Host Broadcast Services, the company that provides the broadcast feed for the
World Cup, said Tuesday it has doubled its audio filters to reduce the constant
blaring buzz of vuvuzelas.
I can see the future: TVs will come with a Safari Reader-like "Watchability" option that wipes out background images and noise and flattens out imperfections in faces and bodies.
Might not necessarily be miles away either. There already exists software that watches live video and can count appearances of your brand, size, length of time and so on to deliver a report on the potential impact your advertising has had.
It's not entirely clear that the audience want broadcasters to do this: while I certainly find it annoying, there are those who think it is part of the atmosphere of the game.
It might be part of the atmosphere of these games as played in SA, but it's not generally part of the game elsewhere, and it drowns out the slightly more subtle aspects of crowd noise, not to mention reducing the ability of players on the pitch to communicate - harming the quality of the football.
I'm not really into sports but this would have been the first thing I'd have tried as a broadcast engineer (after boosting and sweeping to find the appropriate frequencies). So yeah, it seems odd to me as well.
