Play-off games in 720p vs. 1080i

[jimadams]

Well now... It appears it IS "them", not 720p and not the Sammy scaler.

Where did you find this?

Jim

[akirby]

Now it's starting to make sense. IIRC Fox is using a "splicer" that allows them to "splice" in their local commercials and logos onto the national feed which then goes directly out OTA. If they used the entire 19 mbps bandwidth then local stations could not do multi-casting. The other networks receive and re-broadcast the signal so they control the bandwidth.

Interesting.......

[akirby]

If you see a shot at field level from behind the bench and see distortions like wavy lines I *THINK* that's caused by the bench heaters and helmet warmers. This is very obvious - just like looking down a paved road on a 100 degree day.

[donshan]

As a viewer with only SDTV versions of these playoff games to watch(Sigh!), I can say the FOX station here was worse than the CBS EVEN in SDTV, especially color detail. In this case I am suspicious that the local FoX may be still using an old microwave link between their studio and the transmitter which is on a mountain many miles away, so they are compressing the signal more than the other stations to squeeze the digital feed to meet limited link bandwidth. This may also explain why they can't go HD.

Applying this idea to national sports, another factor in what others are observing in the HD picture is the uplink quality of the Satellite truck used to cover the games. What I am referring too, is that if you compress enough you can sent lousy PQ digital TV over a phone line, but good HD takes a bigger pipe all the way in every box and cable from the camera to your HDTV set. There is a problem in HD sports coverage, that maximum HD camera cable lengths for HD feeds are shorter than old analog cables.

The picture quality the viewer ends up with depends on a lot of equipment links in the chain. I am suspicious of the mobile dish links used to uplink game locations to the main network. If the truck is a new HD full bandwidth model(Think $million) you get a great PQ, if it is an old truck with a few HD items added as an "upgrade", they may need to set the compression lower to stay within the limits of the old spec equipment. This could also extend to local affiliates like mine, and one city gets great HD and another city has poor PQ.

I would think they would use "their very best" on the playoff games, but you never know. But the show must go on, even if you don't have the latest equipment for every camera

Someone in their engineering probably knows as the post above shows.

[jimadams]

For Feb 6 my hope is that FOX will "pull out the stops", bring in their finest trucks and glass, disallow any B/W "splicing" that compromises pq, opens up the "pipe", and does everything in their power to convey this event in full glory to those who chose to adopt this emerging technology.

And I sincely hope FOX is reading this. Or someone who can convey this and the above comments to FOX. Or, anyone can contact FOX to "inquire" as to why such a thread like this would even exist on this forum and, it seems there are others noticing.

Jim

[jelmarsh]

As I just wrote in Richard's poll, I thought the PQ was better for the Superbowl than earlier Fox HD broadcasts but still not as clear as CBS, ABC, ESPN. Still saw the "heatwave" but it was not nearly as pronounced this time.

[jimadams]

Yes, I agree. As I wrote in my other thread, I was looking for that degradation I saw and commented on at the head of this thread. I didn't see it, or at least not as dramatically as in that last Eagles playoff game but there was no A/B comparison with CBS like there was that Sunday.

And, a poster on my other thread implied that there was some "bit-shaving" going on so I've asked for more details on that.

Jim