The 2008 Beijing Olympics: NBC-HD, USA-HD, CNBC-HD, Universal-HD, Etc. [Text View]

DSperber

08-11-08, 02:05 PM

I've mentioned this before, but I feel NBC's TV Listings web page (http://www.nbcolympics.com/tv_and_online_listings/index.html) is near-worthless for my needs.

Aside from the currently lost description data (obviously, a temporary technical problem at this moment)... "error processing SSI file"... what is most important for me, and what is absolutely missing, is a way to find out WHAT IS PLAYING RIGHT NOW AT THIS MINUTE ON EACH CHANNEL???

What else could be more important? I don't want to know what will be playing sometime on the 11PM-11AM coverage on UHD or USA-HD... I want to know WHEN it will be on that channel, so that I can wake up and watch or set my DVR for a recording.

And, if I sit down to watch TV and can pick one of six HD channels, I'd like to know if something I'd like to watch is on and on what channel. Can't do that.

Also, you can't pick BOTH a sport and a channel... you can only pick one or the other.

So, for example if I want to watch table tennis (i.e. selected in the "sport" dropdown), there is again no easy user-friendly way to show this in 2-dimensions (e.g. by time of day on MSNBC in SD or USA-HD or UHD).

You have to pick a day, and then you get all channels. Or, you pick a sport and then you get all channels. But you can't get one channel all day for that date. If you try the latter you get the initial "everything" matrix with is worthless even if you click on any individual gray cell.

Mostly, I have no idea what's playing on any channel... and that is the whole point of providing this Guide.

I can't even go to my DVR's Guide and decide what to watch or what to record, because every time I tune to a channel something is showing that was unexpected per the Guide info (which may describe nothing more precise than an 8-hour TV session in a few phrases).

Very frustrating. Too much information content, and not enough perfectly instructional clues on how to navigate.

Only thing for sure: if you want to watch USA competitors, in any sport, tune in to NBC-HD. Oh... and also lots of commercials, blocking/pixelating on all close-ups and replays (especially rings wipes), in-studio echo, and overall audio level on NBC-HD that should be louder and with announcers onsite mixed to come out of center channel more prominently.

keenan

08-11-08, 02:29 PM

The forum lost some data, not sure if we'll get it back.

Apparently Google has the forum cached through Aug 6th, although I don't know what would be entailed to recover it for here.

ISO Perfect HDTV

08-11-08, 02:31 PM

If they dubbed all the commentary that would be foolish. You would end up with a track trying to not forshadow the upset, but knowing about it the whole time.

Poor commentators are a part of watching sports. Then again, if you just go by what you see, instead of accepting what the "experts" tell you, you're always better off.

As for the tape delay policy, I'm fine with it. But I don't like how certain things are force fed as delayed. Put weekend and primetime coverage on NBC, but put the same events live on USA, USA HD, Universal HD, etc to at least give viewers a choice. Same broadcast, one more convenient for some.

I totally agree with that, I'm really upset by the luck of Live coverage for the West Coast, I guess the East only is getting it live. That 4x100 relay was so amazing that made me forget for a second that I was cheering for something that happened already several hours earlier....which is total nonsense for any sport events

JCL

08-11-08, 02:39 PM

Apparently Google has the forum cached through Aug 6th, although I don't know what would be entailed to recover it for here.

The Olympics opened on the 8th.

How about recycling the material from the last Olympics (just kidding):

http://archive.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?threadid=434076

So have we improved in 4 years?

keenan

08-11-08, 03:02 PM

Frank Stein

08-11-08, 03:09 PM

^^^ Dish sure seems to be using the Olympics to pimp its 'Turbo' HD package. Saw it advertised all day long during NBC's daytime and primetime programming last Sunday.

And what's wrong with that? "Pimping"????

Are you suggesting Dish shouldn't be advertising?

Frank Stein

08-11-08, 03:12 PM

I totally agree with that, I'm really upset by the luck of Live coverage for the West Coast, I guess the East only is getting it live. That 4x100 relay was so amazing that made me forget for a second that I was cheering for something that happened already several hours earlier....which is total nonsense for any sport events

Here's what really makes me angry. I get up quite early to go to work, and therefore go to sleep early. NBC coverage of the major events doesn't start uptil 8pm. The really need to start it at 6pm so I can at least catch some of it. And yes, it all should be live. That's why all the games should be held in the U.S, particularly on the west coast.

sneals2000

08-11-08, 03:23 PM

The Olympics opened on the 8th.

How about recycling the material from the last Olympics (just kidding):

http://archive.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?threadid=434076

So have we improved in 4 years?

What from partial, separate - arguably lower production value (fewer special cameras and graphics), HD coverage for just two or three countries, to full 180/50i HD coverage of every event that is covered, with full production values, available in far more countries, often with 5.1 audio?

Yep - I'd say things have improved! I'm loving watching events live in HD on BBC HD and Eurosport HD here in Europe. (15-20Mbs H264 can look very nice indeed)

Rangwx

08-11-08, 03:23 PM

Here's what really makes me angry. I get up quite early to go to work, and therefore go to sleep early. NBC coverage of the major events doesn't start uptil 8pm. The really need to start it at 6pm so I can at least catch some of it. And yes, it all should be live. That's why all the games should be held in the U.S, particularly on the west coast.

Asking them to start events at 6 a.m. in China is unfair. Asking the rest of the world to forgo opportunities to host the Olympics is even more so.

sneals2000

08-11-08, 03:25 PM

Asking them to start events at 6 a.m. in China is unfair. Asking the rest of the world to forgo opportunities to host the Olympics is even more so.

My thoughts exactly - though I was hoping they were said with a degree of irony rather than actually intended!

2012 in London will be less of a timezone difference - but that still won't help the US show stuff in peak-time live - in fact it will be only one hour different to Athens 2004?

hphase

08-11-08, 03:28 PM

bicker1

08-11-08, 03:29 PM

The really need to start it at 6pm so I can at least catch some of it. Though by that logic, prime-time dramas and comedies should be broadcast starting at 6PM as well. Personally I'd be 100% in favor of that. 9PM is my bedtime. :)

Asking them to start events at 6 a.m. in China is unfair. Asking the rest of the world to forgo opportunities to host the Olympics is even more so.I suspect the first was not intended to be a serious expectation, and the second intended as a joke.

keenan

08-11-08, 03:31 PM

The Olympics are a living, breathing event.

Except on the US west coast. :p:D

Sorry, had to take the shot on that one. :D

DrLar

08-11-08, 03:34 PM

Say if Chicago wins the 2016 games (hopefully), I think west coast viewers won't get live events because of the 2 hour difference and will affect ratings? Absolute nonsense...

DSperber

08-11-08, 03:40 PM

The Olympics are a living, breathing event. Networks have always jumped onto the hot story of the moment to maximize interest (and yes, even ratings.) You don't want to be scooped, and you don't want to scoop yourself.If they can keep track of scores in realtime, and even play-by-play serves in tennis matches, and post this IN REALTIME on web sites (e.g. for the US Open), why can't NBC post what is "playing right now" on each channel of their Olympics coverage, on their own TV Listings web site?

For everything that's on UHD for the nighttime hours in Beijing (i.e. our daytime hours) it is a replay, not live. So they obviously edited things, and planned out what is going to be shown for the next 12 hours. Why don't they tell us that 12-hour schedule in a useful way, so we can plan to watch/record?

On NBC primetime and also weekend days, they flash these "coming up in 10 minutes" promos, to keep us glued. So why not provide something equivalent on their own TV Listing web pages?

I just want to see more detail than a gray block on a sport/day 2D newspaper or NBC matrix, when the TV channel on which that sport is shown should be a 3rd-dimension, and the time-of-day on which that sport is being presented should be a 4th-dimension. Drilling down is obviously the way to present all of this database of information, but NBC's site does not provide the proper drilldown tools or mechanism.

Hence I continue to watch one thing while missing something else I really wanted to see, or miss everything because I don't have enough TV's/DVR's to watch everything all the time.

I'm just saying... are you going to NBC's TV Listings for info on where/what/when to watch? Or are you using your own provider's Guide? That's the measure of relative utility of the two information sources.

BlingBling420

08-11-08, 03:43 PM

Just wanted to see if anyone agreed with my gripes - -

Here's is what I sent nbc(nbcolympicsfeedback@nbcuni.com) this morning:

Subject: Beach Volleyball Censorship etc.

Is it really necessary to censor the "dancing girls" that come out between every few points in the beach volleyball events? I find it funny that WE are censoring something that is taking place IN CHINA. I don't think the FCC is going to fine you, and I'm sure our precious fragile children will be OK, it's beach volleyball for crying out loud.

Few other things:

The opening ceremonies:

Any commentary other than historical explanations is inappropriate. The HD broadcast should have included a second audio track sans commentary for this reason. Also, camera choice was abysmal through a lot of it and too quick, I would have hoped that that would have been as choreographed as the rest of it. Hopefully all that will be cleaned up for the Blu-Ray as I am sure the tape was running on all camera feeds. Also, it was taped ahead of time, but, as the commercials were run, when you came back to the program, time had passed?

On all this "coverage":

The dedicated "basketball" and "soccer" channels in HD sit idle a lot of time. CNBC HD and Universal HD are simulcasts of what I would imagine is MSNBC HD sometimes for hours. Why don't you just tune us into other events on the Beijing Olympic feeds, or other countries besides the US and China on the main events. You could either run it with no commentary if staffing is an issue, or partner up with another English-speaking nation's finished feed w/commentary. Those extra stations shouldn't just sit on a static jpeg - so they are dedicated soccer and basketball, run those schedules as a crawl.

On the nbcolympics.com website:

I don't know who designed this thing, but I can't find anything precise about scheduling. I found one page that had an outline of all the channels and grayed areas for broadcast times, but no explanation of what. Upon mouseover, nothing(of course I haven't tried IE). When clicked, I get a static listing sometimes about as vague as hitting the info button on my TV remote, confusing. It would be nice to have when a particular event is going to be on a particular channel, not just a blanket list of what is on during a 3-4hour block.

Cable On demand:

All events broadcast online should also be available via the cable-provider's on demand. There were like 5 things available on our HD on demand last time I checked. This should be brimming with content. The PC I have connected to my TV does not handle HD well at all from within a flash or silverlight container...

Anyway, I'm sure someone important will never see this, but there they are, my complaints.

keenan

08-11-08, 03:47 PM

Say if Chicago wins the 2016 games (hopefully), I think west coast viewers won't get live events because of the 2 hour difference and will affect ratings? Absolute nonsense...

The taped delay gives you idea of how cutthroat the whole ratings system is. Roughly 80% of TV viewers are located in the eastern part of the country and therefore the bulk of the ratings strength. You would think that the 20% out west wouldn't matter, so show it live out here as well. But, with ratings so important to eeking out every dollar possible from advertisers, even the relatively small 20% out west still add up to that total, so it's no surprise that NBC would try and capture evey viewer possible.

Ratings=Money=the ability to broadcast the Games.

I don't like it, but it's no secret why they do it.

hphase

08-11-08, 03:49 PM

reuthermonkey

08-11-08, 03:50 PM

Here's what really makes me angry. I get up quite early to go to work, and therefore go to sleep early. NBC coverage of the major events doesn't start uptil 8pm. The really need to start it at 6pm so I can at least catch some of it. And yes, it all should be live. That's why all the games should be held in the U.S, particularly on the west coast.

i hope most of this was sarcasm, but either way, watch UniversalHD and you'll see quite a bit of Olympic coverage on in the morning as you get up for work.

keenan

08-11-08, 04:05 PM

If they can keep track of scores in realtime, and even play-by-play serves in tennis matches, and post this IN REALTIME on web sites (e.g. for the US Open), why can't NBC post what is "playing right now" on each channel of their Olympics coverage, on their own TV Listings web site?

For everything that's on UHD for the nighttime hours in Beijing (i.e. our daytime hours) it is a replay, not live. So they obviously edited things, and planned out what is going to be shown for the next 12 hours. Why don't they tell us that 12-hour schedule in a useful way, so we can plan to watch/record?

