i'll take it. it was free. it showed the race all day long. what is there to complain about? (although i have no doubt someone will find something). we had it on all day with the sound turned up so we could hear it throughout the house. it was great.

only thing i'm thinking is that i wouldn't be surprized to see them start charging for it in the next couple years like a pay-per-view sort of thing. although i hope i'm not giving them any ideas by saying that! ;)

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"I'm happy when life's good,
and when it's bad I cry.
I've got values but I don't know how or why."
- The Who

Given the emerging level of the technology and the length of the event along with the logistics, i give them absolutely five stars *****.

It is incredible to experience the event like this.

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Tom Demerly
The Tri Shop.com

It was great to have the coverage - to be able to see Sindballe pass Al-Sultan - Badmann pass Jones - etc. Yeah - NBC will probably show these moments - a month later. But - one thing that will be missing is the real-time sense of the event. The technical glitches will likely be sorted out for future coverage. All in all - a great job.

I watched a bit before I fell asleep (not cause I was bored because it was 1am). I was impressed that they had it. My only gripe is the same with any sporting footage, so it's not a dig at the Ironman live guys. Why do they say the most rediculous things and speculate... oh I know why, cause' it's TV and it makes it exciting....!

But then, they did have 8 hours to fill before they could interview an athlete! I was watching them come in off the bike, and Badmann was in the sin bin. They went over to interview her, she quickly made it to the bathroom to get out their way. I guess she may not have actually wanted to go, but just wanted to get away from a possible interview.

Tom, I agree. 5 stars !!!!!

I had it on for 4 hrs. I have never seen such good footage, especially from the guys on the motorcylces filming the run.

This is better than the usual show in November.

I rate it very highly. The fact is I would have had trouble even getting highlights on any other channel where I live, let alone a live feed of the entire race. The cat naps in front of the computer were worth watching the entire feed...

One more comment... ya gotta love Greg Welch. The guy looked so excited to be there on TV and commentating with the chance to talk to all of his friends at the big race. He kept tripping over his own tongue... but you have to love someone with that much enthusiasm.

I think my only two issues were:

1) Get the mics out of your mouths. The mic is supposed to be at chin level or off to the side. This prevents overdriving and a whole host of other problems (like listening to the guy breathe, etc).

2) Let us watch the cyclists, not spend 10 minutes staring at two or three guys talking. I know they had several moto cams out there, just let us watch them! On the run it was a lot better.

Overall way better than last year. I spent probably 4 or 5 hours watching the race in between bike and run sessions. Fix those two issues and it'll be truly awesome.

Oh, and 3) Get a new 70.3 commercial...that one was retarded. :D

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Awesome.

Certainly could tighten up some lose ends, but very well done. Hats off to the crew...they are truly breaking new ground for live-internet-sports broadcasting. The other broadcasts to compare it to are Boston and Chicago marathons...which are logistically less challenging.

hehe. Couldn't agree more on the three guys topic. It was like the two old buggers on the Muppet show, except less funny! It would have been ok, but they only had one camera so it was like looking in on a bus queue conversation. They should have just had them talking over a feed from the heli or bikes.

I caught a few hours of it. The best hours for sure. I give the coverage 5 out of 5 stars considering the logistics of covering such an event. My wish list would be for them to have a few more cameras out on the course to prevent down time while the cameras on the motorcycles reset themselves. Also, some overlays of results. I used the site, and that was fine too. All in all though, I thought it was great and look forward to it next year, and at more events.

I thought the coverage and the content was excellent. I did however think that the quality of the pictures left a lot to be desired, particularly when I tried to view it full screen. Also, the sound was breaking up most of the time.

That said it was streets ahead on any other IM streaming that I have tried to watch before both in content and reliability.

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"How bad can it be?" - SimpleS

Overall good job.......at least we got to see it......the feeds in the past have been crappy........

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I shall never misuse Rex Kwon Do
I shall be a champion of freedom and justice

I was very happy with it compared to past years. The picture quality has improved and the general web coverage was much more satisfying. It is also incredible to follow an 8+ hour event live. Most of my complaints were minor:

-I was also annoyed by all the distortion and noise caused by bad microphone placement, seems like that would have been easy to avoid/fix.

-It seemed unprofessional that they had so much crap on their desk. Some papers fine, but all the empty drink bottles could have been dumped.

