
Major League Baseball's outdated, misleading offset camera angle - robg
http://www.slate.com/id/2221384/pagenum/all/#p2
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jonknee
Hackers here would probably be interested to know that the MLB releases the
pitch tracking data nightly (<http://gd2.mlb.com/components/game/mlb/>). It's
fascinating and while I'm sure the clubs themselves have programmers working
away at crunching the data, there are some interesting uses of the data
publicly available:

<http://labs.dataspora.com/gameday/>

<http://www.brooksbaseball.net/pfx/index.php>

I've been trying to think of something awesome to do with this data (since it
seems amazing to me that it's available for free).

~~~
dionidium
The feeds link to this copyright statement:

 _The accounts, descriptions, data and presentation in the referring page (the
"Materials") are proprietary content of MLB Advanced Media, L.P ("MLBAM").
Only individual, non-commercial, non-bulk use of the Materials is permitted
and any other use of the Materials is prohibited without prior written
authorization from MLBAM. Authorized users of the Materials are prohibited
from using the Materials in any commercial manner other than as expressly
authorized by MLBAM._

<http://gdx.mlb.com/components/copyright.txt>

~~~
jonknee
I didn't say something awesome meant a business. Think of all the generations
of baseball fans before us. Games were only seen live, then heard on the
radio, then on TV, then on the internet, then on TV in HD and now finally
every pitch of every game is tracked and available in an XML feed. This is the
future that baseballs geeks of all times have wished for.

~~~
dionidium
Actually, I found the words "individual" and "non-bulk" more interesting than
"non-commercial", but, then again, I never know what these legalese words are
supposed to actually mean; each of the sites you link, for example, seem to
make bulk, non-individual use of the data.

~~~
jonknee
It's vague, but that's par for the course with pro sports. Note that when you
watch a sporting event these days they warn you that even describing the game
without expressed written consent can violate copyright.

~~~
dionidium
I'm pretty sure you're misunderstanding the statement read at the start of the
game; it's saying that the accounts and descriptions performed by their hired
talent are copyrighted, not that you can't describe it yourself.

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seekely
Being anywhere but right behind or right above the plate is going to make it
difficult to tell if the pitch was a ball or a strike. Regardless of a dead
center or offset camera angle, they are both from the outfield, which makes
visually inferring when the ball crosses the plate a hard problem for our eyes
to handle. Since pitches, even fastballs, have incredible amounts of movement,
watching from a television means guess work at best. Thankfully, all baseball
broadcasters have all kinds of camera angles and pitch tracking to show
exactly where the ball crossed, and those features are used frequently so the
viewer is rarely left in the dark on questionable calls.

Neither is optimal and I personally thought the offset camera did a far better
job indicating the pitch was outside for the fastball pitch the article
focused on (though the slider movement was indeed exaggerated). Then again, I
have watched baseball from the offset angle all my life and it's probably just
a arbitrary preference at this point.

~~~
madh
What we really need is the ability to choose camera angles. Not really
critical for baseball, as baseball is really about the pitcher vs. batter duel
--though being able to watch a stellar base-runner lead-off and time the
pitcher for a steal would be awesome. Basketball, hockey, football, soccer
would all benefit from different angles. The side field view is no where near
as compelling as an up and down (video game style) or a "blimp" view for
understanding the complexity and beauty that is professional sports at the
highest level.

~~~
javanix
Unfortunately the problem with implementing this in other sports is the same
problem with implementing a centered camera view in baseball - infrastructure.

In order to get the awesome Madden-esque camera views that you describe (at
least for outdoor sports), stadiums would need either overhead camera supports
or massively zoomed in angles from the ends of the stadiums, and it would be
nearly impossible to guarantee a consistent angle between venues.

~~~
smhinsey
You can see this sort of thing starting to creep into NFL coverage, I think
mostly FOX Sports. They have a number of robotic cameras strung across the
field on wires, and they use them to put together some fairly impressive
replay scenes, though they can't follow the ball very well with them so you
don't see them cut to during live action that often. I'm not sure how you
start introducing this to sports like baseball with its non-uniform stadiums
and fields, although things like the NBA and NHL seem like great candidates
and I am sure you will continue to see this spread. I think ESPN's Axis uses
something like it in baseball and basketball already, but that may just be
fancy editing/extrapolation with existing angles.

You used to be able to choose among a group of 4 or more camera angles on a
couple of the DirecTV sports packages as well, and you likely still can do
that. I know NASCAR is deep into that sort of thing, but I am not a fan so I
don't know much about it.

~~~
madh
Axis does use fancy extrapolation. But yes, with Skycam
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skycam>) awesome angles are possible. Baseball
fields are too large for Skycam and the Skycam would probably interfere with
play. For the NBA and NHL, Skycam is really impressive.

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yesimahuman
This is slightly off topic, but I feel like soccer in America is being poorly
represented by American media companies due to their shitty camera angles.
When you watch the English Premier League coverage they offer nice, high
angles that make the field seem huge and the plays more impressive. It's kind
of a minor detail, but I really think it's a subtle change that could change
the way people feel about watching the game.

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sachinag
Well, the thing is we can easily figure out balls/strikes with a combination
of the overhead cam and the side cam. The issue is that you can't really air
those in the run of play and the networks generally only show those angles
when they prove that the ump was right (either by MLB edict or a gentlemans'
agreement not to show the umps up).

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ilaksh
Article ends with "After all, isn't it time the sport embraced reality?"

Yes, I agree. Its time we all embraced reality and started using our brains
rather than rationalizing outdated "traditions".

Another aspect of reality we should embrace: very significant percentages of
"news" articles are actually deceptive propaganda pieces.

Probably about 80 or 90% of status quo in every domain has been proven
incorrect numerous times and yet is defended and reproduced over and over by
masses of unthinking talking apes.

~~~
TrevorJ
Reality is, if you go to a game, you aren't going to be sitting at the optimum
viewing angle.

