See: TV schedule for 2009 Amgen Tour of California
Several websites are pushing the technological envelope to offer live video, audio, play-by-play, and race leader tracking the Amgen Tour of California.
The most ambitious of these is the Tour Tracker page at the official Tour of California website. (Update: Feb. 22, 2007 — Early in Wednesday's stage, all the bugs appeared to be worked out as it offered live online video and audio. Very cool. Update: Feb. 23, 2007– Tour Tracker audio working, video from the route is sporadic, depending on weather conditions. ) Also, CSC is offering its Omnilocation Tracker for race leaders on a Google course map and Velonews and CyclingNews has play-by-play updates for mobile phones.
What this means is that we can stay up-to-the-minute at home or the office on our computer or anywhere else via a mobile phone. This can definitely improve the way cycling fans can watch racing.
The official tour website's Tour Tracker is designed to show play-by-play commentary from VeloNews, a course map that tracks cyclists, elevations, and still images from the race all against a backdrop of a full-screen live video feed. There's also two audio channels, one for commentary and one for race officials.
This page had its problems on Sunday, however. The video was sporadic and sizing it in a large browser window (this can be adjusted, I believe) made the live video very unclear. I could never find the audio feeds, and the play-by-play commentary wasn't published in a most-recent-at-the-top style until later on.
YottaPixel Online Video News noted some of these problems, but is betting that the Adobe engineering team responsible for the Tracker (along with CSC) will have everything working in a few days. That's good, because his source at Adobe tells him that the page had 1,000 viewers on Sunday. You'll need Flash 9 update to watch.
While CSC sponsors a top-notch pro cycling team, the software company also is providing its own Tour of California updates page that uses small GPS trackers to locate cyclists on a Google map.
A tiny, 3-ounce, wireless global positioning system device is carried by five race leaders in the General Classification, as well as a CSC and T-Mobile rider. The so-called Omnilocation technology spotlights the cyclists within a 3-meter margin using data from 20 GPS satellites. An expandable icon shows each riders name, team and speed.
CSC writes more about the technology, which is less than a year old. Also, CSC has a 30-second video clip. Wired magazine also has a write-up.
The blogger at WAP Review tells how to download the play-by-play commentary on a mobile phone. In addition to telling where to download feeds from VeloNews and CyclingNews, he tells how to work around that irritating 15-second refresh and interrupts his viewing.
In addition, he's modified a yeswap.com page to view results through Google, Sweezer or AOL transcoders.
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