2012 Summer Olympics - Page 17

I agree 100% with this and don't see it being discussed much in the avalanche of hype surrounding Michael Phelps. It's ridiculous how many opportunities swimmers get to win medals. Phelps swims 3 of the 4 disciplines including relays at multiple distances and has won medals - mostly gold - in all of them (and if he wanted to swim breast-stroke he'd probably medal at that too). But a tennis player or archer or basketball player or rower etc. has to win multiple matches to get a chance at one medal. It's an apples to oranges comparison. Swimming and gymnastics are medal gluttons and that benefits the competitors in those sports.
Edited by archiguy - 8/8/12 at 7:34am

I haven't watched any "Olympic" tennis, so I don't know how it works. But it most every other Olympic sport the men and the women compete on an equal basis, even though the sexes compete in seperate competitions. Example: the women's 10000 metre race is 10000 metres, same as the men's. But in Olympic tennis do the women only play 3 sets, and the men 5 sets? Like in other major tournaments where the men have to play 5 sets but the women only have to play three... yet the prize money is the same?
Edited by WS65711 - 8/8/12 at 10:02am

You know, another thing I just happened to think of....there's a cash payment for each medal won. I mean, the nature of the sport is the nature of the sport and if there are those that want an opportunity to win more gold medals, then switch to a sport that allows you to do so I guess. But the whole point of bringing up this topic was to dispute the "greatest olympian" moniker associated with Phelps. However, he is without a doubt the most decorated and therefore, highest earning Olympian.

And just for fun....how are exchange rates factored in relative to other countries? Some that win gold I'm sure will come out way ahead while others way behind.

The cash prize is set by the team's country. USA get $25,000 for a gold medal (not tax free) while the UK athletes get their face on a stamp.

Singapore - $800,000 (£515,000)
Kazakhstan - $250,000 (£160,000)
Kyrgyzstan - $200,000 (£130,000)
Uzbekistan - $150,000 (£95,000)
Russia - $135,000 (£90,000)
Tajikistan - $63,000 (£40,000)
US - $25,000 (£16,000)
Australia - $20,000 (£13,000) plus face on a stamp
UK - No money - but their face on a stamp

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-19101429

If there's one thing we learned from "Chariots of Fire" it's that the Brits love the nobility of pure, unadulterated sportsmanship. "Once more into the breach, boys!" and all that. But I bet most of 'em these days would rather have the cash.

Hey....learned something today. Thanks guys, never knew it was country designated. I thought it was designated by the IOC. And while I still don't think the US medalists should be taxed, I don't feel quite as bad about it. Sammy will get a good piece of change from the endorsements most will get anyway.

Slippery slope. Perhaps Law Enforcement Officers/EMT's/Firefighters should get a year tax-free for every life they save? Pediatricians for every successful delivery? MacArthur Foundation grant award winners?

I'm not sure how full the government coffers are going to get with Table Tennis and Trampoline endorsement earnings, but you never know... If anyone needs to kick a few bucks to these kids it would be NBC/Universal who is getting 5000+ hours of programming sans talent fees.

Net-Net, do what you do because you love it.

"Do what you do because you love it", no argument there. But the Olympics are a big morale boost for the country and these athletes make great sacrifices to represent their country. Sure, I know there are some personal aspects involved, but I think most of them have a very strong desire to represent their country. That's pretty much my only basis for not being in favor of taxing them. Teachers, first responders, etc...I don't really have a response for that other than, these individuals rally behind these athletes too. But if you're going to make that argument then you might as well opt not to air the Olympics and instead put them on as reality shows to elevate their occupations.

Olympics Tennis IS slightly different. The Men and Women both initially play 3 set matches. (Partially to keep the pace up I think) However the men's final goes to 5.

I don't play tennis personally, but in sometimes watching tournaments on TV I just never did feel it was fair. The men sometimes are out there for 6 or 7 hours, while the women sometimes barely break a sweat.. but yet the payoff for the winner is the same. So I guess in Olympic tennis finals the women have to put forth less effort.. for the same Gold medal. I'm all for equality, but something is wrong with this tennis picture . . .

I think the same thing might be said of the guys and gals of the military serving in sandboxes, swamps and jungles all over the world.

Better file a trademark on that idea right now because it's a pretty good one, and fair to say there are 'peacocks' lurking.