-I was amazed that they didn't have better info about who had passed who etc. I understand that the logistics of monitoring the race and relaying info are difficult, but they had more info on the website than the announcers seemed to have access to; I found that odd. It seems pretty simple to have spotters on course or even on the motorcycles with cell phones to relay info to them during key sections of the race (such as the last 3-5 miles).

The folks at Ironmanlive do a pretty good job considering that the event covers 140 miles, but I think a few simple and inexpensive tweaks could make the production even better.

For some reason I could not get the feed on my new mac?

Dave in VA

I liked being able to watch the race live. Yeah the mics at times were a bit close (or a bit far on some guests) but they got it figure out eventually. I would have liked more viewing of the race while the two hosts commentated in the background.

Overall I think it was great coverage and the few times the feed broke up was no better than OLN during the tour. Just imagine in a couple of years how good the live feed will be. I hope they can continue this coverage during all the IM events.

Excellent, because how did you watch it before the Internet?? Waited until NBC had it two months later then they talk about the guy with 15 kids, 6 of them with birth defects, then they guy had double lung transplant plus a triple bypass ect...

Tru dat.

But that doesn't make it Five Stars *****, unless you were to say that a Motel 6 is Five Stars because it happens to be the only hotel with a vacancy. That would make it damned welcome, and I'd be very grateful, but it still wouldn't be a Five Star Hotel.

Bob Babbitt was the other guy. He does The Competitor radio show with Huddle out of San Diego each Sunday night. I thought he did a pretty good job personally.

http://www.multisports.com/news/1007408784.shtml

You have probably just gotten used to him interrupting Huddle.

watching it on Cable is much better than DSL...

Worked on a mac

the 70.3 commecial was pathetic..."exotic Oceanside"??? WTF?

Less visual commentary more athletes.

I think the coverage was fantastic!!!! There were only brief times where it was not coming through for me and I think that was probably more related to issues with my computer than the website. I am extremely grateful that this is an option. I am a big fan of modern technology.

Also having a site like this to complement it was great too. As Dev Paul said it was like going to a gmae at Yankee stadium with all of your buddies and being able to have a good time saking in the game while discussing it with your friends. sorry if my paraphrasing was rough. It was great to hear others insights throughout the day and I was totally immersed in the ST/IMlive combo.

As someone who has been involved in this sport since 1980 and competed in this race over 20 years ago, I would have to rate the coverage as excellent. I can remember the days before the internet where you waited until Monday to get results from a newspaper so from that standpoint the coverage was first rate.

As far as Bob Babbitt, I felt he did a great job. This is someone who competed in the race in 1980 and his involvement with the sport as well as Ironman has landed him into the Ironman Hall Of Fame. If any of you get half as knowlegeable and give as much to Triathlon as Mr. Babbitt the sport would be very much better off.

I managed to watch about 7 hours worth of it while I worked on reports and washed and waxed my cars (laptop with wifi at home).

How about some crieteria for the broadcast

Quality of commentary: /5

Technical quality: /5

What else should be included here?

Keeping in mind there's no such thing as a free lunch I would have been cool with a whole bunch of commercials to help pay for the production of this.

Also, agreed the 70.3 ad was pretty bush! Geez opening theme music from 2001 a Space .... and theme from Miami Vice, while upbeat reminded me of some of the first commercials I threw together in radio school.

Loved how Mark Allan dealt with Welchie regarding Power Bars and Gatorade!

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http://www.fitspeek.com the Fraser Valley's fitness, wellness, and endurance sports podcast

I love watching people sit in a studio and talk when there is great race action going on. I also had some strange urge to go buy a 2006 Ford Explorer. I'm really not sure why.

All in all, there is no reason we should be watching 2 guys in a studio for 80% of the day. I understand the logistics make it hard to cover everything, but with a tremendous race going on, there is little excuse for having the feed on the studio so much.

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- Nick
Now that I know some of you guys look through the special needs bags for kicks, I'm gonna put some really weird stuff in mine. I can see it now. "What the heck was he going to do with a family pack of KFC chicken, a football helmet full of peanut butter, a 12 inch rubber dildo, and naked pictures of Bea Arthur?"

I was just ecstatic to see any of it live. Quality? What's to complain about? These guys were covering some 10 hours. There's bound to be dead spots and lapses. Who cares? I think they did a bang-up job. And if they do it again, you can bet I'll be tuning in (as long as it's free).

