The hegemony of live video

London: The Indian interest in these Olympic Games started many hours before the opening ceremony with the women’s ranking round in archery. World no. 1 Deepika Kumari and company took to the shooting range at Lord’s on Friday in what would ultimately prove to be a disappointing display. India finished 12th out of 12 teams. (They would go on to get eliminated by Denmark in their first knock-out game the next day.)

There was no live video feed of the event either. (This would prove to be the case with many qualification rounds in disciplines such as archery and shooting. At the time of writing this article, there seems to be no stream online, or on any of BBC’s 24 HD channels, of the men’s 10m air rifle qualifications.)

Therefore, it was little wonder that Twitter was inundated with Indian sports fans on Friday wondering where they could find online scores. Eventually, someone tweeted out a link to an extremely unstable Olympics update site set up by FITA, the world archery governing body.

Friday’s archery mess was a portent of things to come.

There is no doubt that the London Games is being supported with some of the most elaborate digital resources. The BBC has an Olympics website that is already winning rave reviews. On Saturday, it was estimated that the site was visited by one out of every 10 people in the UK.

In addition, the Games are being served by a number of excellent mobile phone applications as well. However, there seems to be an infuriating focus on streaming live video. With so many Internet users all over the world graduating to high-speed wired and mobile broadband networks, it is no wonder that there is so much streaming content to choose from.

No Olympics has been broadcast in so much detail before. The BBC has 24 live streams on its website, 24 standard definition TV channels and 24 high definition ones. Broadcaster Eurosport is also beaming the games in 3D for compatible television sets.

Unfortunately, this concentration on video seems to have come at the expense of detailed text feeds and live scores. Even when these scores are available, they can be hard and non-intuitive to find. When you find them, they hardly seem worth the bother. Sample this update from Sunday’s important GB-UAE clash in men’s football on the official site:

“GBR 2—1 UAE SINCLAIR Scott (GBR) scores !”

And then three minutes later:

“GBR 3—1 UAE STURRIDGE Daniel (GBR) scores !”

How nuanced (not)!

When so much effort is being put into streaming gigabytes of video every second, surely organizers and media outlets can afford to think of people with slower Internet connections, or who prefer text updates.

Meanwhile, on Saturday, the BBC complained that they received inadequate graphics and standings information during the men’s road race event. The video seemed to work fine, but both the commentators and viewers had no idea who exactly was in which position. The International Olympic Committee said this was because GPS transmitters attached to the cycles were being jammed. Not by master criminals or rogue KGB agents. But by spectators furiously using mobile phones. Social media is hitting the Olympics hard. Please RT.

sidin.v@livemint.com

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