Posts Tagged espn

HTML 5 Video Tag +The iPad = Life For Older Machines

Apr 23

Posted by Andrew Machado in Technology

Since the launch of the iPad there have been sites converting layouts and content to a compatible format.  What that means is they need to remove anything Adobe Flash since the iPad controversiality is not supporting Flash at all.

Steve Jobs has been quoted as saying “Flash is a CPU Hog” which some Adobe fan boys have taken offense to.

Well thank god Apple is doing this because as a side benefit those users out there on older mac hardware may have just caught a break.  I recently visited ESPN.com on my dad’s Imac G5 1ghz machine and formally video would play horribly dropping frames, audio cutting out and sometime seven crashing.

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After the launch of the iPad video played smooth on ESPN.com, yet it looked exactly the same.  My hunch is ESPN detects if a compatible browser that supports the <video> tag is visiting the site (Safari, FireFox or Google Chrome) it displays the video in HTML 5 format.

Flash has historically been a real problem on the mac, which they are claiming to have fixed with Flash 10.1, but sadly any mac owners on older powerpc hardware won’t notice a difference.  With HTML 5 at least the web can be tolerable for these owners.

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ESPN Pushing the Envelope with 30 for 30 Series

Oct 7

Posted by Andrew Machado in Brand Advertising, Personal

I love Movies.  I love Sports.  I love when a channel like ESPN takes something as basic as sports and reminds me of why I love their channel.  For the next 30 weeks every Tuesday ESPN will be showing a unique documentary on a key moment in sports over the last 30 years.  What is really great though is the hook which is every single one is directed by a popular Hollywood director.

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I just finished the first episode Kings Ransom about the great Wayne Gretzky trade from 1988 where the Edmonton Oilers traded him to the Los Angeles Kings.  It is directed by the great Peter Berg.  If you haven’t heard of Peter Berg highlight his name in this post and click the i icon.  He is a brilliant director who has handled the great series Friday Night Lights (movie as well as TV show.

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Probably my favorite part of this is the sheer amount of footage and knowledge shown in this first episode.  To be honest I had no idea Gretzky was traded and to hear about how he helped negotiate the deal fascinated me.  In between stock footage you see brief glimpses of Wayne today with Peter Berg discussing moments of the story.  Overall I can not give it a high enough rating.

The Bad

The fact I have to set my DVR to record each and every episode.  ESPN how could you blow this?  Currently my cable guide lists it as simply “Kings Ransom” which the cable box can not decipher as the first in the 30 part series.  I’ve written Bill Simmons on Twitter and I pray they get this fixed.  For 30 weeks I’m not sure I can keep up telling my guide to record the next one.

What Stories Are Coming Up?

The Band That Wouldn’t Die - The story of the Balitmore Colts being moved to Indianapolis in the middle of the night.  It is directed by Barry Levinson

Muhammad versus Larry - When Ali fought Holmes it was a huge moment for boxing.  Relive it with Albert Maysles directs this one.

Winning Time: Reggie Miller versus The New York Knicks - Reggie Miller, The Knicks and Spike Lee.  Oddly enough Spike Lee is not directing this one (hopefully he’s been banished after that awful Kobe Bryant piece he did).  Instead we get Dan Klores behind the camera.

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Is Major League Baseball purposely crippling their website?

Jun 1

Posted by Andrew Machado in Web 2.0

I love Major League Baseball.  I love checking how my favorite teams are doing from my mobile phone…except on MLB.com.  Their mobile site is terrible.

It lacks information about the status of each game beyond the score and inning and does not even advertise their iPhone application.  My only hunch for this is because they want to be compatible with every single mobile browser available by offering the bare minimum or assuming you are an iPhone user you will download their Free Application or the $9.99 app with audio streaming.

Enter ESPN.  ESPN has truly embraced mobile browsing especially of their site.  They have a great mobile homepage, full podcast support and I’m able to see how every Major League Baseball team is doing with their full featured scoreboard.

I’m able to tap whichever game I want to see more detail of, it periodically refreshes with updates and loads extremely quickly.  ESPN may have upset some people with their sitewide remodel, but I think we can all agree that their mobile commitment has been outstanding.

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