Tennis should be dropped from the Olympics like they did from 1924-1988. Two months ago we had the French Open. One month ago we had Wimbledon. In three weeks we have the U.S. Open. I’ve had no desire to watch, nor have I cared one iota what has taken place at the Olympics. When you have the Olympics sandwiched between those iconic tournaments, these matches are little more than an exhibition to me. To the participants I’m sure being an Olympian means something, but I suspect any one of the players would take a back-to-back win at Wimbledon and the U.S. Open over an Olympic gold. People who follow tennis will tell you they know how many major tournaments a player has won, not how many gold medals they have.

well i subjectively think dish's pq has slipped down over last 12-18 months but have no objective way to test this. some channels and some broadcasts can look very good. cbs/nbc nfl games for instance.

as for the olympics, i don't think this is a dish only issue. sports on dish don't have this level of motion artifacts and fast camera macros.
this is just a terrible broadcast and, after observation last night, it is worst on the sub olympic channels. hell i got artifacts watching soccer last night on nbc's olympic channel.


don't know what the problem is, but this is the olympics, this is just painful to watch.

LOL, yeah, you don't play tennis

One of the worst examples of macroblocking I saw was last night during the prime time replay of men's 110m hurdles where the Chinese athlete Liu Xiang fell down again at first hurdle with injury. I paused and watched the sequence in slow motion, and boy, the whole screen was filled with macroblocks - worse than a glittering confetti-laden Super Bowl ceremony. I will post a screencap later in the day, but it was possibly one of the worst quality HD I've ever seen.

Macroblocking

Welcome to the world of ATSC/QAM. From the get-go there were not enough bits to fully encode 1080i without issues, using MPEG-2.

Add to that, stations that add sub-channels, taking away bits that could be used for HD, resulting in more bit-starving. For QAM, the adding of additional HD streams to the QAM channel, resulting in the same problem.

The dish and cablecos also have the problem is getting horrible video from the OTA stations. Also, sat feeds of video streams are pretty much also bit starved. In order to save money on transponder rental, they cram many video streams onto the transponder.

It all comes down to the almighty $$$. Quality be damned.

Charter has been advertising "crystal clear video." They should be sued for false advertising, or at least told by the Feds to stop.

Don't know if this link will work, hit or miss with WSJ, but a fun read.

Mopper Training

My theory is that you can't run advertising during a Soccer match, which would be less of a financial hit to a cable channel than an over-the-air network which relies on ads for its financial health.

Not sure if NBC does monitor this thread, but they've decided to jazz up their primetime highlight package of Day 1 of Decathlon. Rather than having Dwight Stones narrate a standard 3-minute reel, they've turned it into a mini-documentary complete with pulsating music and 24fps film look. Not sure if I would do it that way.

Now what's this? Must be a slow day. NBC packs it in early ... instead of ending at 12:00 midnight, primetime taped coverage ended at 11:05. The rest of the hour was devoted to a commercial-free airing of some pilot TV show. At least they're not going to further ruin their coverage with more puff pieces. Second thought, why not show more of the decathlon instead of that brief "documentary"?

 

My guess is it's a good opportunity to highlight (expose) their sports network. Lots of potential subscribers among those viewers.

Crap, it wasn't the pilot for Revolution.

Exactly, plus you have to be paying for a pay TV service to even get the channel so NBC/U is collecting sub fees at the very least.

I agree. NBC's sports network covers MLS games, and a few mens U.S. National Team matches, so I'm sure they are targeting the growing soccer viewing population.

It was weird that they devoted all that primetime to that show last night, I was also wanting some "revolution" instead.. (did watch the show anyway)...

Misty and Kerri... yeah we know you are athletes, couldn't you dress up a bit for the interview with Costas? LOL

I hated the english system measurement on the long jumps, like someone posted before, everything in the Olympics is metric based, very confusing when someone reached, say 8m and they did it on feet.

It's the new marketing trick for NBC Entertainment .... running TV pilots during Olympics time slots. For those who still remember... during the closing ceremonies of the 2010 Winter Games, NBC interrupted the telecast to broadcast the pilot for something called "The Marriage Ref". Remember that debacle???? (I still remember the heat that NBC got on this thread during that telecast) They will do it again on Sunday night. 10:40 pm. Be warned.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/nbc-to-air-go-on-animal-practice-comedies-after-olympics/2012/08/07/a52dfe02-e0d6-11e1-a19c-fcfa365396c8_story.html

Anybody else not hearing the announcers on the womens basketball game right now?.....I found out the problem was with my av receiver not the broadcast.
Edited by kevin j - 8/9/12 at 9:43am

You mean the American announcers? The rest of the world do not miss them. :-)

Yeah, I'm pretty sure if it really was an issue with the network, few people would consider it to be a "problem".