[N.B.O.L.]

While I still envy those of you in Europe the amount of cycling TV coverage you get, things seem to be getting at lease marginally better in the U.S. with Universal Sports and NBC Sports (formerly Versus) both carrying things other than the big tours. NBC Sports will have Flanders and Paris Roubaix live. I'm sure that still means a 15 minute summary and then the last hour live, but that is better than the summary shows they have traditional done in the past.

[Jayhawk]

Comcast dropped Universal Sports. I miss Steve & GoGo.

[N.B.O.L.]

Jayhawk, on 12 March 2012 - 04:45 PM, said:

Comcast dropped Universal Sports. I miss Steve & GoGo.

That's too bad. I was thrilled last year when DirecTV finally picked it up. Now if they would only opt for the High Def version.

You would have thought in the negotiations where NBC bought Versus from Comcast there would have been some "continue to carry all of our stuff" clauses.

This post has been edited by N.B.O.L.: 12 March 2012 - 08:22 PM

[VdB]

N.B.O.L., on 10 March 2012 - 04:47 PM, said:

NBC Sports will have Flanders and Paris Roubaix live. I'm sure that still means a 15 minute summary and then the last hour live, but that is better than the summary shows they have traditional done in the past.

Not sure if you were exaggerating a little for effect, but that's still a little bit of a shame for races like that where anything can happen between the last 70km or so and the finish line. For the Tour or even MSR that's ok since usually nothing spectacular happens before the last half hour, but in Roubaix and Flanders...

[N.B.O.L.]

VdB, on 15 March 2012 - 01:33 PM, said:

Not sure if you were exaggerating a little for effect, but that's still a little bit of a shame for races like that where anything can happen between the last 70km or so and the finish line. For the Tour or even MSR that's ok since usually nothing spectacular happens before the last half hour, but in Roubaix and Flanders...

I didn't intend to be exaggerating for effect, but I think I was probably inaccurate and not giving them enough credit anyway. For P-R there will be a 3 hour analysis show in the evening so I assume live coverage will be at least that long. Right now they only thing they show are start times for the coverage, not how long it will be. They are showing full schedule up to 28 March now, so they full schedule for Flanders should be showing in a few more days. Start time for coverage is 12:30 UCT (or GMT for you traditionalists) and 13:00 UCT for P-R. Don't know what time the race starts, so I'm not sure how much will be missed before the coverage picks up.

[N.B.O.L.]

N.B.O.L., on 15 March 2012 - 10:45 PM, said:

I For P-R there will be a 3 hour analysis show in the evening so I assume live coverage will be at least that long.

That was a mistaken assumption. The Live coverage is 2 hours starting at 8:00 AM CDT. There is then the 3 hour analysis show starting at 7:00 PM CDT. I guess the main question is what will they fill that extra hour with. Will it be some coverage before the live coverage takes over? Will it be actual analysis? Will it be fluff pieces? Will it be 50 extra showings of the TDF stationary trainer advertisement (It will incline 20% and decline 20%, whoa)?

[mapeifan]

N.B.O.L., on 03 April 2012 - 05:10 PM, said:

That was a mistaken assumption. The Live coverage is 2 hours starting at 8:00 AM CDT. There is then the 3 hour analysis show starting at 7:00 PM CDT. I guess the main question is what will they fill that extra hour with. Will it be some coverage before the live coverage takes over? Will it be actual analysis? Will it be fluff pieces? Will it be 50 extra showings of the TDF stationary trainer advertisement (It will incline 20% and decline 20%, whoa)?

None of that matters to me, as long as they go Liggett/Sherwen and leave the human babble-on-and-drone machine Bob Roll off the broadcast like they did for RvV. I actually mute the sound most of the time for the times when Roll is talking.

My only grip with Universal Sports is the non-HD signal. It's just painful to watch on a big screen HDTV.

As for the TdF trainer, why the heck is the guy wearing a ?

[N.B.O.L.]

mapeifan, on 03 April 2012 - 08:16 PM, said:

My only grip with Universal Sports is the non-HD signal. It's just painful to watch on a big screen HDTV.

I understand your frustration. Universal does in fact do it in HD, but at least DirecTV doesn't broadcast it that way. This results then in the following situation. My system (receiver or TV set) realizes it doesn't have a HD signal, so it places Gray Bars on the left and right of the screen. DirectTV then takes the widescreen broadcast and letterboxes it into it's standard def broadcast, so I now have black boxes on the top and bottom of the central area between the gray bars. Some content is not produced in HD, so Universal takes it and puts Black Bars on the side, so you wind up with a small picture with black bars on all four sides that then has gray bars on the left and right. Somewhere near 25% of your TV with actual picture on it.

[N.B.O.L.]

mapeifan, on 03 April 2012 - 08:16 PM, said:

As for the TdF trainer, why the heck is the guy wearing a ?

In case he falls off when he raises his hands in his Victory Salute.

This post has been edited by N.B.O.L.: 03 April 2012 - 09:13 PM