I watched it out of curiosity, and noticed some major technical issues which made it looked amateurish. I would think that PBS would be capable of much greater technical quality, especially for a video that has been hyped up in the press beforehand.

I sincerely felt that I could do better with just a modern consumer-class HD camcorder and a few minutes in Premiere to overlay the graphics.

Issues I noticed:

Interlacing
Low audio
Horrible CG technique (reflective screen behind talent)
Bad camera work (only part of screen visible, rough movement)
Bad set design (really, is it that hard to take a minute and plan it out?)

Feel free to point out other issues.

YouTube - Rep. Michele Bachmann Delivers Tea Party Response to State of the Union (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fRxO_Yx99I&hd=1)

You do realize that the video you were watching was from a pool feed camera???

I removed two posts that were politically oriented rather than technical. Please keep the dialog about the technical video issues Jordan brought up, not politics. Thank you.

I was curious as to why Ms. Bachmann looked slightly off to the side. Didn't they have a camera -mounted teleprompter?

She was addressing the her primary Tea Party camera. What you are watching is the feed of a pool camera which is why everything looks out of place.

Given the difference in quality, I wonder why they didn't just use the pool camera to also feed the webcast? Didn't anyone from the TP think this through, particularly the potential eyeline issues?