I just want to register this opinion. I think the streaming video is a nearly complete waste of effort.

The video is grainy no matter what size picture you choose. I could see that Auburn raced in orange caps. Otherwise you couldn't tell who was who except for lane assignments.

The audio is terrible. You can barely hear what event is up.

But worst - they never show or announce the times and places. Any serious swimming fan wants to know what the times are. A casual fan might not care - but they won't watch with the terrible video quality.

They need to:

- improve the video quality. At least double the pixels they are sending now. Any video of water suffers badly from compression. Just look at most of the Youtube videos of swimming.
- switch the camera to the other side of the pool so they can pan to the scoreboard after the races.
- consider a subdued announcer - he/she just needs to say "Womens 200 freestyle. Aggies in lanes 2,4, and 6. Heiss in 6." They can shut up after that and let us listen to the crowd noise - which seems loud in the Rec Center.

And during the meet they ALWAYS need to run semi-live results from the timing console.

Agreed. I would've rather seen a cartoon drawing than what they had up for the meet last night.

I do think that the video could be improved. But, it is not a waste of time. A lot of parents are unable to come to the meets and it just makes them happy to be able to see their kids swim, even without the times or details. It's better than nothing.

If I were a parent of a swimmer - I'd probably appreciate the video more. But I'd still suggest improvements!

The video quality was steller during NCAA's last year. They showed who was swimming, the school and the lane on the board before each event. After the event, they showed the times.

Maybe it's a budget issue. But I think the Athletic Dept has the resources to put out a good live streaming product!

I could be wrong but that likely wasn't A&M doing it at NCAA's. I know Swimming World live streamed five of the six sessions at both meets so I would bet A&M used that feed.

However, if they didn't use the Swimming World feed then I'd bet a dime to a doughnut whoever did it at NCAA's was the same person who did it last weekend.

I think you're right LookOut. I bet it was Swimming World that streamed NCAA's.

Hi Texags. I saw this thread and I wanted to let the swim fans out there know that we are indeed working on this.

For those of you that won't be able to make it to College Station on Friday to see the men take on Texas, please tune in to aggieathletics.com to check out the improved live stream.

We're going to have a direct audio feed and a better view of the scoreboard. The live results are still a few steps away; those of you familiar with meet management know this isn't a terribly difficult thing to create but trust me when I say there are some hurdles to clear.

Feel free to post here or email me at adawson at athletics dot tamu dot edu with some feedback after the meet.

...edited email address

[This message has been edited by agdawson2006 (edited 2/3/2010 9:26p).]

What a relief! I have just been dying not being able to get a good shot of Julia Wilkinson swimming; know what I'm sayin blue? Well thank you Bill Byrne!

It could and should be much better. For comparison, check out the videos of the indoor track meets.

The announcers are plainly heard; the name and college of each participant is announced and shown on the video; the place and time/distance of each finisher is announced and shown on the screen; the total points of each team are frequently announced and shown.

agdawson - I was surprised to see this thread pop up. I'm glad you guys are looking at it.

I must admit I don't understand the difficulty with live results. Hy-tek Meet Manager generates the web pages automatically doesn't it?

I know neither LSU nor SMU had live results of the recent dual meets so I guess they think it isn't easy. But then again - they're not Aggies!

Anyways - I look forward to a better feed this Friday.

quote:

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know what I'm sayin blue?

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I know EXACTLY what you're sayin.


Texags-we get results. Thanks agdawson for the update!

Thanks agdawson! really like the fan page you have up!