No one at CBS Sports was thrilled with the rain delay that moved the men’s singles final match to Monday afternoon – except maybe the folks at CBSSports.com. Thanks to a quickly formed agreement between CBS Sports and the USTA, Monday’s final will be streamed on USOpen.org – the only CBS broadcast window that will be streamed online during the course of the two-week tournament.

IBC 2009 reported attendee figures of a little more than 44,000 this year and while those “official” numbers are only off pace from last year by about 9% the perception from attendees and exhibitors alike through Saturday was that it was down about 30%. But do the numbers really matter to anyone but the trade show organizers? Apparently not, as anecdotal evidence from across the spectrum of attendee and exhibitor found the less crowded environment led to better conversations, more effective demos and, most importantly, even business deals getting done.

When a new coach comes to town, he always has new rules — and sometimes those rules work to the advantage of local broadcasters. In Rex Ryan’s first season as head coach of the New York Jets, he is giving SportsNet New York unprecedented access to his team, even allowing some of his players to go to work for SNY.

The rain delay during what should have been the final days of the U.S. Open proved to be a nightmare for some of the players, but host broadcaster CBS Sports had come prepared. Before the start of each year’s tournament, CBS Sports’ production team chooses several archived matches that could air in the case of rain delay, and, with a tapeless archive at their fingertips, accessing that content is easier than ever.

The Sept. 19 bout between Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Juan Manuel Marquez will thrill not only the throng gathered at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas but also those willing to part with $12.50-$15 to see it live in one of 170 theaters that will carry it nationwide or $49.95 to watch it on HBO PPV. It’s the first title bout shown live on a Saturday night both on PPV and theatrically simultaneously. (The first CCTV fight was Sugar Ray Leonard vs. Roberto Duran II in 1980.)

The IBC awarded the 2009 IBC International Honour for Excellence to the Metropolitan Opera and Mark Schubin, whose own Schubin Cafe blog is featured exclusively on the SVG Website was on hand to accept the award (first, congrats Schubin on a great honor, err, honour!) Schubin laid out the strong relationship between technology and the Metropolitan Opera (something he did for SVG attendees of last year’s NAB Chairman’s Retreat in Las Vegas) and last night he detailed the role HD plays.

Getting 32 different signals from the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center to destinations across the globe is a complicated endeavor, but, for the past 15 days, Genesis Networks has been up to the task.

Last Friday, the rain was coming down steadily in Flushing Meadows. As the afternoon dragged on, the USTA was hoping to find a two-hour window, during which all three of that day’s matches would take place simultaneously on Ashe, Armstrong, and Grandstand. There was just one problem: the production truck supporting Grandstand had already left, since that court was, theoretically, dark for the rest of the tournament.

CBS Sports director Bob Fishman knows the ebb and flow of a tennis match. Having spent years in the director’s chair for CBS’s broadcasts of the U.S. Open, few events ruffle his feathers – but great moments like Roger Federer’s between-the-legs winner in Sunday’s semi-final match call for a deviation from Fishman’s “keep it simple, stupid” mantra.

Grass Valley’s Dyno Director turned a lot of heads at IBC, making the move onto the show floor after being in stealth mode at NAB. For sports users the system ties into the K2 line of Grass Valley servers and allows users to use a touch screen interface to add a wealth of functionality that typically was only available through a production switcher.

Premier Media Group (PMG), Australia’s leading sports producer and broadcaster, has selected a T-VIPS JPEG2000 based-system to power a new permanent national contribution network between its playout centre and key sporting venues throughout the country. The T-VIPS contribution and distribution system has been tested and deployed with the assistance of the T-VIPS Australian business partner, Gencom Technology Limited, based in Sydney.

Viewcast hit the IBC exhibition with a spanking new “streaming media appliance” that company execs say sets a new benchmark in price/performance ratio for those looking to stream Adobe Flash h.264 video in multiple resolutions and bit rates simultaneously.

Telecast Fiber’s Rich Cerny gave us a sneak peak at the TeleCube on the last day on NAB in April but at IBC the TeleCube has made the leap from concept to preliminary data sheet. What does it do? The small patent-pending connection allows a simpel 50 ohm balanced I/O port to be configured as a 3 Gbps serial input or output, fiber or copper.

