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?"