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Some are born to move the world to live their fantasies...

https://triomultisport.com/
http://www.mjolnircycles.com/

[/reply]but overall it was awesome. I watched for at least 5 hrs, although with breaks. one thing that I really appreciated was that it was still pretty unpretentious. they don't pretend that everything is perfect or high-tech. and they make lame jokes. but that keeps it very real; it doesn't seem all dressed up like you would see if you were watching an american football game or other big-time pro sports event. and the excitement of those guys, esp. Welch and PNF comes through. very cool.

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"At every endurance event, there comes a time when you'll say, 'What the fuck am I doing here?' And then you'll say, 'This is what I do.'"
--John Spas

I thought having live feed all day was awesome. I do think that Huddle is getting a little tired to me, his IMNA pre-race video's etc. I think the WTC in general is going in the direction of cronyism. Welch, Huddle, Babbit. Jimmy Riccitello as head referee. What next Tinley shooting off the canon and Dave Scott stealing the mic from Mike Reilly.

I thought it was exceptional. The coverage was great and while they didn't have constant coverage on the course i don't think they had the technical support you might expect from a TdF stage or other similar event.

I thought Huddle & Bob Babbit did a great job as did Welsh & PNF. While they were definately rooting for their friends, I think the truth is that the fraternity of top level triathletes is pretty small and they were definately impressed with both Faris' and Natasha's performance.!

i'll take it. it was free. it showed the race all day long. what is there to complain about?

Evidently ... almost everything.

I completely agree with you. As someone that has paid $50 PPV for a couple of horrible fights and one that last 2 minutes ... I thought the coverage was good, sometimes bearable at points ... but overall good. It cost me nothing, and the video feeds were quality. Were there things that could be improved? Sure. The coverage I watched was 9 hours long ... and it was live. I could sit down with any broadcasting team at a 9-hour live event and form a long list of "things that could have been better".

There's a lot of triathletes that need a swift kick right in their spolied arse.

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-- Every morning brings opportunity;
Each evening offers judgement. --

I think they they did an awesome job. Here is what they had to deal with: 1) 10 hour event 2) guessing they didn't have a producer like a normal sports broadcast 3)pretty limited budget



That said, they did an awesome job. I agree that during the bike they probably the cameras should been on the bikers more. I also think it would have helped if they had more mobile phone setups around the course, where some could relay information on WHY an athlete dropped out. We all wanted to know what Normann dropped out, and I still have no idea. You would think if they had a central producer/volunteer (ie me for 2006) in the studio to take calls from people around the course, you could have relayed the information to the broadcasters a little quicker.

This is how good of a job they did. I woke up at 450am east coast having to go to the bathroom. I started doing Hawaii time calculations in my head, I came down and watched the last hour on my computer.

Great job. If anyone from IM reads this, and needs a volunteer in the booth to relay info next year, feel free to send me a private message.

One thing I would have liked to have seen, were interviews with te big-name racers that DNF'd. Let them tell their account and give some first-hand insight on what is really going on out there (conditions, etc), and their first-hand opinion of how the current leaders are doing and perhaps, their predictions.

I know, it is likely up to the racers to do this, and some may not want to ... but it would be very interesting, informative and entertaining.

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-- Every morning brings opportunity;
Each evening offers judgement. --

The "rooting for their friends and/or clients" did get a little tiresome............Huddle seemed to lose all his steam when it became apparent that it wasn't going to be the Michellie Jones Show. And they did have to play catch-up to get some talk-about-Faris time in at the end.

But despite that, the coverage was great. I had it on most of the day and was happy to have it. I'm sure it will only get better.

As far as the 70.3 ad.............nevermind exotic Oceanside..........how about exotic LUBBOCK?? :-O

G

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It's a little like wrestling a gorilla.........you don't stop when you're tired.........you stop when the gorilla is tired.

I had it going for 14 hours - even if I pretended to have a life and not watch every second. It was great -- I would have like more live feeds, but that is the only issue I had. (other than being fat and slow).

Definately not 5 stars but I think that they did the best that they could do.

1. Have a laptop displaying the IMlive website for the announcers

2. get the freaking mikes out of your mouths

3.they should have commented at the begining on what to expect of the race coverage.

4. more shots of the racers and not the comentators, imagine if your watching a football game and they keep showing the announcers instead of the game, sheeeeeeesh.

I like that they had interviews going on with Mark Allen and others. The dude on the right definatley was annoying, did you guys pick up that the dude on the left would never look at the dude on the right when he was talking to him, very funny.

