Snooker Needs to Embrace Technology

Live Scoring has really summed up for me how snooker is not going forward with technology and how it is far behind other sports. There are lots of different sections to looking at:

Streaming/Scoring: It is getting very frustrating now. Last season we were given the promise of Live Streaming for all the qualifiers however this was only for 2 tables and was stopped pretty early on. How hard is it to just put one little camera at the top of the table and stream it on a website. We could also have 1 or 2 tables with commentary and more camera angles. Not sure where live scoring is going now but I don't think it is needed if we get streaming. Hearn said he would move the qualifiers to Sheffield so they could be streamed. None yet.

HD: It seems as if every sport is in HD now, even Darts, but Snooker is only in HD for the World Championships, on Eurosport. Why did BBC not broadcast any of the Worlds in HD despite already having the HD cameras. No other tournaments were broadcast in HD and even Sky Sports didn't put the Premier League in HD. Also, according to Sky Sports Magazine, this seasons tournament will not be in High Definition. Let down.

iPhone Apps: iPhone Apps are one of the biggest things now. However World Snooker only released a dreadful World Championship App, which cost way too much and was released at the end of the Worlds. It didn't work and didn't offer much. Hopefully one will be realeased with news, live scoring and maybe even streaming of events. It can't be too hard to develop and I can imagine there is a market for it.

Video Games: Snooker games are great fun and they are usually released fairly often. However WSC REAL 09, the most recent, was very shoddy presentation wise and not very accurate with real-life. The Top 16 still had to qualify for events. Most were out of date and the 96 players were 2 years out of date! Since then there has been no news of a new game. There is a large fan base for these games and if one came out up-to-date with al l the players and tournaments it would be great.

theres a new live scoring in the pipework they are testing it out making sure all the blips that made mark 1 to be crap is ironed out before they inflict it on us.

regarding streaming 110 sport let us down with the help of rod the plod.

regarding HD who the buck cares mate as long you see balls tables and pockets i couldn't give a dam.

wildJONESEYE wrote:regarding HD who the buck cares mate as long you see balls tables and pockets i couldn't give a dam.

I agree entirely with Cheesyman on this. It is indeed very disappointing if Sky don't broadcast the Premier League in HD. They do it with every other event they broadcast so why not snooker? What are they playing at? Wasting their time with 3D right now and they haven't got HD fully sorted yet, that's what.

I'd go a step further and insist that all snooker should be transmitted in 3D and can ONLY be shown on TVs that are 42inches size or more...............anything smaller simply is not transmittable on.

Writing to Hearn in the morning about this, feel quite strong.

It's off the truck for those posts. Cheesyman has made some good points here

Sonny wrote:It's off the truck for those posts. Cheesyman has made some good points here

StalinESQ wrote:

wildJONESEYE wrote:regarding HD who the buck cares mate as long you see balls tables and pockets i couldn't give a dam.

On topic or play in another topic please

Sonny wrote:On topic or play in another topic please

I too am very annoyed about the status quo, especially the LIVE scoring not being up and running, yet.

Barry Hearn has said he wants to embrase tecknolagy in to snooker and i believe he will virtually all of cheesymans points will come true over the next 3 to 4 years hopefully streaming of quals before then and Live Scoring Next month at the latest hopefully Tomorrow

Crap.
He doesn't have the money = resources.
The tech exists.

=o(

Noel

SnookerFan wrote:
are Sky really going to bother taking the time to make it HD? Until snooker embraces technology, it may still have small-time sport feel. But as long as it has that small-time sport feel, would technology want to embrace snooker?

Excellent comment snookerfan

Not an excellent comment actually, as HD is rife on Sky. They have 4 Sky Sports HD channels and hardly anything at all isn't in HD which is why it's a joke they don't show snooker in HD.

