It’s Tour de France time again, and this year we pretend it’s 2005 all over again. Lance is back in the race and Versus has made it its singular mission to make sure that we don’t forget this. I watched the first couple of stages over the weekend, and noted a new twist in the action. You can watch the old fashioned way, over the TV cable. Or you can watch the same race at the Versus web site via streaming video. Given that the TV pictures are now in glorious HD, you’d think there would be no contest between these two modalities. But don’t be too sure.
Here is how Versus on the TV is better: the HD picture is really nice. So in those slow flat stages you can really appreciate the scenery.
The live web coverage is pretty much better in every way.
First, you don’t have to listen to the TV stylings of Bob Roll and the other studio moron that Versus employs. I’ve never figured out why they always feel the need to give Phil and Paul a couple of dipshit sidekicks, but it has always been this way. ESPN did it. OLN did it. Now Versus does it. But not on the web. On the web the only people talking are Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwin. One point for the web.
Second, you don’t have to suffer through yet another interview from Frankie Andreu or Robby Ventura. These two guys are so bad they give all the other sideline reporters a bad name. One more point for the web.
Third, there are no commercials. No promos for the Tour De France, a show you are already watching. No pitches for Verizon FIOS shitty movies on demand. No Viagra. One point for the web.
Fourth, they broadcast cool metadata out of band from the picture. There is a race map that almost keeps up with the actual race. There is a listing of who is in which group. There is a running commentary taken from the text version of the race coverage. This is handy.
Fifth, no moronic “pre-game” show.
Finally, on the web I can pop in at the end of the stage and see what happens while I eat my lunch. Or I can wait until I get home and stream a tiny little picture from front to end.
With the Tivo, I have to wait until the end of the day to watch the stage only to find out that yet again the guide meta-data has underestimated the length of the stage by 1 hour and 10 minues. Usually you pad the recording out by about an hour, so this means that I won’t not be watching the last ten minutes of the stage without enduring the Prime Time Versus coverage. The Prime Time coverage is just like the live coverage, except that they remove the commentary of Phil and Paul and replace it with the two studio dipshits. Again, I’ve never figured out why they do this.
Versus, and OLN before them have been broadcasting the Tour live for more than ten fucking years and they still can’t get the fucking guide data right. I can only conclude that the people who run these networks have the collective intellect of a god damned retarded baby monkey.
So let’s review:
TV has a better picture and lets me record all but the last ten minutes of the race that I can then watch at my leisure.
The web coverage has a lower quality picture, but has only the content that I want, anytime I want it, and with limited distractions.
And people wonder why TV is dead.
Unfortunately, my DVR decided not to tape all but the first 10 minutes of the morning broadcast of stage 3, so I was forced to watch in prime-time; I think Craig Hummer and crazed monkey-man Bob Roll spent the entire 3 hour broadcast talking about everything *but* the race they were covering, and then they cut back to Phil and Paul to the call to the finish.
That said, I like the studio segments with the four of them. Phil and Paul provide some insight, Bob Roll adds some color, and Craig does a decent job of steering the show. Lets not forget the dark days of Al Trautwig — it could be much worse…
You shall not mention Al again in this weblog, otherwise I’ll have to come and hunt you down.
Okay, just two counter-arguments:
1) The live telecast and the noon replay and the 3:00 replay and the 5:00 replay all feature only Phil and Paul only. Now, even if you don’t trust the program guide, by the time they hit the 3:00 replay they’ve frequently re-edited to get it to come in on time. So record one of those and you can watch it on TV at night if that’s what you really want.
2) Some of the cycling commercials are pretty cool. You can fast-forward through the bull riding and “Grand Prix of Edmonton” (BTW, WTF????) and just watch the good ones.
Though I concede that if you’re required to work during the live broadcast the online video is probably the best. It’s pretty hard to avoid hearing the results for five hours (well, if you’re me, at least.)
I would be happy to tape the replays, but because the guide data makes them the same program as the live broadcast, you can’t tape just one of them. If you use the season pass you have the choice of either just the live one, which won’t work, or everything, which in HD will fill your disk in one day. Thus, you have to pick the programs BY HAND, which defeats the entire purpose of having the DVR in the first place. But this is where we are even in 2009.
This, of course, gets back to my main complaint, which is that no one gives a shit about the guide data. Make the edited replay a different program!
Connect computer to HDTV. Problem solved. I hooked up my old desktop to the TV in the living room a few months ago – it has revolutionized the living room experience.