They definately have a lot of work to do but im glad that they were there for us. There were some awesome shots of the racers and i liked that.

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I have horrible back problems but I have zero problems staying in an aero position for 180k. Why? Because I ride steep and because I train regularly in that position. Simple as that.....Gerard

  I think they get better every year...I hope someday they will offer it as either a PPV on digital cable or get better resolution. Even so the resolution and coverage is still better than it ever has been.

Maybe its just me but I am really sick of it being referred to as the "Ford" Ironman. I know they are a major sponsor and it shouldn't bother me but it starts to get on my nerves. Maybe its because it is putting two product/corporate names together like tomorrow I'll go get a GM Hummer Grande coffee from the Microsoft Telecom Starbucks. I know its done all the time but I guess I am feeling whiny today.

Yeah, got a good kick out of the 70.3 ad. Only about 3 of those cities/towns are even CLOSE to being exotic. Good call on the announcers making fun of their own employers' ad. Ha, ha.

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My business-eBodyboarding.com

Giant step in the right direction. Very cool.

Lubbock is a great race, very challenging. I did it in 97 and loved it. I hope to do it again one day.

LOL you too? I loved it on the course explorer video where Welch goes on and on about it then says something like "Thanks to the really good Ford navigation system, which is soooo easy to use, we'll have no trouble finding our way to the turnaround - cause I really don't know how to get there" HAHAHA - that made me ROFLMAO.

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Searching for the bliss of ultimate exertion.

I missed it all, damnit! Where can I see it? Ironmanlive doesn't have it anymore. I refuse to believe who won, who lost, and who dropped out until I see the footage...

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How can you complain about a free service? I watched the women's finish, live. Better than anything I have every seen taped.

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I downloaded a program that allowed me to record the streaming video. I have over 650mb's of streaming video from the event. I havent checked it out yet, but I am curious to see it in replay.

I was out saturday night and I didn't see the finish or either the men's race or the women's race. Can't wait to watch that.

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-Brian

We have a pool and a pond. A pond would be good for you, Karl. - Ty

Hook a brother up!

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Woah, me too! Need to set up some kind of tracker for bit torrent. That would be cool.

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Searching for the bliss of ultimate exertion.

I downloaded it to my GF's computer. I think I'll have the raw data by Wednesday. If you want a copy PM me. I'll see what I can do.

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-Brian

We have a pool and a pond. A pond would be good for you, Karl. - Ty

I would rate the coverage as very good to outstanding. Given the logistics involved, and the fact that this was raw, live coverage of an endurance sporting event( something Americans RARELY, if ever see) what we got on race day was excellent.

On the Ironmanlive.com site, if you were able to move back and forth between, Kevin MacKinnon's text updates, the Athlete Tracker and Bob Babbitt and Paul Huddle's commentary, you knew almost exactly what was going on at all times.

The video shots of many of the top athletes out on the bike and run course were amazing. In fact, it should have been a great education for many of the posters here on ST, as many of the more frequent and basic questions that get asked here, over and over, would have been answered just by watching the best athletes in the sport doing it live - A picture is worth a thousand words, so I guess a moving picture is worth even more!

By the way, the silly guy on the right, was none other than Bob Babbitt the Publisher of Competitor Magazine and probably, THE most knowledgable person in the multi-sport world!!

Fleck

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

exactly - better than NBC, you don't have to listen to Al Trautwig for an hour. You downloaded it, you can make your own video and I'll bet it's better than the crap you see on TV!

How about they have a camera follow each competitor and you can zero in on your favorite pro OR age grouper?!!!

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[reply]Hook a brother up![/reply]
I downloaded it, too, and ended up with 9 hrs. 25 min. of raw footage, from around 10 min. before pro swim start through the third female pro finisher. Mine is 1.2 GB.

I was thinking of uploading it to yousendit.com. It would stay on the server for a week, which would allow everyone to download at their leisure, and perhaps upload again when others request it. The only limitation besides deletion after one week is file size at 1 GB, so I was hoping to pare it down a bit, but I haven't had the time to do that yet. Will announce when I've completed the job.

I'm a heavy bittorrent user, but the problem with bittorrent for this forum's purposes is the unfamiliarity of most people around here with it. It's technically too big a task to have to guide newbies looking to download one single item, and too much to ask to have them download the software and learn about how to use the damn thing, let alone about staying on-line to share with others and all the etiquette that goes with it.