On NBC primetime and also weekend days, they flash these "coming up in 10 minutes" promos, to keep us glued. So why not provide something equivalent on their own TV Listing web pages?

I just want to see more detail than a gray block on a sport/day 2D newspaper or NBC matrix, when the TV channel on which that sport is shown should be a 3rd-dimension, and the time-of-day on which that sport is being presented should be a 4th-dimension. Drilling down is obviously the way to present all of this database of information, but NBC's site does not provide the proper drilldown tools or mechanism.

Hence I continue to watch one thing while missing something else I really wanted to see, or miss everything because I don't have enough TV's/DVR's to watch everything all the time.

I'm just saying... are you going to NBC's TV Listings for info on where/what/when to watch? Or are you using your own provider's Guide? That's the measure of relative utility of the two information sources.

"On NBC primetime and also weekend days, they flash these "coming up in 10 minutes" promos, to keep us glued."

For this reason you mentioned above. They want those eyeballs glued to the TV as long as possible to see every ad. It's why the programming info for a 4-5hr block lists 5-8 sports with no actual times, they don't want you tuning it for just a particular sport, they want you watching the whole thing.

keenan

08-11-08, 04:12 PM

Decent NYT article on the delayed airings,

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=14421260&highlight=#post14421260

The Olympics provide a laboratory in viewer habits. The Games generate huge audiences — an average of 24.1 million viewers Saturday night — by showing sports that barely register a whisper of a rating for the years leading up to each Winter or Summer Games.

The passions of irate viewers — whether being in a time zone with taped footage or watching an opening ceremony on a lengthy tape delay — suggest something beyond a traditional desire to watch sports live.

They underscore how different stick-and-ball and Olympic audiences are. The latter is more female. And NBC considers the Olympics an entertainment like Fox’s “American Idol,” but not baseball. Before each Olympics, NBC tells us viewers want to see events when they’re most likely to be home to see them, even if they still like the ideal of live sports.

The underlined part is something I've been saying previously, and again, I don't like it, but what are you going to do short of finding alternative sources.

keenan

08-11-08, 04:16 PM

DrLar

08-11-08, 04:21 PM

Too bad for me, because I changed the channel at every commercial interruptions (that's like every 5 mins) that's how I found out that the US team won way earlier than expected. I completely understand the digi-tape delayed events on the morning, still I'm not convinced about live events, no matter how they shuffle them..

Lee L

08-11-08, 04:58 PM

TiVo asked you if you want to pad when it detects a live sports event per guide info, I think the DirecTV box may as well, although I'm not positive about that. I haven't checked my TiVo as I haven't recorded any of the Games other than the OC, so I'm not sure how it "sees" NBC's broadcasts, I suspect it sees them as normal TV shows.

Actually, the DirecTV box does not ask this, but it is absolutely genious that TiVo now does. I will have to start pushing for that over at DBS Talk.

bicker1

08-11-08, 05:13 PM

The scheduling and control process would have to be exposed to the public, and right now there is no financial incentive (or legislative mandate, like for captions) to do so.And beyond that, let's look at this in perspective. We "want" what you termed public "scheduling and control". Viewers who are hearing impaired "need" Closed Captions. And as much as they need Closed Captions, the law doesn't require CC for networks less than four years old, for programming that is substantially musical in content, produced by certain smaller and municipal sources, etc. The law also doesn't require CC for online streaming, downloaded content (i.e., Amazon Unbox), etc. And beyond all that, many hearing impaired viewers assert that the reliability of even standard broadcast CC is very poor, and that there is a lot work still to be done before we can say that their needs are being effectively addressed. It'll be a long time before what we want gets to the top of the priority list.

Bringing this back on topic, the HD feeds of the Olympics are actually pretty disappointing vis a vis Close Captioning. Of course, everything is live captioned, as you would expect, but the captioning is choppy at times, a little tough to follow, especially when the captioner apparently gives up trying to catch up, in the middle of a sentence, and then just picks up in the middle of the next sentence. That's one thing that was totally missing from the laws: Clear standards for what constitutes adequate viewability of CC. Don't blame NBC: This is clearly the FCC's fault for failing to adequately consider what its constituency (in this case, hearing impaired viewers) actually need.

hphase

08-11-08, 05:25 PM

I don't want to take this any farther off topic, except to say that captioning is a huge technical undertaking for a network or other program originator. It would be safe to assume that very few program originators would go to the trouble if there wasn't a legislated mandate.

This is NOT the place to discuss the completeness or validity of that mandate. We now return you to your originally scheduled topic (hopefully.)

keenan

08-11-08, 05:52 PM

Actually, the DirecTV box does not ask this, but it is absolutely genious that TiVo now does. I will have to start pushing for that over at DBS Talk.
Yes, it's a great feature and I would like to see on the D* box as well.

sneals2000

08-11-08, 05:53 PM

The opening ceremonies:

Any commentary other than historical explanations is inappropriate. The HD broadcast should have included a second audio track sans commentary for this reason. Also, camera choice was abysmal through a lot of it and too quick, I would have hoped that that would have been as choreographed as the rest of it. Hopefully all that will be cleaned up for the Blu-Ray as I am sure the tape was running on all camera feeds. Also, it was taped ahead of time, but, as the commercials were run, when you came back to the program, time had passed?

Did you watch the opening ceremony on NBC - who apparently had their own cameras in addition to the host broadcaster operation (which is what most of the rest of the world - including the UK, Canada etc. saw?)

If so then it is possible that NBC dropped in shots of their own interrupting the host broadcaster's coverage (and increased the cut rate?)

Certainly watching on BBC HD the coverage was pretty good - and not that fast cut at all - with some very nice set pieces (though the odd not-quite-there shot). I believe YLE of Finland were responsible for the TV production of the ceremony? (Finnish, Swedish and Norwegian TV often has very high production values IMHO)

Run4two

08-11-08, 05:54 PM

As a frustrated west coast viewer, I can state that I will no longer watch the Olympics on NBC. I will watch UHD, the basketball channel (Mojo) and the soccer channel (Fox Sports HD). I will turn the channel at all commercials. I don't have the desire or time to put up with the "Commercial festival." Especially on NBC when I've already read the results on my computer or on ESPN.

sneals2000

08-11-08, 05:56 PM

I agree with you. I'd like my DVR to add time to record a game that runs over. The stations are told when the game will end and they can go to their own programs. Why not tell my DVR?

The scheduling and control process would have to be exposed to the public, and right now there is no financial incentive (or legislative mandate, like for captions) to do so.

Surely, isn't it possible for the recording start and stop to be triggered over the air - why pad when you can do it properly?

This is routine in Europe - on analogue using PDC (used in the UK) or VPS (used in Germany and other countries), and on digital using EIT events via DVB in many countries? The Sky, Freeview Playback (and soon Freesat) platforms in the UK all support broadcaster triggered record start/stop triggered from the station automation in the main - so event over and under runs don't stop shows, and those following, being recorded properly. (The UK has the advantage that networks carry each others data though AIUI)

keenan

08-11-08, 06:15 PM

Surely, isn't it possible for the recording start and stop to be triggered over the air - why pad when you can do it properly?

This is routine in Europe - on analogue using PDC (used in the UK) or VPS (used in Germany and other countries), and on digital using EIT events via DVB in many countries? The Sky, Freeview Playback (and soon Freesat) platforms in the UK all support broadcaster triggered record start/stop triggered from the station automation in the main - so event over and under runs don't stop shows, and those following, being recorded properly. (The UK has the advantage that networks carry each others data though AIUI)

AIUI, DVRs here trigger recordings using the guide data provided, and most, if not all, only update guide data once per day. For example, if the schedule changes, the DVR will still record the time period but it may not be what was actually shown due to network changes.

OTOH, since most DVRs are also connected via ethernet, a signal sent over the internet to "signal" the DVR that there's been a change doesn't seem out of the realm of possibility. Although, as we've seen with the audio issues, getting such a standard/system in place that everyone would agree upon may take an act of Congress, or even a "higher authority". :D

SteveBagley

08-11-08, 06:24 PM

This is routine in Europe - on analogue using PDC (used in the UK) or VPS (used in Germany and other countries), and on digital using EIT events via DVB in many countries? The Sky, Freeview Playback (and soon Freesat) platforms in the UK all support broadcaster triggered record start/stop triggered from the station automation in the main - so event over and under runs don't stop shows, and those following, being recorded properly. (The UK has the advantage that networks carry each others data though AIUI)

I can remember setting my VHS recorder to record movies that were split either side of the news and the PDC signals (at least on BBC) were clever enough to stop the recording during the news and pick it up afterwards. Is the stuff on Sky+, free[view/sat] playback as versatile?

Steven

HiDef Bob

08-11-08, 06:36 PM

The white water kayak and canoe looked fabulous today on CBC HD (via Star Choice)! Beautiful clean, pixel free images.

Love the super slo-mo and stobe images during the diving.

Also, great to finally see badminton in HD early this morning.

sneals2000

08-11-08, 06:42 PM

I can remember setting my VHS recorder to record movies that were split either side of the news and the PDC signals (at least on BBC) were clever enough to stop the recording during the news and pick it up afterwards. Is the stuff on Sky+, free[view/sat] playback as versatile?

Steven

Don't think Sky+ does that - not sure.

Freeview Playback (soon to be renamed Freeview+) does - as will Freesat. (The technical term is "Split Record" and is part of the Freeview and Freesat PVR specs, I believe. As is "Alternate Instance Record" where if you have a record clash with a channel that also has a "+1" variant then it will intelligently record that instance of the show instead. (In the UK we have a number of channels that allow you to watch a channel an hour delayed - I've always assumed this to be an American invention - is it?).)

sneals2000

08-11-08, 06:44 PM

HiDef Bob

08-11-08, 06:48 PM

Yep - I'm really enjoying the Badminton.

It was worth getting up at 5am in the morning!

keenan

08-11-08, 06:48 PM

Don't think Sky+ does that - not sure.

Freeview Playback (soon to be renamed Freeview+) does - as will Freesat. (The technical term is "Split Record" and is part of the Freeview and Freesat PVR specs, I believe. As is "Alternate Instance Record" where if you have a record clash with a channel that also has a "+1" variant then it will intelligently record that instance of the show instead. (In the UK we have a number of channels that allow you to watch a channel an hour delayed - I've always assumed this to be an American invention - is it?).)

It may be a UK adaptation of our prime time air times, east and west being 3hrs apart. Many cablenets, who only have the one feed for all time zones, often repeat a program 3hrs later which would put it in the "correct" time period for that zone - 6pm in the west you'll see "The Closer", which would be for eastern primetime of 9pm, and then it will re-air at 9pm western, primetime for the west.

keenan

08-11-08, 06:59 PM

Yep - I'm really enjoying the Badminton.

I'm enjoying that as well, something I would never have expected.

OTOH, the women's air gun competition was one of the more boring things I've ever seen. They hardly move and you can't see any action, just the results. :p

Seeing the emotion in the winner though was probably worth the effort of watching it.

sneals2000

08-11-08, 07:01 PM

It may be a UK adaptation of our prime time air times, east and west being 3hrs apart. Many cablenets, who only have the one feed for all time zones, often repeat a program 3hrs later which would put it in the "correct" time period for that zone - 6pm in the west you'll see "The Closer", which would be for eastern primetime of 9pm, and then it will re-air at 9pm western, primetime for the west.

Do most viewers have access to both feeds?

Here in the UK I have the following mainstream feeds of the subscription-free channels - and we only have one time zone:

ITV1,
ITV2, ITV2+1
ITV3, ITV3+1
ITV4, ITV4+1
C4, C4+1
E4, E4+1
More4, More4+1
Film4, Film4+1

Many of the pay-TV networks also have +1 variants, and ISTR Discovery have a +2 or +1.5 as well?.

The theory is that if you surf through a programme that has just finished on the main network, you can still watch it on the +1 (one hour delayed) variant. They're really useful if you have a PVR - but also really useful if you see an hour long show end on the regular service, as you can surf to the +1 variant and watch it start!

