bartyount

If it was a problem on DCI's end, then everyone who saw the broadcast would have had choppiness. The problem was not at DCI. It might have been your bandwidth, your ISP or your graphics processor's inability to scale the picture at a smooth framerate (it can happen scaling to 800x600 too).

So true. After I watched San Antonio on the stream, I went on to badmouth BD on how despite being technically superior, their show is so boring and I can't believe they won. I also felt that PR's show was not very entertaining. Well, I saw both of them live in Hattiesburg, MS this past Tuesday and now I'm eating crow. BD loses most of it's effect in the video stream. There's not enough resolution to pick up on all the nuances as you said. I still feel that BD suffers in musicality. There's not enough dynamic variation to make the music interesting. It's just loud, loud, drum feature, loud, soft (ballad), loud. That's how it comes across to me anyway. Seeing PR live surprised me also. They had so much energy and projected it so well. The webcast just doesn't have enough bandwidth to pass all that energy through.

Just a note about the choppiness when hooking up to your TV. I had this problem also and thought it was the speed of the wireless, but discovered that the real problem was with the video card (chip actually) in my laptop. It was not able to smoothly handle scaling the picture up to the size of my TV screen (1920x1080). What I did to fix the problem was change the resolution of the video sent to the TV to 640x480. I think the source video stream is 640x480. Since the resolution of the screen and the video were the same, no scaling of the picture was needed and the choppiness went away. Hope that helps.

Ya - I heard that last year, there were some issues at the beginning of the broadcast and a bunch of people were really rude to the theater workers. A bunch of people left and demanded their money back (which I would say they were within their rights to do, but apparently a bunch of people were real jacka&&es about it). They were able to fix the problem during the second corps on I think and the rest of the broadcast was fine. I'll bet the theater just didn't want to deal with those people again. BTW, who are you Mississippi guys (TitanSop06 and jblamb1401)? I live in Brandon and am originally from Clinton.

I'm guessing that it's a rare case, but when it happens, the show is delayed until all judges are ready.

Well if there's one person I would expect PC overkill from, it would be her. Funny how she doesn't mind her bodyguards packing heat, but don't dare bring in a piece of wood shaped like a rifle!

I think you should be able to legally post short snipets (15-20 seconds perhaps) under fair use. I'm really intrigued by the 3D thing. I want to see what it looks like.

Quick question bout that. I saw that during the live broadcast, you could select high cams or field cams, but when I go to re-watch the shows from this season, it only shows high cam and I don't see a way to switch to field cams. Is there a way to switch or is high cams the only option for everyone?

30% Applause-o-meter (take GE scoring away from the judges) 30% Current judging system (minus the GE) 40% Tic System

I will concede that there are rare circumstances where this is true (not that I can think of any at the top of my head), but I guess the point in my post is that the real world can wait 99% of the time. It will still be there when you've aged out. After you turn 22, the opportunity to experience drumcorps is gone forever (well, there's senior corps, but it's a completely different experience). As far as boyfriends/girlfriends go, they have their entire lives to spend time together if they want. Being separated for 12 weeks should not be a problem. If it is a problem, then they obviously aren't that committed. I don't mean to kick a dead horse or sound cliche when I say it's difficult to understand for those who have not marched. But what you gain in those 12 weeks is a 128 member family (in my days it was 128 - what is it now 150?). And I don't use the word "family" lightly. The people that I marched with I consider my brothers and sisters. Just as an example to try to describe it - I have a group of about 10 friends at work who we all joined the company at about the same time in the early to mid 90's. We have seen each other essentially every day for 15 years. We eat lunch together, we hang out on weekends together, we vacation together. We are about as close as you can imagine people who aren't married can be. Yet I feel closer to the drumcorps friends I made in 12 weeks over 15 years ago. We just share a unique bond ("we band of brothers") that everyone who marches understands and those who haven't don't. We few, we happy few, we band of brothers; For he to-day that marches with me Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile, This day shall gentle his condition; And gentlemen not marching Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here, And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks That marched with us upon Finals day. Shakespeare gets it.

Huh? I was at the show too. Nice stadium and a great show.

Boy - this thread is sort of depressing. But it makes me appreciate the choices I made and the opportunities I took advantage of. I got to march 4 years in two different corps. First year in Sky Ryders we placed 19th, so I know how it is to be in a lower placing corps. Next year we placed 12th which was a great experience to come from 19th and then make it into top 12. The following year I almost didn't march. Sky raised their dues to a point that I just couldn't afford to march. I owed money from my spring semester at school and wouldn't be able to register in the fall until it was paid off, so I decided to work for the summer and then march my ageout year after that. A friend who had marched with me at Sky was now at Bluecoats and luckily they convinced me at the last minute to inquire about filling a hole that they had in the line which I did. I went on to march my ageout at Bluecoats also. While I was never in a corps that was a contender for the the top spot or even top 6, I have no regrets. I am thankful that I had 4 years and got to experience a range of aspects of drumcorps as I said. I'm thankful that I was talked out of skipping a year due to money concerns. I think this thread is good for those readers who might consider not marching or taking a year off for whatever reason. Whatever reason you have for not marching, it's not good enough. March. Your time is limited. You will not regret it. You will never regret leaving your girlfriend/boyfriend for the summer. If they can't wait 12 weeks for you, they aren't right for you. You will never regret not working for the summer or not taking that summer session of school to graduate early. There's no age limit to school. There is for drumcorps.