We would all be indebted to you if you put it up on yousendit.com, Mookie. Maybe edit out the man-bras or something.

I remember watching the live feed all day last year and getting a big kick out of the commentary from the luminaries of the sport - almost as big as the action itself. I'm sure Babbitt, Huddle, Welchie and company have told their annecdotes and their jokes a thousand times before. But I don't care. I really dig the triathlon lore they're passing on to the rest of us.

Maybe they should get Monty and a few other geezers out there to help out next year... :-)

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Does yousendit not have the 25 dl limit any more? I guess not a problem if not that many people are interested or you don't mind putting up extra links.

What about something like megaupload.com. The dl speeds are a bit slower but they are unlimited and stay up longer than yousendit. Not sure about file size though.

Anyway, thanks for uploading it anywhere if you get around to doing it.

I've got it too.

Everything from pre race to last finisher...although I haven't checked out teh last finisher yet. A little over 2GB. I'm *Attempting* to create a DVD(s) out of it...that's gonna take a while, lotsa a crunching going on.

I don't think I have enough space on any of my sites, or enough bandwidth to host it. It's just to freakin big. How about something like E-mule or something?

I can put it in my shared directory under a specific name and people can start downloading. Once it's been peeled off by a few people it shoudl go pretty quick. I have broken it all down into 40-60MB chunks about 40 in all. What say yea?

~Matt

As much as I did enjoy the feed, I was disgusted by the Scott Tinley interview. He noted that he did not know many of the pros leading the race. Names that you would hear if you picked up the latest issue of Triathlete Magazine (I don't propose you do - the final column is written by some ex-pro who evidently doesn't care anymore). I guess I just found it upsetting that he was slamming the sport that made him who he is. (while using the opportunity to tell us all about his latest endeavors).

If you know a bit of the back-ground on Scott Tinley(ST), you would have been able to put his remarks in a better context.

Many of the real keeners for Ironman are what I call "lifers" - they do triathlons for a long time and there is nothing wrong with that. However, when someone steps away from the sport almost completely as someone like ST has, many of these lifers don't seem to get it.

Fleck

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

I can accept everything you say -- but if he did step away from the sport, why is he still writing for Triathlete?

"why is he still writing for Triathlete?"

To give the outside perspective.

Triathlon is a great sport with a great lifestyle associated with it. However, as a long time participant, observer and student of the sport, it is a sport that tends to look inside a bit too much. So, Tinley's and other's views from the outside world should be looked upon as being helpful, I hope.

Fleck

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

We will agree to disagree on this. He was one of my favorites when I started racing just for the reasons you mentioned - I liked his balance. But I guess I was just put - not by his comments, but by his tone. Of course, sitting in front of a computer for countless hours may put me in that position.

The IMH coverage is usually 1/1.5 hours sometime in November. Luckily on the East Coast a college football game runs into about 20 minutes of the coverage.... so we complain and they replay the event sometime in Dec. What we have now is an event that has an incredible volume of fantastic competitors (including a stage that is equally exciting for female, male and age groupers), a great sponsor and real time live coverage. Yeah a few improvements for next year, but it beats waiting for NBC in November (how about some more coverage at other IM's). I say ***** five stars, awesome! IM's selling out in hours... live feed... did someone say triathlon and mainstream in the same sentence?

I enjoyed the Tinley comments race day. He still know the sport even if he doesn't follow all ofthe top names anymore. I was fortunate enough to meet him at a race once and he is an asset to the sport in whatever capacity he is in it. It would be great to see him be able to give another go at Kona if he is able to handle the foot (I think he said foot) issues resolved.

DAVE, i had problems viewing on my mac but managed to sort them out - try downloading firefox or mozilla as a browser instead of explorer then just download windows media player. Mine was fine after that. i stayed up most of the night to watch the pros then grabbed a couple of hours sleep before heading out for some traing. After watching Sinballe i couldnt wait to put some miles in!!

I thought the coverage was great! I think ST was just pulling a funny. I really enjoyed the interview with him and all the "behind the scenes" and old timers stories. It was a great day. I watched more "TV" (some of it on the trainer) that day than I have in months.

Thank you Ironmanlive.com for providing it for us. Thanks for all the hard work PNF, Welchie, Huddle, Frey, Stat Girl and company. I am sure it was a long day.