To be honest, IBC hasn’t been this much fun since the Brits and the rest of Europe seemed hell bent on making Yanks feel like losers for building out HD distribution chain that couldn’t deliver 1080p to viewers. Everywhere one turned three or four years ago there was a sense of smug self-satisfaction in the possibility of using MPEG4 to deliver 1080p to homes. This year’s object of smug self-satistfaction? One’s own belief in whether or not 3D is good for the industry.

ESPN’s new network in the UK isn’t the only way the network is impacting the industry across the pond. Last night ESPN received the IBC Innovation Award for most innovative project in content creation for the Virtual Playbook. “Innovation has kept ESPN at the forefront of sports television for the last 30 years,” says Rob Hunter, ESPN, VP of Digital Media at the ceremony.

Itsy, bitsy cameras continue to be a product category that can create some excitement on a trade show floor. Fast Forward Video is demonstrating an HD camera at IBC that has no CCU, a 2/3-inch single-chip CMOS sensor, and is only 1.5×1.5×3 inches without lens. The camera is controlled through an Ethernet port with software control of white balance, gamma, etc. Resolution ranges up to 1080p/3fps and output is SD-SDI or HD-SDI.

Virtual sets have always been tricky business but VRCAM from FOR-A, a plug-in for its Brainstorm eStudio 3D realtime graphics software package, is looking to simplify operatons. With VRCAM, a virtual studio can be created without any modifications to existing cameras, lenses, tripods and other parts of an established camera system. Studio operation is simplified because the VRCAM system requires no location data detection sensors or complex calibrations typically required by a traditional virtual studio, when used with the MBP-12CK chroma key option found on FOR-A’s MBP-1244 video card.

We ran into Del Bothof, one of our favorite experts on all things regarding signal transport, and he tipped us off to a small company that might be a great fit for college and high school sports broadcasters.

Aspera hits the IBC show floor excited about the opportunities in the European market but also about some high-performance work the company has been doing for Amazon Web Services. Aspera’s On-Demand service is the backbone of Amazon’s On-Demand service that allows users to transfer files at full bandwidth to the Amazon remote cloud infrastructure.

EVS and Quantel now have an integrated production workflow made possible by the recent adoption of the Panasonic DVCPRO HD Codec by EVS, which is now natively supported by EVS production servers and Quantel’s new file system virtualisation technology.

Riedel’s IBC stand was highlighted by a Virtual Key Panel that featured everyone’s favorite four-letter word: free. Designed for Artist intercom systems. the VCP-1004 Virtual Panel allows a regular computer to be used as an intercom panel (as long as it’s combined with any Artist digital matrix intercom system via the VoIP-108 G2 client card).

With the European continent making the move to HD and Surround Sound Dolby’s IBC stand reflects the excitement as products like Dolby Digital Plus and Pulse allow first-time Surround Sound broadcasters to take advantage of second-generation Surround Sound improvements.

U.S. Open officials say they are ready to “develop” plans for a roof over Arthur Ashe Stadium, but any decision remains “some time” away. This year’s event was disrupted by rain, and an extra day’s play was required for the second year running. But the estimated $100 million cost of a roof remains a major issue. “We are substantially farther along the road of consideration than we were six months ago,” said U.S. Tennis Association chief Gordon Smith. There have been a few preliminary studies regarding a roof. The main courts at the Australian Open and Wimbledon each have a roof, and there are plans to construct one at the French Open. But the size of Arthur Ashe Stadium, which has a capacity of 23,000, makes it a more expensive process than at the other Grand Slam tournaments…

A new 6 x 9 foot LED sign is available at less than half normal price. This is a 10mm pitch, 3-in-1 SMD (in other words, R, G and B all in one pixel assembly) indoor LED sign made by one of the world’s highest-quality manufacturers, using great Cotco/Cree diodes and already built into a top-quality steel frame. You’ve seen this manufacturer’s LED boards at the world’s biggest sporting events. 192 x 288 resolution. Over 1500 NITs calibrated. Full warranty. Sold with controller and software, so just feed it video from any PC with DVI link. $45,000.

FOR-A has its opera glasses on, as the manufacturer of video and audio systems for the broadcast and professional video industries saluted the New York Metropolitan Opera for winning the International Honour of Excellence award from IBC for broadcasting The Met: Live in HD to digital cinemas.