The BBC don't do this - they have their iPlayer intenet streaming 7 day catch-up service instead - and it is noticable that there isn't an ITV1+1 service - presumably for rights and advert reasons as ITV1 is regionalised. (C4 have to put up 6 regional advertising variants of C4 and C4+1 on satellite. ITV have many more advertising regions - 16+? - for ITV1 on satellite - so I guess they can't really do this. ITV2, 3 and 4, E4, More4 and Film4, are all nationwide services with no regional variations so only single streams on satellite)

sneals2000

08-11-08, 07:04 PM

AIUI, DVRs here trigger recordings using the guide data provided, and most, if not all, only update guide data once per day.

Ah - Sky, Freeview and Freesat all distribute their guide data via broadcast means, so update it continuously.

For example, if the schedule changes, the DVR will still record the time period but it may not be what was actually shown due to network changes.

Just like Tivo and Media Center (but not Fiji - which apparently DOES use UK OTA guide data?) in the UK. Good data - but out of date before the download has finished.

OTOH, since most DVRs are also connected via ethernet, a signal sent over the internet to "signal" the DVR that there's been a change doesn't seem out of the realm of possibility. Although, as we've seen with the audio issues, getting such a standard/system in place that everyone would agree upon may take an act of Congress, or even a "higher authority". :D

Surely receiving the trigger data via the broadcast path is the best method (assuming you have enough tuners or a co-ordinated plan to distribute guide data)? If you can receive the broadcast to record it then you can receive the accompanying "record start, record stop" data?

HiDef Bob

08-11-08, 07:14 PM

I'm enjoying that as well, something I would never have expected.

OTOH, the women's air gun competition was one of the more boring things I've ever seen. They hardly move and you can't see any action, just the results. :p

Seeing the emotion in the winner though was probably worth the effort of watching it.

When they showed Susan Nattrass of Canada in Trapshooting you could clearly see the targets exploding when the shells hit.

keenan

08-11-08, 07:18 PM

Do most viewers have access to both feeds?

No, all the major broadcast nets all have feeds tailored to a particular time zone, actually there's only two, an east and a west, but some local stations in the flyover part of the country tape and delay to fit their own time zone.

The cable channels though, with the majority of them having only the one feed are the one's where they'll repeat airings 3 hrs later. The big premium nets, like HBO and Showtime, both have east and west feeds that air programming to fit the east and west "primetime" periods just like the major broadcast nets.

For awhile, you get get both east and west broadcast fees from the sat carriers, but that's been long gone for a few years now and was only in special circumstances.

"Grey market feeds", like a west coast viewer who has a Canadian sat setup can get both east and west network feeds, but their numbers are no doubt negligible.

keenan

08-11-08, 07:26 PM

Ah - Sky, Freeview and Freesat all distribute their guide data via broadcast means, so update it continuously.

Just like Tivo and Media Center (but not Fiji - which apparently DOES use UK OTA guide data?) in the UK. Good data - but out of date before the download has finished.

Surely receiving the trigger data via the broadcast path is the best method (assuming you have enough tuners or a co-ordinated plan to distribute guide data)? If you can receive the broadcast to record it then you can receive the accompanying "record start, record stop" data?

Since over 80% of the US does not receive their programming via OTA broadcasting, a signal in the OTA carrier would be of no use. If, that signal was somehow incorporated so that satellite and cable company equipment would react to it, it would probably work, but now you're talking about 100's of different systems and transmission methods. Not even the two satcos transmit the same way, and cable companies have numerous different methods for getting the signal to the viewer, and a whole boatload of different equipment.

I suspect that in the UK, and possibly most other parts of the world, the whole system of TV transmission in a given country is much more uniform across the board which would make implementation much easier. Nothing of this nature happens fast and easy in the US. :D

keenan

08-11-08, 07:31 PM

When they showed Susan Nattrass of Canada in Trapshooting you could clearly see the targets exploding when the shells hit.

I wasn't referring to the trapshooting, it was the indoor airgun competition.

See the pics in the gallery part of the page below. They don't even move, don't even breath hardly and in fact, instead of closing one eye to aim, they use a blinder because the physical action of closing your eye creates too much stress and movement. :)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/10_m_Air_Rifle

HiDef Bob

08-11-08, 07:34 PM

HiDef Bob

08-11-08, 07:36 PM

I wasn't referring to the trapshooting, it was the indoor airgun competition.

See the pics in the gallery part of the page below. They don't even move, don't even breath hardly and in fact, instead of closing one eye to aim, they use a blinder because the physical action of closing your eye creates too much stress and movement. :)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/10_m_Air_Rifle

I know ... I was just making a point about trapshooting.

HiDef Bob

08-11-08, 07:38 PM

Just saw a great boxing match between Lomachenko UKR and Selimov RUS. The Ukraine started slow but in the end dominate the fight. The Russian showed poor sportsmanship at the end of each round and then in not shaking hands ... what a jerk!

17seconds

08-11-08, 07:39 PM

NBC HD looks good on Cox in southern california.

We're not getting the east coast feed though so it's 3 hrs from being live.

hphase

08-11-08, 07:58 PM

Surely, isn't it possible for the recording start and stop to be triggered over the air - why pad when you can do it properly?

This is routine in Europe - on analogue using PDC (used in the UK) or VPS (used in Germany and other countries), and on digital using EIT events via DVB in many countries? The Sky, Freeview Playback (and soon Freesat) platforms in the UK all support broadcaster triggered record start/stop triggered from the station automation in the main - so event over and under runs don't stop shows, and those following, being recorded properly. (The UK has the advantage that networks carry each others data though AIUI)
Guide information is transmitted constantly (almost) so there is no reason that guide data couldn't be as timely as captions. There is ZERO interest or incentive to do this, however. Broadcasters say that guide data is provided by a third party weeks in advance. That's THEIR gude data. Why should it be limited or out of date?

Of course cable would strip this OTA guide data immediately, as they provide their own guide data with advertising, so you can bet which one they will use!;)

Alas, this function would need to be mandated, just like captioning. And PLEASE don't as for more legislation about audio. As is the case with so many other areas, just use the regulations already on the books. At least it was written by people who know how the system is suposed to work. Congress wouldn't have a clue!

HiDef Bob

08-11-08, 08:36 PM

videoguy60467

08-11-08, 08:45 PM

Just watching the synchro diving on NBC East (Detroit). I definitely noticed exactly what viewers have been complaining about ... terrible pixelation on the fast spins. Earlier I watched the same event on CBC HD ... the pictures were absolutely clean ... no pixelation on the fast spins. What NBC had that CBC did not have ... the first 2 or 3 rounds.

I am seeing the same over TWC in Frisco TX. I did not watch this event using OTA, but in the past when I have compared OTA to the TWC feed, there has been no difference. As usual NBC is pixelated on fast action.

Gojhawks

08-11-08, 09:00 PM

Watching NBC HD (KSHB Kansas City) on local cable and I was not having the macroblocking/pixelation problem on the diving. Looked clean to me. Guess I am one of the fortunate ones.

DSperber

08-11-08, 09:13 PM

It was worth getting up at 5am in the morning!Exactly my point about the overwhelming inundation of NO ADEQUATE INFORMATION to tell me when/where/what to watch...

I would have been glad to wake up (or set a recording) at 5AM for a sport I enjoy watching. I happened to have stumbled into what I guess must have been a replay of part of one match this evening at about 5:30PM Pacific on UHD. If more of it had been shown early this morning somewhere else, I was not aware of it so naturally missed it. And if it had been on for an hour on UHD, well I missed all but 5 minutes of that.

Without some kind of at least an approximate hour-by-hour schedule available for each channel, showing what sporting competitions will be shown in that hour (or 1/2 hour, even better), this is simply impossible to manage. We all have other lives, and need time to eat, sleep, and work. Can't watch all channels simultaneously when they're carrying something, and we certainly can't set recordings for 12-hour overnight sessions on USA-HD and UHD, when we already have 6-7 hours of NBC-HD in primetime and late night, not to mention 3 hours of NBC-HD during the day. And that's just on weekdays!!! Weekends are worse!

I still never got to see shooting, or men's archery. And I only got to see one 24-arrow women's archery match. Never caught kayaking or canoeing.

Table tennis starts Wednesday. I'm going to give it my all to try and be sure not to miss whatever's shown (probably on UHD, I guess, since I think the events are supposed to be on MSNBC).

JCL

08-11-08, 09:16 PM

Canadian West Coast viewers can get east and west feeds from Star Choice (Seattle & Detroit) and Bell ExpressVu (Seattle & Boston) satellite and Shaw (Seattle & Detroit) and (I believe) Telus cable.

In fact all viewers in BC and Alberta that are subscribed to any of these providers have access to both feeds.

Canadian viewers with Rogers, a cable provider, currently have access to east, central, mountain and pacific feeds of Canadian networks, but can only see one HD feed of a Canadian network -- the one in their own time zone. During the Olympics, since CBC runs the same feed on all time zones (unlike NBC), all the CBC locals are showing the same thing.

As for access to U.S. networks in HD (NBC, CBS, ABC, FOX etc), we have access to affiliates in Buffalo (eastern time zone) and, for an extra small fee, Seattle (pacific time zone). We don't see anything in between.

JCL

08-11-08, 09:19 PM

Just watching the synchro diving on NBC East (Detroit). I definitely noticed exactly what viewers have been complaining about ... terrible pixelation on the fast spins. Earlier I watched the same event on CBC HD ... the pictures were absolutely clean ... no pixelation on the fast spins.

I watched the swimming finals last night on both networks. The bandwidth just could not handle all the water splashing around -- especially on the deck level camera which was following the swimmers. Just a jumbo of mess.

What NBC had that CBC did not have ... the first 2 or 3 rounds.

But NBC does not show every competitor in every round. They edited each round into their own little packages.

dad1153

08-11-08, 09:46 PM

Exactly my point about the overwhelming inundation of NO ADEQUATE INFORMATION to tell me when/where/what to watch...

I would have been glad to wake up (or set a recording) at 5AM for a sport I enjoy watching. I happened to have stumbled into what I guess must have been a replay of part of one match this evening at about 5:30PM Pacific on UHD. If more of it had been shown early this morning somewhere else, I was not aware of it so naturally missed it. And if it had been on for an hour on UHD, well I missed all but 5 minutes of that.

Without some kind of at least an approximate hour-by-hour schedule available for each channel, showing what sporting competitions will be shown in that hour (or 1/2 hour, even better), this is simply impossible to manage. We all have other lives, and need time to eat, sleep, and work. Can't watch all channels simultaneously when they're carrying something, and we certainly can't set recordings for 12-hour overnight sessions on USA-HD and UHD, when we already have 6-7 hours of NBC-HD in primetime and late night, not to mention 3 hours of NBC-HD during the day. And that's just on weekdays!!! Weekends are worse!

I still never got to see shooting, or men's archery. And I only got to see one 24-arrow women's archery match. Never caught kayaking or canoeing.

Table tennis starts Wednesday. I'm going to give it my all to try and be sure not to miss whatever's shown (probably on UHD, I guess, since I think the events are supposed to be on MSNBC).

It may not be true high-definition but www.nbcolympics.com seems custom-made for you. Its where I've caught most of the best Badminton matches, Archery events, Shootinng events, the Men's and Women's 72km Bike race (hours before they showed brief segments of them on the main NBC network) and even some Weightlifting... all commercial free, commentary free and laying comfortably in bed with the laptop right in front of me. An event schedule on the high-def channels would be ideal, but if the alternative is to miss these events then NBC's Olympic website is the next best thing.

rezzy

08-11-08, 10:58 PM

Wow; Phelps is a monster. Meanwhile, Lampley looks a bit wooden when he hosts, but he's much more tolerable than Costas....:p

beestea

08-11-08, 10:59 PM

Anyone know if they will reair the opening ceremony in HD at any point?

igreg

08-11-08, 11:09 PM

Wow, men's swimming finals live at 7:15-8:00 PDT, and Michael Phelps goes for gold again live in primetime hours for the west......yet shown tape delayed after 10:00 in the west. Great to see live on DirecTV 382 even if not in HD. It's taking place LIVE in primetime in the West NBC! Too much to ask to show it live? Not to mention live men's team gymnastics.

