DAILY STAFFERS TRY OUT MASTERS.ORG'S AUGUSTA LIVE OFFERING

By Brian Helfrich and Erik Swanson, Staff Writers

We opened the Augusta Live window from Masters.org at 2:00pm ET, which displayed a message stating, “There is currently no live coverage from the Masters. Please check back later.” At 2:03pm, the feed launched directly into live action with a shot of Stewart Cink sinking a birdie putt at the third hole. ESPN's Mike Tirico, who was announcing the action alone, provided no introduction for the feed. The most striking aspect of the feed was the outstanding picture, displayed in a widescreen format with quality nearing that of HDTV. The audio came through clearly and in sync with the action on the screen. The picture never experienced any buffering issues, only freezing for several seconds on three separate occasions.

The Masters Live window in the upper-right corner featured rotating logos of sponsors ExxonMobil and AT&T, which switched approximately every 15 seconds. The upper-left corner featured both The Masters and the “Powered By IBM” logos. The window allowed viewers to launch a pop-up scoreboard (not activated for the Par 3 Contest), maximize to a full-screen picture, turn alerts on and off and create custom alerts for up to five players. The Masters Live window allows users to switch between five different channels: Interview, Par 3, Amen Corner, Holes 15 & 16 and Masters Extra. The Par 3 was the only active channel today.

The session timed out about every 10 minutes, displaying the message “Your Augusta Live Full Screen Video session has timed out” and giving viewers the option to resume or stop their session.

Tirico occasionally cut to CBS' Peter Kostis for interviews on the course with golfers. Kostis was sporting a CBS Sports polo shirt, while conducting the interviews with an ESPN microphone, while Andy North, who joined Tirico in the booth for several minutes after completing his round, was dressed in ESPN gear.

At 2:51pm, Tirico said, “We’ll be back in about eight minutes,” and the screen went black and the audio was cut. In the next nine minutes, the feed faded in and out with frequent periods in which Tirico audibly interacted with the crew. At 2:53pm, the feed returned for a brief Kostis interview with Zach Johnson before going black again. From 2:55pm to 2:58pm the feed displayed a video montage of the day’s events, including player shots and crowd participation. The feed returned at 3:02pm, perfectly in sync with the ESPN coverage that began at 3:00pm, although the online picture featured a notably clearer picture than the TV. When the TV coverage cut to its first ad break, the online feed went black, then returned with a brief promo highlighting the three sponsors, IBM, ExxonMobil and AT&T, and then went black again before returning with the ESPN coverage.