European Indoor Rowing Champs website (and video!)

[c2bill]

check out
http://www.nereus.nl/euro-open2006/eng/

the promotional video is awesome...

-bp

[Tyn]

GREAT VIDEO!!!

I'm in A'dam the 16th, I think I will go!!
CU there!!

[TomR]

Tyn,

Will you race or hand out cheese samples?

[TabbRows]

have fun and race for the cheese Tyn.

And give us a good PBP (play by play) of the whole event when you return.

ST

[c2lisa]

Live results can be found at:

www.nereus.nl/euro-open2006/eng/?p=results

Lisa

[Citroen]

the promotional video is awesome...

It's a shame the webcast didn't live up to those standards. It was worse than poor. It was bordering on the unwatchable.

[c2scott]

Citroen: I'm in Amsterdam at the Open. Your and my friends the "bunnies" are here. No photos this time.

Can you tell me what the problems were with the Webcast so it can be improved for next year? I'll pass your comments on to them.

You can catch me on IM or Skype chat too.

[johnlvs2run]

Thanks to c2 for the webcast and results.

[c2scott]

In my opinion....

Even with webcast issues for some, the Nereus folks work really hard to put on a first rate event. They're _doing_ a web cast (expensive), they're getting results on the web site within minutes of each race ending, it's well organized, races are pretty much on time, and everything from my perspective is running well. A big round of thanks should go to the organizers along with constructive suggestions for next year (keeping in mind that budgets are not unlimited).

[hjs]

In my opinion....

Even with webcast issues for some, the Nereus folks work really hard to put on a first rate event. They're _doing_ a web cast (expensive), they're getting results on the web site within minutes of each race ending, it's well organized, races are pretty much on time, and everything from my perspective is running well. A big round of thanks should go to the organizers along with constructive suggestions for next year (keeping in mind that budgets are not unlimited).

The biggest complain I think is about not nowing what is going on during a race, the should have shown the screen every now and then. This would give a much better idea of what's going on. Now you just see people row ........

I also found it very crowdy and the warm up area was a little nightmare, it was very difficult to get a rower, some people do very long warm ups. this should be limited to a resunable time. I went To Paris last week and they had the same number of participant but is went much more smooth.

[Steve G]

In my opinion....

Even with webcast issues for some, the Nereus folks work really hard to put on a first rate event. They're _doing_ a web cast (expensive), they're getting results on the web site within minutes of each race ending, it's well organized, races are pretty much on time, and everything from my perspective is running well. A big round of thanks should go to the organizers along with constructive suggestions for next year (keeping in mind that budgets are not unlimited).

The biggest complain I think is about not nowing what is going on during a race, the should have shown the screen every now and then. This would give a much better idea of what's going on. Now you just see people row ........

I also found it very crowdy and the warm up area was a little nightmare, it was very difficult to get a rower, some people do very long warm ups. this should be limited to a resunable time. I went To Paris last week and they had the same number of participant but is went much more smooth.

Below is what I put on the UK Forum about the webcast.
As for warm ups, perhaps some kind of roster system in race order, as some people do take an age, resulting in struggling for a warm up.

UK Forum
Until Webcasts like this are improved the sport will not move forward. Any one watching who doesn't know some of the faces etc wouldn't have a clue what is happening, just bunches of people pulling on chains.
Without showing pace etc the whole thing becomes meaningless to the non competitor/follower.
The whole Ranger V Rocket thing maybe enticed lots to watch who wouldn't normally bother, coverage of that race was abysmal, hardly a glimpse of the 2, and no indication who was winning etc, it could have been a fascinating duel, especially with RR and Dennis being so close to each other. Unforgiveable missing that medal ceremony too, showing a boat on the water instead, with voice over of the medal awards.
OK the camera crew etc are probably all amateurs, did they know the main competitors?
If there is going to be a Webcast, make the most of it on the day.
Take a look at WIRC in February, well worth a look.
Just my 2 pence worth.
Steve
56LW UK

[Citroen]

Can you tell me what the problems were with the Webcast so it can be improved for next year? I'll pass your comments on to them.