JCL

08-11-08, 11:23 PM

Wow, men's swimming finals live at 7:15-8:00 PDT and Michael Phelps goes for gold again live in primetime hours for the west......yet shown tape delayed after 10:00 in the west. Great to see live on DirecTV 382 even in not in HD. It's taking place LIVE in primetime in the West NBC! Too much to ask to show it live? Not to mention live men's team gymnastics.

Again and again this is the loudest complaint from the U.S. west coast.

NBC should really take a good look at the Canadian system: the CBC sends the same feed to all six time zones. The so-called "primetime" show becomes the "late afternoon" show in the west. The "Latenight" show becomes the "primetime" show in the west. The "morning" show becomes the "overnight" show in the west, and so on. The point being: there's always something goin' on. If it's really an important event, they'll repeat it as well.

NBC has become too fussed about which event they want each time zone to see at a certain time period. This is why they went with the system that had been used Olympics after Olympics. Again, this had been noted earlier before the thread crashed. The advertisers wanted it that way too, you really can't blame it all on the messenger.

icemannyr

08-11-08, 11:35 PM

How much of gymnastics was missed when NBC went to swimming?

JCL

08-11-08, 11:35 PM

Anyone know if they will reair the opening ceremony in HD at any point?

The way I understand it, NBC's rights expire the day after the Closing Ceremony. They can do anything with the material before that. But I don't think they'll re-air it. They've never aired ceremonies more than twice for each time zone.

igreg

08-11-08, 11:36 PM

Again and again this is the loudest complaint from the U.S. west coast.

NBC should really take a good look at the Canadian system: the CBC sends the same feed to all six time zones. The so-called "primetime" show becomes the "late afternoon" show in the west. The "Latenight" show becomes the "primetime" show in the west. The "morning" show becomes the "overnight" show in the west, and so on. The point being: there's always something goin' on. If it's really an important event, they'll repeat it as well.

NBC has become too fussed about which event they want each time zone to see at a certain time period. This is why they went with the system that had been used Olympics after Olympics. Again, this had been noted earlier before the thread crashed. The advertisers wanted it that way too, you really can't blame it all on the messenger.

Why would the advertisers not want the west to see the most popular events live in primetime?

fredfa

08-11-08, 11:43 PM

Except 7:15-8 PM is NOT prime time (except on Sundays).

So the advertisers and NBC do want the viewers in the West to see the events in prime time. That is precisely the point.

And despite all the wailing, it seems that NBC's strategy, if you go by the ratings, is working very well -- for NBC, if not for those of us who are in the West and are available three hours earlier.

By the way, here are the top 10 cities in the metered market ratings for Friday's Opening Ceremonies. You will notice that five of the 10 -- and four of the top five -- were delayed from the East/Central feeds (either in the Mountain or Pacific time zones).

TOP 10 METERED MARKETS FOR OPENING CEREMONY:
1) San Diego - 26.5/49
2) West Palm Beach - 25.7/42
3) Sacramento - 24.3/43
4) Denver - 24.2/43
5) San Francisco - 24.1/47
6) Baltimore - 24.1/41
7) Indianapolis - 23.9/42
8) Salt Lake City - 23.5/49
9) Nashville - 23.4/37
10) St. Louis - 22.9/42 • Source: NBC, Nielsen Media Research data

One way to "solve" the problem might be for NBC to put the East Coast feed on a sub channel of its western stations. No HD, but available for anyone who wants to see it.

Why would the advertisers not want the west to see the most popular events live in primetime?

JCL

08-11-08, 11:51 PM

Why would the advertisers not want the west to see the most popular events live in primetime?

That's really the $64,000 question. In *theory*, there are more eyeballs at 10:15 at any given market than at 7:15. But it remains to be proven if the same is true if the event is shown live at 7:15 as opposed to delayed at 10:15 (as is the case on the west coast).

IAM4UK

08-11-08, 11:58 PM

Plenty of good stories already out of these games:

Chinese gymnasts (females) age controversy
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/olympics/images/attachement/jpg/site1/20080804/0013729e42d20a00b1de11.jpg

US Swimmers providing incredible performances
Phelps record-making, and probably breaking
"Redeem Team" looking like a team, not just a gathering of stars
Dara Torres, Oksana Chusovitina, etc.

JCL

08-12-08, 12:41 AM

That's really the $64,000 question. In *theory*, there are more eyeballs at 10:15 at any given market than at 7:15. But it remains to be proven if the same is true if the event is shown live at 7:15 as opposed to delayed at 10:15 (as is the case on the west coast).

The Men's Gynastics team finals do not end until 12:40 am in the east. There's no question 9:40 pm is a more ideal time for the west.

Note: +10 minutes for Bob Costas and company to wrap up the day.

igreg

08-12-08, 12:41 AM

Except 7:15-8 PM is NOT prime time (except on Sundays).

So the advertisers and NBC do want the viewers in the West to see the events in prime time. That is precisely the point.

And despite all the wailing, it seems that NBC's strategy, if you go by the ratings, is working very well -- for NBC, if not for those of us who are in the West and are available three hours earlier.

By the way, here are the top 10 cities in the metered market ratings for Friday's Opening Ceremonies. You will notice that five of the 10 -- and four of the top five -- were delayed from the East/Central feeds (either in the Mountain or Pacific time zones).

TOP 10 METERED MARKETS FOR OPENING CEREMONY:
1) San Diego - 26.5/49
2) West Palm Beach - 25.7/42
3) Sacramento - 24.3/43
4) Denver - 24.2/43
5) San Francisco - 24.1/47
6) Baltimore - 24.1/41
7) Indianapolis - 23.9/42
8) Salt Lake City - 23.5/49
9) Nashville - 23.4/37
10) St. Louis - 22.9/42 • Source: NBC, Nielsen Media Research data

One way to "solve" the problem might be for NBC to put the East Coast feed on a sub channel of its western stations. No HD, but available for anyone who wants to see it.

That makes no sense when you say that is precisely the point. Why woud advertisers not want the viewers in the West to see the events in prime time?

Almost the ENTIRE broadcast tonight, not just the 7:00-8:00 PDT hour, was available for live broadcast tonight in primetime in the West......and even thought the ratings have been good, they could have been better. Any why put them on a subchannel when they can be broadcast live in HD?

alaindelon

08-12-08, 12:45 AM

[QUOTE=fredfa;14426319]Except 7:15-8 PM is NOT prime time (except on Sundays).

So the advertisers and NBC do want the viewers in the West to see the events in prime time. That is precisely the point.

Didn't we have Monday night football OTA on the west coast for years and years starting at 6pm.I don't recall advertisers complaining to much about that.Can anyone here imagine watching any major league sporting event on tape delay?

igreg

08-12-08, 12:51 AM

icemannyr

08-12-08, 01:25 AM

I don't have access to CNBC-HD but the softball game looks very sharp on CNBC SD.
The game is live but CNBC is not using the live bug.

lwien

08-12-08, 02:02 AM

Ya know, I love everything about this presentation so far. I really can't say anything that's not already been said, but..................................man, are those girls that are carrying the country signs pretty or what? Wow...........I want one.

AMRivlin

08-12-08, 03:07 AM

On to my rant of the day. NBC you idiotic morons.

On Cox OC:
704 NBC HD
722 USA HD
744 Uni HD
750 CNBC HD
796 Uni BB HD
797 Uni FB HD
Telemundo
MSNBC
nbcolympics.com

(we dont get nbckorea or nbcchina)

With 8+ venues to show live and taped content I do NOT understand why we on the west coast are cheated from seeing the olympics live!

I can understand showing them live on NBC PrimeTime East Coast, I can even see why for advertising and ratings it is delayed on 704 for us Socal people.

Why for pete's sake does 744 and 750 carry the same feed though! (both are showing live softball, I don't need both showing me the same thing, on of these should carry the EDT feed, I would be seeing the same f'ing ads anyway)

They should be showing the live NBC east coast feed on Universal HD 744, for us who actually care to watch live, others can all pile into the time delayed 704 NBC Feed.

I am so furious with this poor decision.

I understand in 1996 when NBC and USA were the only channels they had access to, but this is 2008, the internet tells me the score the second it happens, why can't my tv?

nickdawg

08-12-08, 03:19 AM

COX has CNBC HD? We didn't get that one on Time Warner NE Ohio. UHD is carrying our MSNBC/CNBC feeds.

What they should have done is not pick up CNBC HD at all. It's unnecessary since UHD is becoming MSNBC/CNBC for the month. Instead, they should have put out a time-shift channel. Maybe the East Coast feed on cable systems out west and a West Coast feed for systems in the East. That way there would be more options, since some events are on early or late.

igreg

08-12-08, 03:23 AM

nickdawg

08-12-08, 03:23 AM

And for the love of god, does that UNIVERSAL HD bug have to be so frakin big!!! It has to be the biggest, most intrusive bug of ALL the NBC Olympics networks. It's three times the size of NBC, USA, CNBC/MSNBC. And the rings are HUGE as well. I don't see why they're not using the same small, to the point CNBC bug like the SD channel.

Is this normal? I don't usually get this channel.

EDIT: Just answered my own question. They're trying to hawk the "Universal HD" brand since it is open to more customers than usual. Advertising their "own programming" during commercial breaks hoping to get more customers.

TonyW79SFV

08-12-08, 03:49 AM

I'd thought I get this rant out about the general practice of tape delaying by American networks.

Yeah it really is bad when the West Coast is cheated from live programming with the LIVE graphics taunting us. The other Olympics channels on cable/satellite are OK as there is a SINGLE nationwide feed which means it's live on the West as it is on the East. We've already been burned by late rebroadcasts of The Grammy Awards, Macy's Thanksgiving Parade and Fourth of July Spectacular, American Idol, now the prime time Olympics where NBC paid extra to make sure some key events can be shown live between 8pm and midnight EDT (which would be 5pm to 9pm PDT), but shunned us from the privilege. This is why East Coast satellite network feeds are popular with this side of the US.

AMRivlin, the TV industry runs an antiquated business practice and has yet to conform to the Internet age. Luckily, on the West Coast, you can get your reality show results live via fan chat pages (occupied by mostly people on the eastern half of the US); from which you can later watch your commercial-free DVR recording of the same show (not that it was live in the first place).

sneals2000

08-12-08, 04:27 AM

Since over 80% of the US does not receive their programming via OTA broadcasting, a signal in the OTA carrier would be of no use. If, that signal was somehow incorporated so that satellite and cable company equipment would react to it, it would probably work, but now you're talking about 100's of different systems and transmission methods.

Yep - OTA, Sky satellite and freesat satellite all provide this facility (not sure about cable - it is a minority player in the UK - OTA and satellite dominate for digital TV) of embedded guide data in the broadcast signal.

This means the vast majority of digital TV viewers (satellite and OTA) have this facility.

Not even the two satcos transmit the same way, and cable companies have numerous different methods for getting the signal to the viewer, and a whole boatload of different equipment.

Yep - there are currently three systems in use in the UK - though the broadcaster back-ends are common to all three, and the differences in transmission standards minor. (Basically Sky and Freesat share the same video and audio streams -i.e. broadcasters only have to uplink a single stream for both services - in most cases, but the two systems have different EPG and I believe record trigger streams, which are designed so as not to interfere with each other. Both are to some extent proprietary, using their own compression schemes, but neither are encrypted and both use DVB standard-ish systems)

I suspect that in the UK, and possibly most other parts of the world, the whole system of TV transmission in a given country is much more uniform across the board which would make implementation much easier. Nothing of this nature happens fast and easy in the US. :D

In the UK OTA broadcasts were co-ordinated between all broadcasters - such that a common receiver standard provided a good user experience. Thus agreement about interactive TV, digital text, subtitles, audio description, EPG and record triggers, as well as shared data distribution and transmitter data insertion system means that the system works for the viewer. A licensing scheme (entirely voluntary) to carry the "Freeview" logo was introduced - meaning a "Freeview" receiver is guaranteed to be compatible - as is a "Freeview Playback" (soon Freeview+) PVR. The same licensing is being used for the complementary Freesat service (designed as a free satellite service for those who can't get decent OTA service)

It does help that all the UK transmitters are co-sited (so all 6 digital OTA RF channels are usually broadcast from the same site - so common data insertion onto the six RF channels is straightforward, as is data collation and distribution) Also TV stations no longer own and operate their own transmitters - all the main players sold their transmitter networks in the 90s (the BBC to Crown Castle, now National Grid Wireless, the IBA to NTL who have rebranded as Arqiva) Each of the two operations own about 50% of the sites, but have rental agreements with each other. ISTR that the two companies may recently have merged - or tried to?

