTV vs. TSN

We watched the TSN broadband telecast of the 2nd draw on Saturday night, and we are watching the CurlTV broadband telecast ($) of the 4th draw on Sunday afternoon. Here are my reflections.

Luke(?), the announcer for CurlTV is clearly knowledgeable about the game. But Lethbridge isn't all that far from Edmonton (home of CurlTV), and it is a puzzle to me that they don't have someone else there to help out with the telecasts. Also, and I know this is picky, but he develops a catch in his play-by-play, hesitating slightly at times, which is distracting.

TSN was technically far superiour to CurlTV's telecast. The resolution was better, and they had more cameras.

CurlTV is better than nothing, but why don't they go out and sell commercials to raise some money so they can put on a better show? I know they're interested in improving the technology of their telecasts, but they seem to be leaving a major revenue source on the table.

Addendum: Also, no replays? I realize that CurlTV is operating on a small budget, but if they'd show replays, maybe people would be more likely to subscribe and they could charge more for ads (again, a plea for them to sell ads).

TSN's Alternative Coverage of the Scott(ies)

As Alan said, TSN will be providing alternative coverage of the Scott(ies) Tournament of Hearts this evening. Those of you who have satellite (which we must consider soon) will be able to watch it live. Others may be able to watch it on Rogers television if you have Rogers or Shaw Cable (excuse me while I cry). The TSN alternative schedule is here.

Also, for those of us unfortunate enough not to be able to pick up the alternative telecast via satellite or cable, the broadcast will be available via broadband at tsn.ca. It will be interesting to see how that broadcast is in comparison with the internet telecasts of CurlTv. If I were CurlTv, I'd be concerned about TSN's movement in this direction. The only reason I can think of for CurlTv not to be concerned is that TSN will be unlikely (due to having high costs for two full crews) to broadcast, even over the internet, a third draw each day.