Did anyone else end up recording baseball instead of...

Phill B

Stage 2 of the tour of catalunya? bloody eurosport drives me up the wall!

seanorawe

I made a point of going to watch it in bed. Gutted when baseball came on. I did download it from cycling torrents, but I just purchased the eurosport player and so far im not thrilled. The schedule is apalling.

Gpfanuk

Could be worse, I have Virgin Tivo and have set a wishlist for "cycling" up.... Got home from work to find a special episode of Peppa the Pig duly recorded and titled "George goes cycling"....ah well :roll:

danlikesbikes

If your after the repeat it is always on the next day before the live feed for that day (so almost 24 hours behind) however unfortunately for you its on now.

I know thats no help at all to you for now, but if you find it not working for today's stage would recommend you go for the next day repeat as this seems to be less moved than the later repeats.

seanorawe

Gpfanuk wrote:

Could be worse, I have Virgin Tivo and have set a wishlist for "cycling" up.... Got home from work to find a special episode of Peppa the Pig duly recorded and titled "George goes cycling"....ah well :roll:

My son would be thrilled at that news

seanorawe

The feed for stage 2 was really bad. You couldnt watch any of it without it breaking up

Gpfanuk

seanorawe wrote:

Gpfanuk wrote:

Could be worse, I have Virgin Tivo and have set a wishlist for "cycling" up.... Got home from work to find a special episode of Peppa the Pig duly recorded and titled "George goes cycling"....ah well :roll:

My son would be thrilled at that news

...Mine was!

Calpol

seanorawe wrote:

The feed for stage 2 was really bad. You couldnt watch any of it without it breaking up

coverage on both days was crap compared to what you normally get on Eurosport. The scheduling is all over the place. The other day I was trying to catch up on the Paris Nice, tirreno action - one minute we were reaching the climax of on stage then after the ad break we were ambling along in a different stage/race.

FWIW yesterdays stage was mega boring but for the last 300m. Not worth watching. Even Carlton Kirby was embarrassed.

jane90

I've been severely unimpressed by the TV coverage of cycling so far in the few months that I've been watching it. There seems to be two different problems but which both come down to lack of resources and trying to do things on the cheap.

First, Eurosport doesn't have enough channels to show the number of different live sports it wants to. Sky Sports have four channels so can schedule each live event with enough space before and afterwards and/or bookend the live events with pre-recorded magazine programs which are easily moved. Additionally, it has the "red button" option - effectively extra channels when it needs them.

More importantly, as I understand it, the UCI licence the host broadcaster in each country to provide the pictures so Eurosport have no control over the content and the host broadcasters have no incentive to provide anything above the barest minimum quality (read: cheap to produce). One thing that drives me round the bend is the standard practice of placing the main camera at the finish line head-on to the action. It's the easiest and cheapest way to do it but the least imaginative and the worst. Camera lenses foreshorten perspective and in a close sprint it's almost impossible to see what's going on.

I'm no fan of car racing but I do have to admire the way Ecclestone turned his minority sport into one which consistently scores some of the highest TV ratings in all sport. He recognised that the medium was as important as the message so he took control of the actual broadcasting by setting up his own production company to be the sole provider of visual content for every race in the calender.

Now, you can argue whether such commercialism and the influx of millions into the sport is a good or a bad thing but I think it's fairly obvious that the TV audience enjoys a much better experience with professional, well paid and well motivated production staff as well presenters and commentators, multiple camera set ups, etc etc. Cycling, like car racing, is an international sport so most of us "consume" the majority of cycling through TV coverage rather than, say, being able to go to your local football stadium every week to watch your team live. I've been hooked on the actual racing so far, absolutely loved watching all of it - but I've been frustrated in equal measure by the dismally low quality of the coverage.

thegreatdivide

Gpfanuk wrote:

seanorawe wrote:

Gpfanuk wrote:

Could be worse, I have Virgin Tivo and have set a wishlist for "cycling" up.... Got home from work to find a special episode of Peppa the Pig duly recorded and titled "George goes cycling"....ah well :roll:

My son would be thrilled at that news

...Mine was!

Mine too. It’s worked out that I like live UCI cycling and in HD, so it’s recording everything! I love my TiVo.

sophidog

for all you Virgin Media lovers be warned. I left them Oct 26 last year after serving the month's notice. It took me until 16 March this year to get my refund.....and many, many calls during which i was promised refunds that never came. When you consider leaving them make sure your balance is at an absolute minimum and your direct debit is cancelled before you tell them you're off. They've admitted it was their fault and are 'sorry'. They tried sending me a bill in Feb this year with a £10 late payment fee and a £5 payment handling fee; turns out they forgot to disconnect the phone line. They cock-up & the customer suffers, but at least they're 'sorry'.

jotko

Stage 2 was massively dull, it was mostly 2.5hrs of digital distortion interspersed with static shots of the finish line, followed by a bunch sprint. Even the crash was dull.

Hoping for better things today, but Spanish TV seem to stream all their live pictures using a Nokia 8210 and a ZX spectrum so might opt for Peppa pig instead.

deswahriff

..I've taken to recording the live feed, then fast-forwarding as necessary when I watch it later to get to the good bits....the "highlights" usually only shows the last 20k or so, doesn't it?

does take up a lot of hard-drive space, especially in HD..you just have to delete daily after watching..

danlikesbikes

jotko wrote:

Stage 2 was massively dull, it was mostly 2.5hrs of digital distortion interspersed with static shots of the finish line, followed by a bunch sprint. Even the crash was dull.

Hoping for better things today, but Spanish TV seem to stream all their live pictures using a Nokia 8210 and a ZX spectrum so might opt for Peppa pig instead.

Think the camera is better than that, might be the metal coat hanger in place of the aerial on the moto from the host broadcaster thats killing it.

Phill B

Well at least we can take comfort in the fact that when the bigger races are upon us (spring classics and the big 3 tours) Eurosport does tend to pull it`s finger out regarding quality.

danlikesbikes

Phill B wrote:

Well at least we can take comfort in the fact that when the bigger races are upon us (spring classics and the big 3 tours) Eurosport does tend to pull it`s finger out regarding quality.

Not ES's feed though as they are relying on the Spanish broadcasters - looks like only 1 heli-cam which goes good coverage, but no second heli to pick up all motocam feeds

seanorawe

jotko wrote:

Hoping for better things today, but Spanish TV seem to stream all their live pictures using a Nokia 8210 and a ZX spectrum so might opt for Peppa pig instead.

Bravo

Celt100

Today's live feed had pictures but no commentary - only the sound of the moto bike and fans and near the finish the PA speakers droning in the distance so far the Tour Of Catalunya has been a big bad joke.

edwardwaterhouse

Tuned in at 4.15 and they only showed the last 8.5k plus at the end they had audio from a Eurosport football program blaring over the cycling commentary .

FergySteve

Absolutely hate Eurosport, but unfortunately it seems to be the only channel that shows cycling and triathlon

Lost count of the times that programmes have recorded that are supposed to be one thing e.g. Live UCI cycling and end up with the first half of the programme being Live Croatian Cross-stitch which has overrun and then I miss the second half of the cycling because it hasn't recorded.

Worst thing I ever did was go to Virgin as well. Tivo isn't a patch on Sky+ and I'd go back today if I wasn't tied into a contract.

mrbubbaman

Just done a search in Tivo and ITV4+1 are showing highlights on Sunday at 11:55 if anyone had missed it (I'm assuming ITV4 will be an hour earlier, but it didn't show in my search results)