(All OTA broadcasters in a given region broadcast each others 7-day guide data, so even if I'm watching BBC One, the BBC will broadcast the listings for the next week of ITV, Channel Four, Five etc. shows - and I believe even the record start triggers, so that if a show starts early and a PVR tuner isn't tuned to the right transponder or RF .)

Sky mandate EPG (14 day guide) data insertion into any channel that uplinks onto their platform (not all stations on the Sky system are uplinked by Sky themselves, but those that are on the platform can trigger record start and stop in the same way as on Freeview) - and provide for remote record start/stop triggering as well as live EPG updating (so that the "Now and Next" banner is updated if a show over runs - if a broadcaster's playout infrastructure supports it), as do Freesat (using a different but similar system)

The key thing is for broadcasters to support live schedule updating in their playout area. Translating the raw data to be inserted using different methods for different transmission platforms - and most UK broadcasters support 3 at the moment - is an automated process that is relatively straightforward. It is ensuring that the master control area updates the guide and recording triggers live that is the important bit.

ISO Perfect HDTV

08-12-08, 06:24 AM

I am so furious with this poor decision.

I understand in 1996 when NBC and USA were the only channels they had access to, but this is 2008, the internet tells me the score the second it happens, why can't my tv?

I feel your pain, it is completely amateur stuff to broadcast an Olympic game tape delayed...let's hope NBC looses the rights to broadcast this thing really soon and ABC/ESPN gets it. :mad:

bicker1

08-12-08, 06:29 AM

hphase

08-12-08, 06:40 AM

And despite all the wailing, it seems that NBC's strategy, if you go by the ratings, is working very well -- for NBC, if not for those of us who are in the West and are available three hours earlier.

Case closed. NBC is satisfying the advertisers, their stockholders, and apparently most of their viewers.

igreg

08-12-08, 07:45 AM

In which case they'll almost surely do the same thing, because it is what is necessary to best serve their owners. I participate in one forum more than I do in the AVS Forum, and it is almost exclusively focused on that other conglomerate's services. Over and over again, their decisions underscore their responsibility to their owners.

The only difference between an Olympics on NBC and one on ABC is 1080i versus 720p.

I don't buy that. NBC made a poor marketing decision reflective of its last place status as a network. Another network would more than likely show the events happening in prime time live to the west. ABC/ESPN definitely would.

SnakeEyes

08-12-08, 07:59 AM

So far the ratings prove NBCs decision was right. It's about advertiser dollars and ratings. If ABC/ESPN felt they could maximize these by tape delaying to the West Coast, they would.

sneals2000

08-12-08, 08:02 AM

I feel your pain, it is completely amateur stuff to broadcast an Olympic game tape delayed...let's hope NBC looses the rights to broadcast this thing really soon and ABC/ESPN gets it. :mad:

NBC already have the rights to the Vancouver 2010 and London 2012 games...

sneals2000

08-12-08, 08:09 AM

So far the ratings prove NBCs decision was right. It's about advertiser dollars and ratings. If ABC/ESPN felt they could maximize these by tape delaying to the West Coast, they would.

Yep - without doubt the driving force for any scheduling of an event this expensive will be driven by audience numbers and demographics. The only people NBC have to satisfy are the advertisers and sponsors. Obviously the advertisers and sponsors are only satisfied if as many of the right kind of viewer is watching - so NBC do have to consider the audience.

In the UK we get a lot of live coverage overnight (many of the events start at around 1am UK time) and during the daytime hours - with the main network feed being a mix of live and turned round stuff, and the interactive streams mainly live. In the evenings there is an hour long "Games Today" show on BBC One/BBC HD - with highlights, interviews and some studio chat, and the interactive streams show replays of the earlier live events, sometimes edited down (but not hacked to bits). The tightened up, turnarounds on the interactive streams are great for catching up on events in less mainstream sports like canoe, kayak, the rowing heats etc. (No annoying montage packages setting up the "back story" - just decent commentary on the events unfolding)

Knicks_Fan

08-12-08, 08:43 AM

The west coast blowoff is a joke. My sympathies.
Other complaints:
Why not go 24x7 on CNBC on the weekends? Instead (as in previous games) the same infomerical schedule was being aired instead. Absolute waste.

Several times, snipe-like graphics are overlaying replays. Worst example, showing the amazing win by the US swimmers over France but being unable to see the final touch with all the promo crap.

machpost

08-12-08, 09:17 AM

Does anyone else have the NBC Beijing Olympics HD Video-On-Demand on their cable system? We have it listed here on RCN, but none of the Beijing events have yet been added to the menu. There are only some HD Athens replays listed, and all of those programs have some serious frame rate issues that make them unwatchable.

DrLar

08-12-08, 09:23 AM

I just find shameful that NBC compares the Olympics with American Idol, that is way out of hand... it's like comparing apples with raisins...

Show me a screen shot where it says it's tape delayed on the west coast instead of the "live" legend on top..

sneals2000

08-12-08, 09:30 AM

BTW - I have read reports in the UK press (who have, in the past, attacked the BBC for sending around 430 staff to Beijing and the other venues) that NBC have 2900 staff in Beijing (and the other venues).

Does 2900 people as a staffing figure ring true to those in the know on this forum?

bicker1

08-12-08, 09:46 AM

I don't buy that. NBC made a poor marketing decision reflective of its last place status as a network. Another network would more than likely show the events happening in prime time live to the west. ABC/ESPN definitely would.You're welcome to your opinion, in that regard, but not the ability to declare it definitively; until they have the opportunity, no one can know what they'd do.

Regarding the rest of that, NBC has only trailed ABC in ratings for a couple of years. Before that, you would have to say that NBC was "definitely" making better decisions. Either assertion is not defensible, really, because there isn't a long enough period of definitely difference on which to base such an assertion.

StudioTech

08-12-08, 09:50 AM

I don't buy that. NBC made a poor marketing decision reflective of its last place status as a network. Another network would more than likely show the events happening in prime time live to the west. ABC/ESPN definitely would.

Well, let's see. When ABC had the rights all those years/decades ago, did they show events live to the West coast?

DSperber

08-12-08, 09:54 AM

I'm a little "backed up" on DVR recordings. Still have yet to watch Monday's coverage.

However one very significant change to NBC's approach to editing things for viewing, mixing in what might be "live" (from realtime today Beijing AM) with tape-delayed coverage (from yesterday Beijing afternoon and PM), which I noticed on Sunday and can only hope they continue doing.

In previous Olympics they "shuffled" stuff horribly, breaking up a multi-hour broadcast with snippets of a particular sport scattered throughout the show... teasing you like crazy about what was coming up later, to keep your eyeballs glued. Just awful for the viewer (assuming you were actually watching live, instead of on your own recording) if you had to sit through crap/fluff pieces or sports you weren't interested in... just to finally get to watch that big glamour gold medal performance you already knew about all day (since it was 100% tape delayed) that NBC'd held for the final 30 minutes.

Well Sunday night they didn't do that. They actually had events in sequence, so that when one was done they moved on to the next, and did not break up coverage of a given sport.

In other words, women's 3M-synchro diving was at the top of the show, then came women's gymnastics qualifying, and then came "live" swimming. They threw in a bit of "random" women's gymnastics [filler] during an obvious break in the swimming schedule, but came back for more swimming as soon as it continued. This was great!

I think this is probably the direct result of having many more channels available for televising the lesser profile events, allowing more time on NBC for "sort of continuous" coverage of whatever sports they choose to show. Example here was the COMPLETE medal ceremony for the 4x100 men's relay, where we really got to see just how long it takes and what goes on... instead of just a super-closeup of a tear falling out of an eyeball. Much more like actually being there in person (a la 1992's Triplecast experience).

Unfortunately, on the other side of the coin, it still appears that NBC's choices for televising things pretty much imply that the only competitors present at the Olympics in NBC-televised high-profile sports are the USA, China, and whoever else is in the top-three for a medal or who happens to be in a heat with the USA or some other favorite. It's unfortunately still true that commercials typically take precedence over showing all heats 1-n and other countries.

This was demonstrably true with that 3M-synchro diving (where we didn't even see any early dives from the 2nd-place country that overtook the US until they actually did overtake the US), and women's gymnastics (where we only saw the Romanians to demonstrate their much-deteriorated program... and also to show Nadia in the stands, and the Germans to provide backup support to a heart-warming fluff story about a 31-year old vaulter).

I very much enjoyed the coverage Sunday night. And I'm sure I'll also enjoy Monday's, when I watch it today.

Rangwx

08-12-08, 10:05 AM

Ultimately, people resent not being given a choice to see these events live. This isn't a ratings argument; I concede that, in terms of primetime ratings in the Mountain and Pacific time zones, not allowing viewers to watch these events live may be beneficial.

However, there is a tipping point at which that resentment outweighs ratings gains, particularly if they are modest in nature. Getting to that tipping point will require more negative press than NBC has received thus far.

dad1153

08-12-08, 10:15 AM

Dperber, that's why I enjoyed last night's Men's Team Gymnastics competition so much (look away if you haven't seen/read what took place last night). Because of scoring delays by the judges (which were outrageous in this day and age of modern computers) and the back-and-forth between USA, Japan and Germany for the Silver and Bronze medals (it was clear the Chinese were going to runaway with the Gold) NBC got backed-up and ran out of commercials for the last hour or so of competition. So NBC actually had to show some Japanese and German gymnasts (which were decent) compete in several events in-between the announcers babbling about Team USA's chances of getting Bronze. Just by the fact these non-Chinese/USA athletes' performances from Japan and Germany weren't given slo-mo instant replays or more than a cursory mention (because, again, the show ran late and NBC ran out of commercials) it felt like an actual competition between several teams of gymnasts. Not the pre-prepackaged, pro-USA spectacle NBC clearly wanted and eventually got when Team USA earned (because we saw them defeat the Germans in the Horse event) a hard-won Bronze.

BTW, last night's HD signal on my TWC (NYC) WNBC-DT set-up was atrocious. Could see nothing but macroblicking squares in the arms of the gymnasts as they sat around high-fiving one another. :(

reuthermonkey

08-12-08, 10:16 AM

However one very significant change to NBC's approach to editing things for viewing, mixing in what might be "live" (from realtime today Beijing AM) with tape-delayed coverage (from yesterday Beijing afternoon and PM), which I noticed on Sunday and can only hope they continue doing...
I definitely agree. I've been extremely happy with NBC's coverage over Olympics past. ALL HD on all of the sports i've seen. The only thing that isn't HD (remarkably) is the Today Show at 480wide.

The live events have been very good, and they're showing a lot more events and a lot less fluff than i recall with prior Olympics. Of course, this is likely thanks to me switching between NBC/USA/Universal all of the time, but it's nice getting that kinda coverage instead of just 1 or 2 channels.

I agree with others on the complaints about Olympic Soccer and Olympic Basketball HD though - during their downtime they should be airing other events. Also, UniversalHD should not be mirroring Olympic Soccer/Basketball/USAHD - especially if it's tape delayed.

Berk32

08-12-08, 10:52 AM

DSperber

08-12-08, 10:54 AM

[fingers crossed] Let there be plenty of the 11 scheduled days of HD table tennis coverage. [/fingers crossed]

AnthonyB

08-12-08, 11:02 AM

I'd like to know how the ratings for these games are.

fredfa hasn't posted anything today and the database loss goes back to before the Olympic events started

bicker1

08-12-08, 11:50 AM

Well, let's see. When ABC had the rights all those years/decades ago, did they show events live to the West coast?I don't recall, but it wouldn't matter. Enough time has elapsed since then (and management has sufficiently changed, at both ABC and NBC) that what they did then relates practically not at all to what they would do in today's business environment.

bicker1

08-12-08, 11:51 AM

I'd like to know how the ratings for these games are.Does this answer your question?

