Tech Beat: March Madness fans benefit from On Demand, 3-D
Live coverage of the NCAA March Madness basketball tournament can now be enjoyed through the privacy of online on-demand video or the spectacle of 3-D movie theaters. Tech Beat reporter Adam Balkin filed the following report.
To view our videos, you need to
enable JavaScript. Learn how.
install Adobe Flash 9 or above. Install now.
Then come back here and refresh the page.
There are now many ways for fans to follow the National Collegiate Athletic Association March Madness basketball tournament when they are away from the living room or favorite water hole.
People have been able to fill out March Madness brackets, get live instant updates, and receive news and highlights on any device for a while. This year, the extra boost is that fans can watch games live, even in high-definition, at the NCAA's March Madness On Demand website, mmod.ncaa.com.
Also, while receiving television on one's phone to the tune of $10 to $25 a month is nothing drastically new, this year most wireless carriers are now bumping up their March Madness coverage. FloTV on Verizon and AT&T, for example, may offer more choices than an actual television.
"The ESPN broadcast will be what ESPN has. That's for the opening round, so basically Thursday and Friday," says Brent Clark of AT&T. "Following that, all of CBS's coverage, we have three channels dedicated on each region, so you'll have the ability to navigate around what each region is doing."
This is also the first year CBS and the NCAA are offering all the games for $5, via a livestream through their joint iPhone app.
Finally, a completely new way to experience March Madness this year goes beyond users' computers and homes. Now, fans can watch games in 3-D at designated movie theaters.
"This is the first year the NCAA Final Four will be shown live in 3-D on digital screens nationwide," says Devon Nagle of Cinedigm. "They know that they have to compete with the sports bars and your friend who has a nice flat screen. So a lot of theaters will be getting catering licenses for that, and you'll be able to buy beer, you'll be able to buy concessions. They're trying to make it as much like you're going to the event as possible. The gentleman who actually shot 'Avatar,' not [director James] Cameron, but the man actually in charge of the 3-D, is the person shooting this for CBS in 3-D."
At the moment, there are only 20 theaters signed up nationwide, but there could be up to 100 by the time of the Final Four games. To check to see if a neighborhood theater has signed up, visit www.cinedigm.com.