Watching the men's DH now on Red Bull tv.. shortened runs, and Claudio is commentating but you can tell they aren't live.
Not sure Rob and Claudio were actually on-site, but they also don't really need to be. The whole thing was a bit last-minute, so I give them some slack. I'm just glad RedBull got something together at all since I don't have cable to watch other broadcasts. Staying up until 2:30AM to watch it all was rough. Especially since I needed to get up early on Sunday.
It was pretty much the same as their World Cup broadcasting. The first part of a rider's run is taped, then they pick them up live farther down the track. Since there can be 4 riders on track at the same time, having it purely live wouldn't work, so they do what they can. It was kinda odd listening to the live on-site announcer talking about a rider on course viewers hadn't seen go off as we watched a previous rider finish. Just the nature of the beast. This is one reason why the cameras tend to be on the lower section of the course (actually live) and only a few sections farther up (taped, and then sequenced after the previous rider finishes).
Maybe in the future, we can have a 3 or 4-screen split that shows all riders who are on course at once totally live. The technology is there. Just need enough folks willing to pay to see it.
It sounds like there may be changes to the broadcast for 2018. Warner hinted at the end, but either couldn't say or it hasn't been finalized yet. I think what happened with this race might have been a hint to the UCI that dropping RedBull for a more lucrative broadcaster may be more difficult than they hoped.
I think Wyn Masters/Pinkbike missed an opportunity to step-in and do a course preview video since Claudio wasn't there.
