World Cup Um... What is going on with the coverage?

[Biggs]

Floating Heads. Weird smudgy bowlers length map. Scorecard in the middle of the screen. What in Zeus' flaming green sword of thunder is going on with the World Cup broadcast at the moment? Has anyone else been watching these warm-up games?

Why are we getting a roll call of some of the WORST commentators known to man juxtaposed with some of the most ill conceived graphics I've ever seen in 20+ years of watching broadcast cricket? Why do I have to have a floating scorecard as well as some ridiculous floating-heads of bowlers and batsman plastered all over my screen? I'm basically squinting to see past all the visual vomit on the television to watch the damn game.

Please tell me this is just some weird trial-and-error thing and I'm not going to have to sit through 10 odd games of the severed head of Mitchell Johnson floating around the bottom of my screen as he runs into bowl...

 

[Dutch]

They have obviously used Ashes 13 as an inspiration....I like the idea of Matss severed head but you cant be too careful about what you say in these dark and grisly days of ours....

 

[Biggs]

I'm requesting an overlay for DBC14 that has floating severed heads scaled incorrectly so they obscure obvious on-screen action. Also, so that they inappropriately get super-imposed over the crotches of various players on the field, popping out of their pants and so forth... Is this the right forum for that? If not, just ignore me... But the coverage is still woeful.

 

[MattW]

I was hopeful for that first moment of the first match I saw, when it was just the small scorebox in the top corner - but then the thing down the bottom popped up, and then it didn't go away!

It's not like it shows more information than what the various TV networks usually use, it just does the same stuff at twice the size.

Even with all the stupid shapes they could make it look normal -



Nothing of value was lost.

 

[Biggs]

I like the little "angled box" opening effect, I can tolerate the "world-cupish" colours... I get all that. I don't understand why we have floating heads and HUD during every delivery, shot, bit of fielding. It actually obscures whole bits of the on-field action. Having the top left-hand score box incorrectly alligned for widescreen TV's is ridiculous in 2015. Why are they catering for the small percentage of people that still own 4:3 TV's? I mean, is there a large section of money coming from Cricket in Ethiopia or something? I don't get it.

...someone at work said "maybe they're trying to educate people about cricket" which I would buy if things like the line-and-length graphic wasn't some weird heat-sensor thing that looks as ugly as it is utterly indecipherable.

They need 75% less on-screen stuff for 100% of the broadcast.

Your little graphicy-do-over is already better.

 

[MattW]

...someone at work said "maybe they're trying to educate people about cricket" which I would buy if things like the line-and-length graphic wasn't some weird heat-sensor thing that looks as ugly as it is utterly indecipherable.

I'm surprised they don't chuck up a percentage chance of winning or something - for all those people who ask "who's winning" when walking past a TV with cricket on it.

If only real cricket had bobblehead mode, this problem wouldn't exist.

 

[Biggs]

I'm surprised they don't chuck up a percentage chance of winning or something

That's basically what "WASP" is which SKY TV in NZ constantly have running in the bottom right hand corner... It's like a stupid persons "who's winning?" cheat code.

If only real cricket had bobblehead mode, this problem wouldn't exist.

...surely in today's modern area they can take this sorta innovation into account when planning these major tournaments?

 

[MattW]

That's basically what "WASP" is which SKY TV in NZ constantly have running in the bottom right hand corner... It's like a stupid persons "who's winning?" cheat code.

Yeah, but it needs to be a graph showing the respective team captain's head proportional to their chance of winning.

...surely in today's modern area they can take this sorta innovation into account when planning these major tournaments?

I assume they were going to have it but the BCCI overruled it.

 

[SpitfiresKent]

I really dislike the score in the top left corner, especially if the batsmen edges it.

As for the floating heads? Not sure i've seen that.

 

[MattW]

This stuff:

 

[Skater]

The ICC sell the rights to produce coverage of their events (World Cup, World Twenty20 and Champions Trophy) on a global scale, so everyone around the world will see the same thing on their TV screens. As you can see here, last year Star India and Star Middle East won those rights for the next eight years. ESPN Star Sports currently have the rights and this World Cup is the last one they will produce. This means viewers don't get the usual polish of our Sky Sports in the UK or Channel 9 in Australia.

There is an increasingly old fashioned thing in broadcasting called the '4:3 safe area', which means everyone without a widescreen TV will be able to see what is being shown without having parts of the picture cut off at the sides. As has been pointed out, it's 2015 now and the people who have widescreen TVs greatly outnumber those without. This makes the 4:3 safe area something of a fossil and it seems odd that ESPN Star Sports are catering for it. On my 22 inch TV watching the highlights of England v West Indies yesterday was quite difficult because the scoreboard was covering some of the action. What makes it even more strange is that a few of the World Cup games are going to be produced in 4K - Ultra HD!

The likelihood is that they will have been working on these graphics for some time (and someone thought they were good) and we will be stuck with it for the entire World Cup.

 

[Biggs]

They're not good. Folks need to get on Twitter and make some noise... I can't deal with 49 days of, quite literally, barely being able to view the premiere cricket sports event. At the very least, they need to get rid of the floating Henry VIII's roll call down the bottom every ball.

 

[_Sam_]

The ICC sell the rights to produce coverage of their events (World Cup, World Twenty20 and Champions Trophy) on a global scale, so everyone around the world will see the same thing on their TV screens. As you can see here, last year Star India and Star Middle East won those rights for the next eight years. ESPN Star Sports currently have the rights and this World Cup is the last one they will produce. This means viewers don't get the usual polish of our Sky Sports in the UK or Channel 9 in Australia.

There is an increasingly old fashioned thing in broadcasting called the '4:3 safe area', which means everyone without a widescreen TV will be able to see what is being shown without having parts of the picture cut off at the sides. As has been pointed out, it's 2015 now and the people who have widescreen TVs greatly outnumber those without. This makes the 4:3 safe area something of a fossil and it seems odd that ESPN Star Sports are catering for it. On my 22 inch TV watching the highlights of England v West Indies yesterday was quite difficult because the scoreboard was covering some of the action. What makes it even more strange is that a few of the World Cup games are going to be produced in 4K - Ultra HD!

The likelihood is that they will have been working on these graphics for some time (and someone thought they were good) and we will be stuck with it for the entire World Cup.

I presumed other channels would use their own graphical overlays and would simply take the feed from the host broadcaster? Hope to hell that I don't see this when I turn over to sky on Friday night!

 

[SpitfiresKent]

I presumed other channels would use their own graphical overlays and would simply take the feed from the host broadcaster? Hope to hell that I don't see this when I turn over to sky on Friday night!

I remember the WT20 last year Sky didn't use their own overlay, I think all broadcasters will be using this 'official' overlay and not their own unfortunately.

@Biggs I recall NZ doing the exact same thing a couple of years back with the score in the top left corner.

 

[MattW]

Usually when the broadcaster has the score up the top they can frame their cameras with that in mind - but if you're using the top and bottom of the screen and trying to keep the coverage 4:3 safe, there's nowhere to move.

I'm glad that they've got a version without the heads, it's a little bit less obtrusive like that.