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showpost.php?p=14428131&postcount=20958

Quaker2001

08-12-08, 12:03 PM

To all those on the West Coast who are up in arms over not getting their Olympics live (and I do sympathize with you because I'd be upset too), here's an excerpt from today's TV Sports column in today's USA Today..

NBC lucked out by getting all swimming finals as well as men's and women's team and individual gymnastics finals live for the 82% of U.S. households in the Eastern and Central time zones. West Coast viewers get the so-called live action on tape — despite the "live" onscreen logos — as they did during the 2002 Salt Lake Winter Games, when West Coast affiliates didn't want to air live coverage that would cut into local news and would not draw as many viewers as prime-time coverage.

So direct your anger at your local affiliate, they're the reason you're getting the Olympics on a 3-hour delay. You may not agree with the decision and you could probably make the argument that, say, last night's gymnastics would rate better at 9:30pm PT than they would delayed until after Midnight, but it's hard to argue with that logic because local news does more for an affiliate than primetime ratings do (which are more for the network and their advertising rates). And remember that for every person on a forum like this complaining about the delay, there's probably at least 2 people out there who are thankful the Olympics are on when they can watch them.

With regards to other networks (igreg, sorry to call you out here, but since you think this is solely an "NBC doesn't know what they're doing" thing), don't think that other networks would do it differently and less we forget the last Olympics not covered by NBC.. Nagano in 1998 had a little bit of live coverage, starting with the Opening Ceremony, then adding in a couple of nights worth of skiing and most importantly, all of the Team USA hockey teams. All of which were shown with the same 3-hour delay that NBC is using here.

The next Olympics up for bid is 2014/2016. NBC hasn't locked it down yet and both Fox and ABC/ESPN have expressed interest. Along the lines of what Berk32 said, I shudder at the thought of ESPN broadcasting the Olympics. Whereas NBC can devote 100% of their efforts towards the Olympics, do you really think that ESPN will give an Olympics the same effort when they have an obligation to cover other sports (baseball in the summer, basketball in the winter)? NBC has learned a lot of lessons over the past 20 years of covering the Olympics, dating back to Seoul in 1988. I'd hate to see another network have to pick it up and start from scratch and re-work what I think is a winning formula. Bottom line.. to treat the Olympics solely as a sporting event isn't doing justice to the people that watch them. NBC knows this and has turned it into a very profitable venture.

AMRivlin

08-12-08, 12:44 PM

Why can't they air a second "live feed" on U HD?

Especially when CNBC and U HD are airing the same feed.

Rico66

08-12-08, 01:05 PM

hphase

08-12-08, 01:11 PM

I think its very funny how some people want ABC to have Olympics coverage....

1) They would do the exact same thing with a delayed west coast feed (NBC isn't doing this because they are clueless.... they know what they're doing...)

2) ABC would have actors from their shows and upcoming Disney movies on site at events.

3) Odd how people don't realize what a great job NBC does making the events feel so much bigger... (just compare the job ABC has done with the NBA to NBC's coverage in the 90s - basketball fans know exactly what I'm talking about... NBC's overall production blows away ABC - same goes with football (yes NBC still has a problem with its HD picture - but that's not what we're talking about at the moment))

Don't forget that ABC Sports wrote the book on Olympic coverage. That said, I don't remember if there was an east/west split on the coverage. I think there wasn't any split for games ocurring in North America, but I'm not sure about the Europe-based games.

Also remember that there is no more ABC Sports. It is all ESPN these days.

owine

08-12-08, 01:12 PM

I'd actually watched the swimming yesterday on my local station's 3 hour delayed live event for the 1st time (because I forgot to dvr the east coast feed...). Thanks to NBC for helping me out here!
Why aren't the networks not doing the same for football? I'd prefer 1pm/4pm timeslots compared to 10am/1PM. And if night games actually would be night games compared to later afternoon games.
Wait a moment, I actually have a dvr, but I'm lazy to program it...

Timeshifting the major sports would be an absolute nightmare. Results and news from games are all over the place. And you just know that ESPN would bring up the bottom line that showed the final score for the MNF game they were showing at the time.

Rico66

08-12-08, 01:30 PM

Timeshifting the major sports would be an absolute nightmare. Results and news from games are all over the place. And you just know that ESPN would bring up the bottom line that showed the final score for the MNF game they were showing at the time.

So what's different for the olympics? Results are available and posted, if you don't watch live (or at least close enough to live).

Berk32

08-12-08, 01:43 PM

Don't forget that ABC Sports wrote the book on Olympic coverage. That said, I don't remember if there was an east/west split on the coverage. I think there wasn't any split for games ocurring in North America, but I'm not sure about the Europe-based games.

Also remember that there is no more ABC Sports. It is all ESPN these days.

right - ABC 'now' = ESPN, and basically has no connection to the ABC of the 70s and 80s

Quaker2001

08-12-08, 01:57 PM

So what's different for the olympics? Results are available and posted, if you don't watch live (or at least close enough to live).

The difference is that in the Olympics, you're still going to watch even if you know the results. I'm betting a lot of people on the West Coast have known the results of the Phelps races before they were aired there, but they still tuned in anyway. That's part of why the ratings for the 2006 Winter Olympics were so bad.. the American athletes people were looking for (i.e. Bode Miller) weren't doing well. If the guy you're rooting for wins, you're going to watch anyway, even if you already know he's going to win. No one is going to sit through an entire football game if the know the result unless they're a very dedicated fan. That's the beauty of an Olympics where a lot of events play out over a very short period of time.

hphase

08-12-08, 02:14 PM

So what's different for the olympics? Results are available and posted, if you don't watch live (or at least close enough to live).

I think his point was that you could see the final results of the event you were watching in the bottom line.

DrLar

08-12-08, 02:53 PM

We watch the Olympics on the west coast because

WE HAVE NO OTHER OPTION!!!

Border towns with Mexico and Canada can get events live, but not in HD in several cases.

And about "getting into the local news time"? Well local news on the NBC station aired past midnight, I doubt anyone watch them at that hour..

xiaoyu

08-12-08, 02:56 PM

I would like to move the open ceremony recording from Comcast DVR to my D-VHS tape. I tried yesterday, but I couldn't playback as usual and no warning when I recorded it. Anyone has idea for it?

Berk32

08-12-08, 03:00 PM

JCL

08-12-08, 03:10 PM

I'd actually watched the swimming yesterday on my local station's 3 hour delayed live event for the 1st time (because I forgot to dvr the east coast feed...). Thanks to NBC for helping me out here!
Why aren't the networks not doing the same for football? I'd prefer 1pm/4pm timeslots compared to 10am/1PM. And if night games actually would be night games compared to later afternoon games.
Wait a moment, I actually have a dvr, but I'm lazy to program it...

I find surprising nobody here mentioned NBC does send the primetime block twice to each market. On the east coast, it's sent at 8:00 pm, and again at 2:00 am. The second feed is usually the same as the primetime feed, but if the primetime feed is longer than 4 hours some slight trims are made so it ends at 6:00 am.

For those of us with access to both east and west, the primetime block can be viewed four times!

keenan

08-12-08, 03:19 PM

I would like to move the open ceremony recording from Comcast DVR to my D-VHS tape. I tried yesterday, but I couldn't playback as usual and no warning when I recorded it. Anyone has idea for it?

Check the DVR forums, it may have a copy once flag or something of that nature on it. I've forgotten the flag designations for IEEE1394 as I don't use it anymore so I can't tell what to look for, but the answer is most likely in the DVR section of the forum.

bicker1

08-12-08, 03:25 PM

It is not permitted to apply copy protection to programming provided through local broadcast channels.

DSperber

08-12-08, 03:55 PM

I would like to move the open ceremony recording from Comcast DVR to my D-VHS tape. I tried yesterday, but I couldn't playback as usual and no warning when I recorded it. Anyone has idea for it?Please be more specific.

Though this is not the "HDTV recording" forum, what is your DVR... a Motorola 64xx or 34xx? Or a SAxxxx? And what is your D-VHS VCR?

I believe the going facts are that only Moto DVR's have their firewire ports enabled and software/firmare fully operational for archiving via firewire to D-VHS. This is absolutely 100% true, as I myself archive from my 3416 to JVC D-VHS VCR's all the time. Scientific Atlanta DVR's do not (to the best of my knowledge).

Presumably you connected the DVR to the D-VHS via firewire? And you MUST watch the recording (if it was made successfully) from the D-VHS VCR using either the VCR's (a) component video output, or (b) DVI/HDMI output, or (c) firewire output, to your HDTV. You cannot watch these digital recordings via (a) S-video output, or (b) composite video output.

Again... provide some more details. But ALL recordings on DVR are allowed to be archived at least one generation to D-VHS tape, no matter what the 5C code. Second generation copies from D-VHS tape to a second D-VHS tape may be restricted, but certainly that first generation from DVR to D-VHS is always permitted. And all free OTA channels (including NBC in your neighborhood) are marked as "copy always", so those particular D-VHS archives could actually be further copied to nth-generation further D-VHS copies... if you wanted to do that.

keenan

08-12-08, 04:00 PM

It is not permitted to apply copy protection to programming provided through local broadcast channels.

Yes, I wasn't sure as it's been a long time since I played with that method of recording/archiving, I just let the TiVo handle it all, and to be honest, the quality of HD nowadays isn't really worthy of long term archiving IMO. :p

lvthunder

08-12-08, 04:35 PM

Look all this tape delaying to the West Coast is atrocious. It used to be OK when we didn't have a 24 hour news cycle and no one knew what the internet was. Because of this I can only visit these forums from the time of 1:00PM to 5:00PM because I don't want to know who wins. I won't even go to nbcolympics.com either because they would be dumb enough to tell me who wins. With the next Winter games in Vancouver we better not have this stuff since Vancouver is in the West time zone. I first bought my HDTV so I could watch the Salt Lake games. I could go to an event then fly home and watch myself on TV. How ridiculous is that. As for the affiliates with digital now they have no reason not to show it live. If the news is that important show it on a sub channel. Just send the full res signal down the fiber lines to the cable and sat companies. As for submitting my complaints I'm sending them to everyone (my co-workers, this forum, NBC, my local NBC affiliate, and anyone that will listen to me). As to those who say what about the ratings I'll say this. Do you really think more people that have a full time job are watching TV at midnight then 6:00. If NBC is going to spend the money and time to send this stuff live (why else have the anchors up at midnight China time) why not send it live to the whole country instead of just half of it.

My only other gripe is about the commercials. Why do they have to replay them so often. I swear if I owned a TV station I would not allow the same commercial to show twice during the same hour. I mean Budweiser can buy as spots as they like they just can't show the same commercial more then once an hour. I think that's why everyone likes the Superbowl adds.

I also wonder how long after the Olympics are over that they will still stream the stuff over the internet.

bicker1

08-12-08, 05:27 PM

Commercials are repeated because research shows that repetition enhances recall.

hphase

08-12-08, 05:32 PM

But ALL recordings on DVR are allowed to be archived at least one generation to D-VHS tape, no matter what the 5C code.
Programs liken CapDVHS will not record anything with the 5C copy protection flag set. That includes all the NBC "cable" channels on Comcast, even via QAM. I checked.

lvthunder

08-12-08, 05:46 PM

Commercials are repeated because research shows that repetition enhances recall.

Commercials being repeated increase sales of commercial skipping DVR's too.

Rico66

08-12-08, 06:38 PM

I find surprising nobody here mentioned NBC does send the primetime block twice to each market. On the east coast, it's sent at 8:00 pm, and again at 2:00 am. The second feed is usually the same as the primetime feed, but if the primetime feed is longer than 4 hours some slight trims are made so it ends at 6:00 am.

For those of us with access to both east and west, the primetime block can be viewed four times!

