KEY POINTS:
I won't have been the only person on my knees in despair in front of the TV screen at 2.30am this morning watching as Alinghi slipped across the finish line to claim the America's Cup a second ahead of Team New Zealand.
As an excited Peter Montgomery said, "talk
about high drama off Valencia!" It's okay when high drama ends with us winning, it's a bit deflating when it goes the other way!
Anyway, the disappointing ooutcome of that nail-biting finish aside, I have to say I was impressed with the Live Sailing virtual coverage of the race provided by Alcatel Lucent.
The service would have been under heavy load last night, but it held up extremely well. I had my laptop set up so I could watch the live TV coverage and refer to the virtual racing coverage for extra info.
Live Sailing provided an animated picture of the race course, plotting the yachts on the course and key information such as wind direction, speed, distance and the advantage line.
The Shockwave-based service ran smoothly throughout the race, updating all of the information sets without any disruption other than the occasional "data buffering" icon popping up.
The audio feed likewise, stood up to the test, though I'd rather listen to the Kiwi commentators than those providing the official cup commentary available through Live Sailing.
The great thing about the service was that I was able to replay the crucial parts of the race instantly, checking all the key data sets as I did so.
It all looked pretty impressive, graphically similar to the Virtual Spectator service we saw used in Auckland during the last America's Cup, but running better in the live environment.
That just goes to show how much compression technology has improved and broadband has become more pervasive in the last four years.
I was using Live Sailing over my wi-fi connection, with no discernable loss of speed.
So all up, a good example of how the internet can add a new dimension to coverage of live events.
I'd have felt out of touch relying solely on Live Sailing for my Cup viewing, you can't beat the TV coverage.
But as a supplementary service, especially for Cup enthusiasts happy to stump up the 30 euro ($NZ52) subscription fee, it was surely an invaluable tool.
Lets hope they bring it back for next time and who knows what other elements will be possible by then - full-quality live streaming video is one likely feature.