1. The video stream kept freezing. I tried restarting Windows Media Player, but that didn't improve things. I was getting the sound but not the pictures. I wonder what we were doing in the way of bandwidth on livestream.xs4all.nl. I didn't try a traceroute to see how bad the ping times were to that server. We also need to move to an open systems video streaming system - so I'm not tied to window media player.
2. There was no positive direction. With BIRC you put the star players on the front row in the middle, so the crowd can easily see who they are. With EIRC we had no idea how the ergs were laid out, no idea, for example, why we kept seeing the rower on erg#4. The cameraman/men was/were constantly moving, you need to fix the cameras and only move when they aren't being broadcast (two, maybe three cameras are needed). The tracking shots didn't do anything useful. Without a steadicam it gets a bit blurry when the camera is moved.
3. It would have helped if we'd known where abouts the various players were located (we had their erg numbers from the website). I spotted Roy Brook (wearing his US Postal cycling shorts). I spotted Wullie Brown in his Countrywide MAD AIO. We all spotted the BIRC Babes. But everyone else was mostly anonymous.
4. Why were the 56 ergs laid out in one long line and one short line? I'd have laid them out as 7*8 or maybe 14*4. [But I don't know how you had them hooked up to the PCs/Laptops.]
5. We complained about the "blue screen" (from venue racing) being shown too much. This year nothing, we didn't see it once. We caught a glimpse of the projected screen at the back of the hall.
   
   Perhaps we need some method of getting that on the web in real-time (not using the video stream). So I can run a web browser window and get the venue racing display mirrored onto my screen. [Something like a cut down freeware version of RowPro, perhaps. You push the results to a specialist server, my browser applet, flash app or stand-alone application pulls the data and displays it in a window on my remote machine. That could be a dual purpose application that would do the reruns from the stroke data.]
6. It wasn't easy to see the erg numbers. Having those better placed may have give more clues as to who was rowing.
7. The medal ceremonies weren't covered in any structured way. It would have been nice for the commentator to announce. "In third place with a time of 6:49.8 David Hislop, In second place with a time of 6:49.5 Dennis Hastings and the gold medal with a time of 6:47.9 Roy Brook". If we can't do that with commentary, could we do it with captioning?
   
   It may be that we need a second video stream to show that stuff exclusively. [Then I can direct the show myself.]
8. We need two separate audio streams: one in Dutch (or the local language), one in English. [Although for the Dutch we may not need that since most Dutch folks speak very fluent English. If it were in Paris, we'd definitely need English and French (for reasons of keeping the l'entente cordiale).]
9. What were those random bits of video, for example, the OTW rowing sequence? There wasn't a long enough gap between races to show that. It just served as a frustration to the remote viewer - since it was right when our star-turn was getting his medal.

That's just a quick brain dump.

[George Dunning]

That was my first 'webcast' of a C2 event due to the timing (I am in NZ) and the fact we just put broadband on (and the big event of course). had a good feed and clear pics but apart from the interest in seeing the venue it was a total waste of time. I dont know many of the forumites by site but wanted to cheer them on anyway .... not with that coverage and the lack of race info ... nuff said.

very disappointed

george

[sduane]

Can you tell me what the problems were with the Webcast so it can be improved for next year? I'll pass your comments on to them.

I'll echo Citroen's comments. FWIW, the video quality was fine for me (no freezing) on 4Mbs cable broadband, except for the panning shots, it was the content that was the problem. I think the director/video mixing desk person (terminology?) needs to know where the interest is in each heat, and those with the cameras need to know where they have to be to reflect that interest.

But stick at it. The webcast idea has great potential.

Simon

[SteveV]

Perhaps we need some method of getting that on the web in real-time (not using the video stream). So I can run a web browser window and get the venue racing display mirrored onto my screen.

watch this space, live playing of races may be on it's way