Well, perhaps I made a hasty judgement of BD's show this year. I should probably keep an open mind about it for now and give it a few more viewings. What I wrote was pretty soon after the end of the show and was venting some frustration. I felt that their 2007 show was incredibly executed, but their show was terrible. I wanted to like it and tried many many times. It was musically flat. As my wife pointed out they only had two dynamics: soft for the ballad and loud for everything else. Visually they had black flags and then white flags. Their GE scores should have been in the tank - far below anyone else in the top 7. And I think if it had been any other corps, that's where the GE scores would have been. Like I said in a previous reply - I don't have anything against BD. Some of my favorite shows are BD shows. I just feel like they have gotten some measure of favoritism from judges in the past two years with respect to the show design and GE (not in execution, mind you - I feel they probably deserve every bit of that). It makes me wonder if BD staff/design intimidates judges. Not necessarily knowingly, but in that BD is probably the most respected corps and the most respected staff/design and if someone on staff/design disagrees with a judge about a certain aspect of the design of the show, perhaps the judge may be convinced that he was wrong in his judging and the staff was right because they are all incredibly creative and talented people and can do no wrong in the judges' mind. So I'm probably holding over some frustration over last year to this year (maybe). I'll go as far to admit I judged hastily Saturday night and will keep on open mind about it until I've seen them a few more times this year.

You are right. IMO. But I've tried to like the 2007 show. I wanted to like it. But seeing it several times towards the end of tour last year and listening to it many times, I still don't like it. Nobody I know personally likes the show. My wife saw the show and didn't like it because it had no musical shaping. It was either loud or soft - no inbetween. I agree that that was it's biggest problem and the main reason it's boring to me. A friend of mine who has been a BD fan since he knew what drumcorp was and marched there his ageout year says it was boring. So it's not just me. Don't get me wrong - I'm not a BD hater. BD has done some of my favorite shows. But I just don't see how they have been winning the last two years despite being the best in execution. It just makes me wonder what's going on with the judging. I know there are politics and favoritism. I fear that there's too much favoritism towards BD in the judging community.

Haha - you must have dropped some crack in your coolaid. First, I never mentioned PR. Second, in my list of "rankings", SCV would have been 3rd, not 2nd. Third, it was merely a list of shows that I found entertaining which I explained in my original post. So feel free at any time to explain what coolaid I've been drinking. I'm happy to discuss your opinion, but you haven't given anything on which to base a discussion. Oh - and you are full of crap with a turd on top. So there.

Ok. But without giving some reasoning behind your statement, there's not much point in making it. Actually - that's a common thing among "coolaid drinkers".

I hate to go negative, but I gotta vent. I'm tired of BD winning with boring shows. The last two seasons have been a snoozefest. I applaud and admire their talent, but I don't understand how they win when execution is only part of the equation. Their GE scores for the past two years should have been in the bottom 6 in my opinion. Winning all execution captions should put them around 3rd in that case. I think the judges are in the tank and the fans are drinking the coolaid. Sorry - call me a basher, hater, idiot - whatever - flame away. On a more positive note - congrats Crown! For me, they tie with Bluecoats (homer alert) for most entertaining show of the evening - followed closely by SCV, BAC and Cavies in that order. Congrats to Blue Stars and Crossmen for making the evening show. Well done!

I want to like Cadets so badly because they are so good. I've loved the music for the past two years, but the over-use of narration (IMHO) really detracts from their shows. Also - the narration this year just strikes me all wrong. It comes across as self indulgent. The inclusion of the whole cancer thing is weird to me. And she talks about her kids like they're an afterthought ("Sure - I was there for them - but I just loved my work"). *That* really grates on me. Can't argue with the talent and execution though. I really like the flags that when not moving don't really look like anything, but when they spin they look like money. That's really cool.

I give. You win!

Oh yeah - one summer they used my credit card to pay for their trip to finals (including finals tickets for the family) - plus other miscellaneous things they bought over the summer (total of about $1000). They justified it by saying that they had to take responsibility for paying my balance on it over the summer so they should be allowed to use it. Of course, they only paid the minimum amount for the 3 months which amounted to about $50. Ok - well I think they probably did eventually pay off most of what they put on it. But I sure was hot when I came home to find that my $300 balance had ballooned to over $1000!

My parents moved while I was on tour and didn't tell me where. This happened twice. I found them both times though.

Well technically, it *is* ilegal - not because he made a copy of material he owns, but because it's illegal to break the encyption on the DVDs. Under fair use, he can legally make copies, but the problem is that you can't make copies without (illegally) breaking the encryption. This is a problem that needs to be fixed because the laws preventing decryption result in the violation of fair use (in my humble non-lawyer opinion).

I've always liked the "I don't feel tardy" during Van Halen's "Hot for Teacher". Oops - wrong musical genre.

"COURTSHIP AND CIVIL UNIONS" just doesn't have the same ring to it.

OMG - I was on tour with Coats for two weeks as a volunteer and didn't even know they had used cuffs until now.