My enhanced Jazz experience

After writing a story about the new Jazz TV Companion earlier today, I decided to take it for a test spin for a quarter tonight while watching from home. As per the press release from the NBA and the Jazz, the fancy new toy at utahjazz.com was supposed to give me an enhanced television-viewing experience.

It certainly took my full attention away from the Jazz’s blowout loss, so I’ll consider that an immediate enhancement.

If I’d never been to NBA.com or, better yet, ESPN.com during a game and used their real-time boxscores and play-by-play features, I’d probably rave about this new product. But it only had a few more whistles and bells than the live boxscores those Web sites have been providing in recent years, and it seemed to have some bugs and aspects that need fine-tuning.

Don’t mean to nitpick, because it was pretty cool for the most part. The display was sharp-looking and, as promised, quite user-friendly. With this tool, you don’t need to wait for an announcer to tell you how many points, rebounds, turnovers, etc., a certain player or team has. It’s all right there at your fingertips. Very handy. You can also look back and see how a certain run began or catch up if you missed a minute or two. Like that as well.

One problem, however, was that while using the Safari browser on my MacBook Pro laptop, I was not able to successfully launch the chat feature. Perhaps I’ll try Firefox next time.

There was also about a 10-second lag time between what you saw on TV and when it appeared on the computer screen – not sure if that can be tweaked at all to get it closer to live action.

The shot-chart feature was pretty snazzy, but I wish it displayed more than just the most-recent 10 shots. I tried to look at previous quarters – my test run was in the fourth – and it wouldn’t show those earlier attempts and makes. It’d be really interesting to see a full-game shot chart.

One thing I noticed – and I’m sure the Matthews and Marquette followers did, too – was that Wesley Matthews did not have a mug shot next to his name. Oops. Guess the photographers had less faith he’d make the team than the Jazz coaching staff because there was a question mark in a box where Matthews’ photo was supposed to be. The Jazz might wanna snap a shot of him and post that pretty quickly seeing as it looks like he’ll be here for a while. His face is missing from his NBA.com profile, too.

Here’s what he looks like in case anybody was wondering:

The Companion certainly has potential, though, and allowing fans access to pregame notes is an especially nice feature.

Overall, it is kind of fun and interesting. It will certainly be visited by me often, especially during boring blowouts when some extra enhancing is in order.