Are you sure about this? Yesterday they were showing the volleyball match between the US and Italy live between 9:30 and 11:30 PT. Does this repeat time slot start afterwards?

xiaoyu

08-12-08, 06:48 PM

Please be more specific.

Though this is not the "HDTV recording" forum, what is your DVR... a Motorola 64xx or 34xx? Or a SAxxxx? And what is your D-VHS VCR?

I am sorry that I didn't give the detail in my last post. I have Motorola 3416 DVR and Mitsubishi 1100U D-VHS. The connection is IEEE1394. I made many recordings in the past. I even tested NBC today or tonight shows before the Olympics started. There were no trouble at all. As you know, the 1100U doesn't have decoder, so I have another 1100U playback the tape through JVC. They are in my HT room in the basement. My 3416 is in the kitchen. I could't watch and record through firewire at the same time. I just want to know someone have made rcording OK, so I can chech my system later. Maybe reboot the DVR.

igreg

08-12-08, 07:30 PM

igreg

08-12-08, 07:35 PM

bicker1

08-12-08, 07:36 PM

Ratings would be higher if NBC had broadcast the events live to the west.No they wouldn't have been. :rolleyes:

igreg

08-12-08, 07:38 PM

I think its very funny how some people want ABC to have Olympics coverage....

1) They would do the exact same thing with a delayed west coast feed (NBC isn't doing this because they are clueless.... they know what they're doing...)

2) ABC would have actors from their shows and upcoming Disney movies on site at events.

3) Odd how people don't realize what a great job NBC does making the events feel so much bigger... (just compare the job ABC has done with the NBA to NBC's coverage in the 90s - basketball fans know exactly what I'm talking about... NBC's overall production blows away ABC - same goes with football (yes NBC still has a problem with its HD picture - but that's not what we're talking about at the moment))

What makes you think NBC knows what they are doing when it is so patently irrational. Just because they are a major network doesn't make them automatically right.

DSperber

08-12-08, 07:43 PM

Programs liken CapDVHS will not record anything with the 5C copy protection flag set. That includes all the NBC "cable" channels on Comcast, even via QAM. I checked.I don't believe his question regarded how to use CapDVHS. It was about wanting to unload a recording made on a DCH-3416 DVR to a Mits 1100U D-VHS VCR via firewire, something that absolutely should be possible 100% of the time. Actually, his further clarification suggested that he'd done this many times before without problem, but that only the Olympics DVR recordings to D-VHS were then somehow unwatchable.

If you can record something to DVR (i.e. anything other than VOD), you can offload it to D-VHS via firewire, which counts as the 1st-generation "copy" per 5C rules. The DVR recording itself does not count as a "generation".

Now 2nd-generation copies of the 1st-generation D-VHS archive are obviously not permitted, if the 5C-flag says "copy once". Only "copy always" can be duplicated from one D-VHS to another D-VHS, or to/from PC from/to D-VHS via CapDVHS.

I haven't tried dealing with CapDVHS on any of the NBC HD cable channels (other than NBC-HD), so I can't confirm your opening statement. I don't know from firsthand knowledge if these other channels are 5C=copy once or copy always.

However I can absolutely 100% confirm that I, personally, just yesterday in fact, archived from my TWC/LA Moto DCH-3416 recording of Sunday's Olympics on NBC-HD to D-VHS (my JVC 40K) via firewire with no problem. And then I copied that D-VHS tape to a .TS file on my PC (via firewire) using CapDVHS, also with no problem, where I was then able to work on it with VideoReDo and VirtualDub (plus MPEG-2 plug-in so that the .TS stream was acceptable to VirtualDub).

I would be very surprised if TWC-provided NBC-family channels like USA-HD and UHD are marked as "copy once" (which theoretically should prevent CapDVHS from being able to copy it from D-VHS, which is already that one-and-only 1st-generation legal copy). But I will absolute test this out tonight myself, to see if this is really true. And just to confirm my understanding about CapDVHS's conformance to 5C-rules, I will also try to copy a D-VHS recording archived from HBO-HD (definitely 5C=copy once) to a .TS file on my PC using CapDVHS.

igreg

08-12-08, 07:43 PM

Rico66

08-12-08, 07:45 PM

No they wouldn't have been. :rolleyes:

That's a moot discussion, since there's no way to prove this. It's just guessing.

Another interesting question to me is actually how many people do actually know that they're not watching live? Yes it's mentioned in the papers, but only in the fine print of some articles. The big NBC live bug is still present on the left coast. That's cheating to me.

bicker1

08-12-08, 07:46 PM

Just because they are a major network doesn't make them automatically right.The same logic says that just because some viewers don't like what they're doing doesn't make them automatically wrong. They have different objectives than we do.

keenan

08-12-08, 07:50 PM

On the subject of delayed broadcast, the following story is interesting,

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=14432461&highlight=#post14432461

igreg

08-12-08, 07:56 PM

The same logic says that just because some viewers don't like what they're doing doesn't make them automatically wrong. They have different objectives than we do.

It's not just that many don't like what they are doing. It makes no sense to any objectives I can think of to tape delay events occurring live from 7:00 PDT to 11:30 PDT to 10:00 PDT to 2:30 am.

igreg

08-12-08, 07:58 PM

On the subject of delayed broadcast, the following story is interesting,

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=14432461&highlight=#post14432461

Thanks for the post. Maybe at least someone at NBC is starting to think.

kezug

08-12-08, 08:17 PM

I dont know if I am so satisfied with the HD coverage of the olympic games. I have Comcast Cable (Chicago) and am only getting NBC and UHD. NBC coverage is fine but limited and UHD has nothing but BOXING!

So, where is this 3600 hours of coverage? :rolleyes:

IAM4UK

08-12-08, 08:22 PM

So direct your anger at your local affiliate, they're the reason you're getting the Olympics on a 3-hour delay.

Local affiliates often prevent viewers from watching what they want or from watching when they want. I hate my local affiliates in Albuquerque, and wish I could somehow subscribe to direct network HD feeds.

keenan

08-12-08, 08:29 PM

That's a moot discussion, since there's no way to prove this. It's just guessing.

Another interesting question to me is actually how many people do actually know that they're not watching live? Yes it's mentioned in the papers, but only in the fine print of some articles. The big NBC live bug is still present on the left coast. That's cheating to me.

It is cheating, it's complete BS and misleading, especially when you've got you're local NBC station using the same graphic for their live remotes during the local evening newscast.

dan_o_00

08-12-08, 08:46 PM

My HD basketball and soccer channels still aren't working. Just a black screen saying it should be available shortly. I have Charter.

srw1000

08-12-08, 09:32 PM

I haven't been watching that much coverage, but my wife wanted to see some beautiful HD coverage tonight, so we turned it on. Yikes! What an ugly picture! I read through this thread, and saw that others have noticed the same thing.

What I'm wondering is, how much of this might be due to multi casting versus production/distribution issues? I took the attached picture with my OTR DVR on pause, and then re-sized, so the quality isn't that great and the sides are cropped off.

http://img399.imageshack.us/img399/4985/olympicdivingwe3.jpg

Our local channel (WTMJ in Milwaukee, WI) broadcasts WeatherPlus as a sub-channel.

How does this compare to what the rest of you are seeing? Does it look this bad? Granted, this is a still shot, but even while in motion it's' this noticeable. My wife is questioning the value of our HDTV at this point.

Scott

xbgamer

08-12-08, 09:46 PM

@srw1000
this is what I'm seeing on WRC, NBC's DC affiliate:
http://i95.photobucket.com/albums/l160/justkeepsingn010/db0b832b.jpg

this was capped from OTA using my myHD HD tuner (that I bought back in the day to watch Athens in HD).

WRC broadcasts weatherplus as well.

Honestly, when there isn't any fast moving going around, the screens look fine. Like volleyball right now...the only bad macroblock is happening around the ball, the players and everything else appears fine. But for sports that have a lot of surrounding movement, say swimming when water splashes, the whole image goes to hell.

ADNBSN

08-12-08, 10:26 PM

That's exactly what I'm seeing too. I have a FIOS HD DVR. I tryed OTA (straight into the TV) and there was no difference. I was thinking it was my provider, but it appears to be NBC. Very disappointing. I tried watching water polo; god with all that water movement it looked horrible (pausing and putting my tv on it's back, I could have played checkers on the freaking blocks).

@srw1000

.......

Honestly, when there isn't any fast moving going around, the screens look fine. Like volleyball right now...the only bad macroblock is happening around the ball, the players and everything else appears fine. But for sports that have a lot of surrounding movement, say swimming when water splashes, the whole image goes to hell.

somemightsay

08-12-08, 10:34 PM

Seeing the same macroblocking issues on the water movement, graphic swipes, etc. OTA from KXAS in Dallas/Ft. Worth. KXAS also multicasts WeatherPlus. :mad:

IndyJeff

08-12-08, 10:40 PM

Seeing the same macroblocking issues on the water movement, graphic swipes, etc. OTA from KXAS in Dallas/Ft. Worth. KXAS also multicasts WeatherPlus. :mad:

Yeah, it's really bad tonight. Worse than any night so far. Maybe another network will get the Olympics one of these years.

Indianapolis / Watching OTA (WTHR 13.1) through ViP 622.

LL3HD

08-12-08, 10:49 PM

:cool: posted already above ^^^^...160

Quaker2001

08-12-08, 10:56 PM

Local news would not have to be affected. Live events occurred from 7:00 PDT to 11:30 PDT. So you think NBC made a wise decision running these live events on tape delay from 10:00 PDT until 2:30 am?

Local news is not just at 11pm, it's also at 5 or 6 or whenever an affiliate usually runs it. I'm not saying NBC necessarily made a wise decision. When I saw an early version of the schedules and knew there would be a lot of live coverage in primetime, I figured that at least the primetime block would be live to both coasts because of when the live events would be. But if NBC thinks this is the way to do it, I'm not going to argue with their decision because it's probably in the best interests of their bottom line. Your contention this whole time has been that it's the people who make the decisions at NBC who are completely clueless, even though it has been proven other networks (at least 1 for sure) would and has made the exact same decision with regards to west coast viewers.

igreg

08-12-08, 11:00 PM

Local news is not just at 11pm, it's also at 5 or 6 or whenever an affiliate usually runs it. I'm not saying NBC necessarily made a wise decision. When I saw an early version of the schedules and knew there would be a lot of live coverage in primetime, I figured that at least the primetime block would be live to both coasts because of when the live events would be. But if NBC thinks this is the way to do it, I'm not going to argue with their decision because it's probably in the best interests of their bottom line. Your contention this whole time has been that it's the people who make the decisions at NBC who are completely clueless, even though it has been proven other networks (at least 1 for sure) would and has made the exact same decision with regards to west coast viewers.

Irrelevant whether the local news is at 5 or 6; the live Olympic events occurred from 7:00 PDT until 11:30 PDT.

JCL

08-12-08, 11:07 PM

Are you sure about this? Yesterday they were showing the volleyball match between the US and Italy live between 9:30 and 11:30 PT. Does this repeat time slot start afterwards?

Monday night might be an oddity. So when did they air the Men's Team Gymnastics final out on the west coast? Before or after the (live?) volleyball match?

JCL

08-12-08, 11:12 PM

Dperber, that's why I enjoyed last night's Men's Team Gymnastics competition so much (look away if you haven't seen/read what took place last night). Because of scoring delays by the judges (which were outrageous in this day and age of modern computers) and the back-and-forth between USA, Japan and Germany for the Silver and Bronze medals (it was clear the Chinese were going to runaway with the Gold) NBC got backed-up and ran out of commercials for the last hour or so of competition. So NBC actually had to show some Japanese and German gymnasts (which were decent) compete in several events in-between the announcers babbling about Team USA's chances of getting Bronze. Just by the fact these non-Chinese/USA athletes' performances from Japan and Germany weren't given slo-mo instant replays or more than a cursory mention (because, again, the show ran late and NBC ran out of commercials) it felt like an actual competition between several teams of gymnasts. Not the pre-prepackaged, pro-USA spectacle NBC clearly wanted and eventually got when Team USA earned (because we saw them defeat the Germans in the Horse event) a hard-won Bronze.