Sonny wrote:Not an excellent comment actually, as HD is rife on Sky. They have 4 Sky Sports HD channels and hardly anything at all isn't in HD which is why it's a joke they don't show snooker in HD.

blame barry hearn, im sure the premier legue will be in HD

rocket_ron wrote:

Sonny wrote:Not an excellent comment actually, as HD is rife on Sky. They have 4 Sky Sports HD channels and hardly anything at all isn't in HD which is why it's a joke they don't show snooker in HD.

blame barry hearn, im sure the premier legue will be in HD

Sky Sports Magazine has a TV guide and had all the channels the programs were on. They would say if it was in HD and it seemed like Premier League Snooker was the only one. Usually it would say something like "Sky Sports HD3" but it just said "Sky Sports 3." Still, maybe it just hasn't been announced yet.
But still, HD is amazing and if every other sport has it, such as Darts and Speedway, why can't Snooker?

"Also, according to Sky Sports Magazine, this seasons tournament will not be in High Definition." - first post.

Some answers are required on this one.

Also, some sports are creating innovative technology to use for their sport. Could snooker use one? A heart monitor perhaps? Or even cameras in the players dressing rooms between frames. (The last one sounds creepy but something like that). Most sports have things you can do with the Red Button, alternative commentary, camera angles etc. We could have these in Snooker, and I think the Premier League would be a good place to be innovative and do something different with Sky Sports.

Cheesyman99 wrote:Also, some sports are creating innovative technology to use for their sport. Could snooker use one? A heart monitor perhaps? Or even cameras in the players dressing rooms between frames. (The last one sounds creepy but something like that). Most sports have things you can do with the Red Button, alternative commentary, camera angles etc. We could have these in Snooker, and I think the Premier League would be a good place to be innovative and do something different with Sky Sports.

I remember Jimmy being interviewed bare chested in his dressing room before a PL match. Not a pretty sight (non merci! although there are a few players I wouldn't mind to watch in the shower ... but not many). I don't think players would appreciate to wear devices that could give away their state of stress neither. If anything I'd love to have the possibility to replay some actions on very slo-mo by myself right after it happened.

rocket_ron wrote:

Sonny wrote:Not an excellent comment actually, as HD is rife on Sky. They have 4 Sky Sports HD channels and hardly anything at all isn't in HD which is why it's a joke they don't show snooker in HD.

blame barry hearn, im sure the premier legue will be in HD

Blame Barry Hearn ?

listen to yourselfes people think Barry Hearn coming in like a magician and magic everything together from Day 1.

its work in progress nobody can work their magic like some of you think he can.

it was beginning of june he got control..... priority was getting professionals to play like professionals now thats being done dont blame him for years and years and years of rubbish people snake hissing against the wind trying to run a sport when quite frankly they couldn't run a bucking bath.

na Ronnie lol

although Reanne Evans......now your talking

Looks like Power Snooker could be in HD

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-10848396

what a joke if Power Snooker is in HD and nothing else is

Sonny wrote:Looks like Power Snooker could be in HD

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-10848396

what a joke if Power Snooker is in HD and nothing else is

everything will be soon anyway even songs of praise lol

I don't really care about some of the things suggested, like games or even iPhone Apps (could be useful though, it's just something I can be perfectly happy without), but I guess it should all be done- if you embrace technology (and you kind of have to), then do it good and please or even attract as many people as possible. I only don't think heart monitors / cameras in the dressing room are good ideas- these would partially spoil the fun for me, as I like to observe myself how stressed players are and maybe assume some things, I don't want to peep here and there and have a full picture without even paying much attention to player's behaviour during the match.
As for much needed live scoring / streaming, of course Barry Hearn needs time, but these aren't some difficult tasks which are worth waiting forever for and if now it's too early to judge, it'll soon start to become more and more annoying. But okay, I hope at least live scoring will work properly (I wanted to say 'better than ever', but that's too easy to achieve) in no time and complaining won't be relevant anymore.

Regarding Live scoring it shouldn't really be that hard to make it work im just amazed it took Barry Hearn to see how rubbish it was....

i think they not only going to re launch Live but the whole website to correspond with the shanghai masters in a months time.

its just a shame when we really need it during the quals its not there.

Anyone got any clever ideas they could use in televised snooker like the heart monitors etc. I'd like the heart monitors to see how nervous a player is at certain times. Anyone got any ideas?