For years, a complaint I've had about TV coverage of sports is that they don't use the technology they have, but instead toss in surface gimmicks, like in baseball overlaying a strikezone. But only on rare occasions will they, for example, use a split screen, which is the easiest, most basic thing to do.
If there's a fast runner on first pace who might steal, show the pitcher and batter, but split the screen to show the runner dancing off first, or put him in a "picture-in-picture" box. Or when covering a football game, have the normal camera angle of the line-of-scrimmage, but isolate a camera on a linebacker or the wide-receiver who you expect to be a target and split the screen to show both.
But TV simply doesn't do that, except, as a I said, on a rare instance, or in replays.
Well, today, on the CBS coverage of the PGA championship, they actually entered the real world and used split screen -- the whole time! O huzzah.
On every hole, when a golfer was teeing off, they solved the eternal problem of watching the golfer or following the ball. What they did was split the screen, with two-thirds of the monitor being the golfer -- and then the other third showing the hole in its entirety. And so, when the ball was hit we could not only see it in that split screen, but they added gimmickry properly and with computer technology showed the flight of the ball. Even displaying both the distance and loft as it was in the air. And it was wonderful.
Hats off to CBS.
If there's a fast runner on first pace who might steal, show the pitcher and batter, but split the screen to show the runner dancing off first, or put him in a "picture-in-picture" box. Or when covering a football game, have the normal camera angle of the line-of-scrimmage, but isolate a camera on a linebacker or the wide-receiver who you expect to be a target and split the screen to show both.
But TV simply doesn't do that, except, as a I said, on a rare instance, or in replays.
Well, today, on the CBS coverage of the PGA championship, they actually entered the real world and used split screen -- the whole time! O huzzah.
On every hole, when a golfer was teeing off, they solved the eternal problem of watching the golfer or following the ball. What they did was split the screen, with two-thirds of the monitor being the golfer -- and then the other third showing the hole in its entirety. And so, when the ball was hit we could not only see it in that split screen, but they added gimmickry properly and with computer technology showed the flight of the ball. Even displaying both the distance and loft as it was in the air. And it was wonderful.
Hats off to CBS.
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