Avid released the latest version of its integrated suite of editorial, graphics, and image-processing tools for studios, facilities, broadcasters, and post houses at IBC2009 at the RAI Centre in Amsterdam, saying its DS 10.2 offers enhanced functionality for increased performance and creative capabilities due to extended AVX2 plug-in support, 2K playback capabilities, and the recent qualification of the new HP Z800 platform.

Broadcast Pix displayed its iPixPad application for the Apple iPhone and iPod Touch, which enables users of its Slate integrated live production system to control the system through those devices, at IBC2009 at the RAI Centre in Amsterdam, and the company says iPixPad should be available as a free download from the online Apple Store within one month.

NBC Sports took home three Primetime Emmy Awards for its coverage of the Opening Ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games: Outstanding Special Class Program; Outstanding Directing for a Variety, Music, or Comedy Special (Bucky Gunts, director); and Outstanding Technical Direction, Camerawork, Video Control for a Miniseries, Movie, or Special.

Sling Media announced at IBC2009 at the RAI Centre in Amsterdam that its SlingPlayer Mobile Wi-Fi application is now available for Apple iPhone and iPod Touch users in 16 additional countries across Europe, following its launch in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom in May.

Comcast SportsNet Bay Area promoted Jen Franklin to senior director of digital media, where she will run CSNBayArea.com and CSNCalifornia.com. She had been director of marketing and interactive communications.

The New York Times reports that, tacitly displaying their frustration with the country’s chief source for television ratings, 14 media companies and advertisers said Thursday that they had formed a research organization to pursue new methods to measure audiences.

Tennis Channel took a poke at MSG Varsity, the Cablevision Systems-owned high school channel that is launching on the cable operator’s systems Sept. 24, in its latest volley against Cablevision in the carriage dispute between the two parties, reports Mike Reynolds of Multichannel News.

Keyframe, a service division of Daktronics, produced crowd prompts, welcome messages, real-time data frames, and statistical layouts for the ribbon-board displays at Arrowhead Stadium, home of the National Football League’s Kansas City Chiefs, BroadcastEngineering reported.

AT&T’s U-verse TV service became the latest multichannel-TV provider to sign up for NFL Network’s NFL RedZone channel, joining Verizon Communications’ FiOS TV, Comcast, and Dish Network, reports John Eggerton of Broadcasting & Cable.

The International Olympic Committee tapped CAA Sports as a strategic media adviser, giving the company a major role in the negotiations for U.S. TV rights to the 2014 and 2016 Olympic Games, report Tripp Mickle and John Ourand of SportsBusiness Journal.

ESPN launched its second local sports site, ESPN Boston, following in the footsteps of its ESPN Chicago, which launched in April, and Eric Fisher of SportsBusiness Journal wonders how much of an effect the sports giant’s local ventures will have on the way fans consume sports media.

The next big thing in sports? 3D, writes Toni Fitzgerald of Media Life, as ESPN presented Saturday’s college football clash between USC and Ohio State in 3D, following in the footsteps of the National Basketball Association and the National Football League, which have dabbled in the technology.

ESPN founder Bill Rasmussen laments the fact that the National Hockey League is no longer a part of the sports network’s offerings, writes Mike Penner of the Los Angeles Times.

Kombat MMA, a video-on-demand service featuring four 90-minute mixed-martial-arts cards per month, will debut on Comcast systems in south Florida Tuesday, reports R. Thomas Umstead of Multichannel News.

The five Olympic rings in 3D? The British Broadcasting Corp. is considering just that for the 2012 Olympic Games from London, reports Maxine Shen of the New York Post.

Outdoor Channel was added to Comcast’s Digital Preferred tier in Portland, Salem, and Corvallis, OR, and Vancouver and Longview, WA, Mike Reynolds of Multichannel News reports.

Despite fears that several National Football League games are facing TV blackouts in their local markets due to not selling out, week one of the league’s season came and went without any blackouts, largely due to some deadline extensions, reports John Eggerton of Broadcasting & Cable.

Major League Baseball announced its master 2010 regular-season schedule for all 30 clubs on Tuesday, meaning you can start dreaming ahead now.