Couldn't agree more. We got the complete picture during the final rotation, not just six men.

ridgefamus

08-12-08, 11:26 PM

JCL

08-12-08, 11:34 PM

There are lots going on tonight in Gymnastics and Swimming. NBC has been busy switching back and forth between the two venues during the past 45 minutes without running a single commercial !!

Looks like Gymnastics is running into overtime again tonight, so add time to your PVR's -- if you still can.

Rico66

08-12-08, 11:44 PM

Monday night might be an oddity. So when did they air the Men's Team Gymnastics final out on the west coast? Before or after the (live?) volleyball match?

The volleyball match was on the east coast feed. The west coast showed it 3 hours later (I guess).

Quaker2001

08-13-08, 12:07 AM

Irrelevant whether the local news is at 5 or 6; the live Olympic events occurred from 7:00 PDT until 11:30 PDT.

Actually, live events started at 6:00 PDT. NBC showed a live beach volleyball game starting at 9am Beijing time. And that 11:30 PDT event you're talking about was a preliminary round indoor volleyball game, that has no business appearing in a primetime telecast over coverage of a much more popular sport such as diving (yes, even if it's on tape). If you want to create a separate broadcast just for the west coast, that's one thing, but don't do it on the basis that the east coast gets a volleyball game live in late night when it's primetime out west.

igreg

08-13-08, 12:27 AM

Actually, live events started at 6:00 PDT. NBC showed a live beach volleyball game starting at 9am Beijing time. And that 11:30 PDT event you're talking about was a preliminary round indoor volleyball game, that has no business appearing in a primetime telecast over coverage of a much more popular sport such as diving (yes, even if it's on tape). If you want to create a separate broadcast just for the west coast, that's one thing, but don't do it on the basis that the east coast gets a volleyball game live in late night when it's primetime out west.

I'm doing it on the basis of the major events, swimming and gymnastics, occurring live betwen 7:00 pm and 10:30 in the west. If you just have to satisfy the local networks fromn 6:00 to 7:00 then show the live events from 6:00 to 7:00 on tape delay after the live broadcast of the swimming and gymnastics. Volleyball live is just an added bonus. You get it all live from 7:00 to 11:30 if NBC had made a better decision.

Quaker2001

08-13-08, 12:59 AM

I'm doing it on the basis of the major events, swimming and gymnastics, occurring live betwen 7:00 pm and 10:30 in the west. If you just have to satisfy the local networks fromn 6:00 to 7:00 than show the live events from 6:00 to 7:00 on tape delay after the live broadcast of the swimming and gymnastics. Volleyball live is just an added bonus. You get it all live from 7:00 to 11:30 if NBC had made a better decision.

If it's not worth it to have beach volleyball, a popular primetime event, shown live then why show the indoor volleyball live for the sake of showing something live? In your scenario, where do the diving and beach volleyball go? It could have been possible to work out something like you're talking about, but you don't have to show live coverage just because there's live coverage.

IAM4UK

08-13-08, 01:38 AM

Congrats to the little kids from China in gymnastics. They performed well enough to earn their team gold. But I don't believe they're all at least 16 this year, and it's sad how they are taken away from their families at age 3 to train for the opportunity to compete at the olympics.

The swimming has been amazing...world records being blasted almost every race.

Berk32

08-13-08, 01:39 AM

keenan

08-13-08, 01:48 AM

From what I understand... (and If i messed something up - feel free to correct me)

NBC cant go live on its west coast affiliates until 8PM Pacific on weeknights anyways... so the west still has to miss out on the first 2 hours of actual live programming... (the affiliates own the time until 8pm - and they rarely ever give it up (network has to literally buy it from them, and I think there are federal regulations on how much this can be done) - some definitely wont - and not having all of the affiliates just creates the same problem. (on a side note - Fox affiliates occasionally tend to give up the 7:30 half hour often for events... but not the other networks)
NBC wont just have the west feed jump in in the middle of the events that the east time zone is seeing at 11pm.... that's just bad TV production.
They do it every Sunday night during football season, plus, the NBC O&O's are going to do whatever the network tells them to do, and, the Olympics are only 2 weeks every 2 years - don't see the problem.

Berk32

08-13-08, 01:52 AM

They do it every Sunday night during football season, plus, the NBC O&O's are going to do whatever the network tells them to do, and, the Olympics are only 2 weeks every 2 years - don't see the problem.

I said Weeknights.

Network controls 7pm on on Sundays.

Berk32

08-13-08, 01:55 AM

And here are the non East/Central NBC O&O.

KNBC (Los Angeles) • KNSD (San Diego) • KNTV (Bay Area)

There are plenty more affiliates than just those 3.

keenan

08-13-08, 01:58 AM

I said Weeknights.

Network controls 7pm on on Sundays.

Sunday Night Football starts at 5PM out here, and when ABC was doing Monday Night Football, it started at 6PM. I'm sure there's considerations, but I don't think for an event like the Olympics there would be a lot problems, if, NBC was treating these games as games and not just more hours of primetime entertainment like "Heroes" or an "American Idol".

Berk32

08-13-08, 02:05 AM

Sunday Night Football starts at 5PM out here, and when ABC was doing Monday Night Football, it started at 6PM. I'm sure there's considerations, but I don't think for an event like the Olympics there would be a lot problems, if, NBC was treating these games as games and not just more hours of primetime entertainment like "Heroes" or an "American Idol".

Random question for the west coast people:

At halftime of sunday night football - do you get local news during that time? (I still remember when NBC had basketball games sunday evenings on the east coast time, halftime would go to local news)

If you were getting some local news during halftime... that would explain the news 'problem' being solved for football coverage out west...

keenan

08-13-08, 02:11 AM

And here are the non East/Central NBC O&O.

KNBC (Los Angeles) • KNSD (San Diego) • KNTV (Bay Area)

There are plenty more affiliates than just those 3.

And those 3 markets together are probably larger than all the other west coast NBC affiliates combined.

I'm not saying there wouldn't be some problems, but if NBC decided they wanted to start these broadcasts at 5PM, I really doubt there's be any issues with the affiliate stations.

Berk32

08-13-08, 02:13 AM

And those 3 markets together are probably larger than all the other west coast NBC affiliates combined.

I'm not saying there wouldn't be some problems, but if NBC decided they wanted to start these broadcasts at 5PM, I really doubt there's be any issues with the affiliate stations.

Are you sure there aren't government regulations against it?

keenan

08-13-08, 02:26 AM

Are you sure there aren't government regulations against it?

There could be, but I doubt it, the only reg I'm aware of is the X-amount of educational/children programming that has to be shown each week, and the after 10PM thing(adult content, etc).

Some of the more knowledgeable here will probably have the facts though.

Berk32

08-13-08, 02:34 AM

There could be, but I doubt it, the only reg I'm aware of is the X-amount of educational/children programming that has to be shown each week, and the after 10PM thing(adult content, etc).

Some of the more knowledgeable here will probably have the facts though.

I think I just found part of my answer...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime_Time_Access_Rule

I knew this was put into place at some point in the 70s, because the networks used to have shows starting at 7/7:30 on weeknight.

It was eliminated in 1996... and now its completely up to the affiliates to give the networks the early time... and as it has been said... many may not want to...

(of course.. sports specials like the olympics may have been excluded anyways - making my search on this completely pointless...)

Now I just wonder if there are any regulations when it comes to providing local news nightly....

igreg

08-13-08, 03:11 AM

If it's not worth it to have beach volleyball, a popular primetime event, shown live then why show the indoor volleyball live for the sake of showing something live? In your scenario, where do the diving and beach volleyball go? It could have been possible to work out something like you're talking about, but you don't have to show live coverage just because there's live coverage.

Show it all live. That's my solution. I'm just saying that if the local news is the stumbling block (no such problem for MNF; All-Star game, etc.), then show whatever live action is forced to tape by the news to after the live action. Don't delay ALL the live programming!

Your statement that "you don't have to show live coverage just because there's live coverage" makes no sense in this Olympic coverage. You have live action taking place all night from 7:00-10:30 in the west, and NBC shows it all three-hour tape delayed.

igreg

08-13-08, 03:14 AM

From what I understand... (and If i messed something up - feel free to correct me)

NBC cant go live on its west coast affiliates until 8PM Pacific on weeknights anyways... so the west still has to miss out on the first 2 hours of actual live programming... (the affiliates own the time until 8pm - and they rarely ever give it up (network has to literally buy it from them, and I think there are federal regulations on how much this can be done) - some definitely wont - and not having all of the affiliates just creates the same problem. (on a side note - Fox affiliates occasionally tend to give up the 7:30 half hour often for events... but not the other networks)
NBC wont just have the west feed jump in in the middle of the events that the east time zone is seeing at 11pm.... that's just bad TV production.

I don't think NBC would have a problem starting the Olympics at 7:00 if they made the decision to broadcast the Olympics live to the west. The networks do it all the time for important live events.

I believe the affiliates are free to choose to carry or not carry the network programming; however, the network pays them big $$$ to carry its programming. I'm sure the affiliates receive more compensation for carriage of the Olympics than they would receive for broadcasting "Wheel of Fortune" et al.

igreg

08-13-08, 03:17 AM

I said Weeknights.

Network controls 7pm on on Sundays.

Irrelevant. NBC coverage of Sunday night football begins at 5:00 Pacific Time in the West.

pip11

08-13-08, 03:24 AM

Although I'm generally not as bullish as igreg on "West Coast live at all costs", I have to agree that these last two nights should have been shown live here in the west. The real gymnastics action hasn't happened until 11 or 12: late night in the east, and the coveted *primetime* here in the west.

That said, we might get some live action this weekend: Source: TVNewser (http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/olympics/phelps_race_may_get_coasttocoast_live_coverage_91430.asp)
In what could be the biggest news story of this coming weekend, we receive this from an anonymous tipster:
NBC giving serious consideration to airing Saturday's prime-time Olympic coverage live in all time zones due to Michael Phelps' potential 8th gold medal. This would allow full network to show race as it is happening. Otherwise, West Coast viewers would see it three hours after it takes place. Final decision may be made late Thursday night EDT.

igreg

08-13-08, 03:33 AM

I couldn't have said it better myself; wait....I did say it, right down to the Jay Leno quote. The only thing I would edit is the author's statement, "Sure, some sporting events start at weird times on the west coast, but that's the norm and people adapt." These events did not occur at odd hours. On the contrary, they occurred live from 7:00 - 11:30 pm in the west. Glad to see that he points out that not only is it unfair to the viewers, but that it is a bad business decision.

Apparently people care; the article has 3,195 comments, and it looks like 99% have a problem with NBC's inexplicable decision.

http://sports.yahoo.com/olympics/beijing/blog/fourth_place_medal/post/NBC-withholding-live-Olympic-events-from-west-co?urn=oly,99683

NBC went to a lot of trouble in order to get major Olympic events like swimming and gymnastics on the air live in primetime in the United States. Now, after getting their wish, the Peacock Network is inexplicably showing those events on tape delay on the west coast.

Because the time difference from Beijing to the United States wouldn't allow NBC to air live coverage of events from China, swimming and gymnastics finals were moved to the morning in Beijing. The network paid $894 million to broadcast these Olympics and didn't want a redo of 2000, when every major event in Sydney was shown on tape delay (it's no coincidence that the ratings for those Games were the lowest in history).

But after enduring months of tough negotiations with the IOC to get the events moved, NBC is doing exactly what they tried to avoid: showing events on tape. Tonight's swimming finals with Michael Phelps, Dara Torres and Katie Hoff were not shown live in the Mountain or Pacific time zones, nor will they be shown for the entirety of the competition. NBC will instead run the east coast feed three hours later; at 8:00 p.m. PT. So, at the moment (midnight on the east coast), viewers on the other side of the country still haven't seen Phelps shatter his own world record in the 400-meter individual medley.

This is a baffling decision by NBC. It's hard to recall any other occasion when a sporting event has been shown live in one half of the country, but not the other. It's unheard of. Sure, some sporting events start at weird times on the west coast, but that's the norm and people adapt. Like earthquakes, wildfires and actors-turned-governors, it's just how things are. That's why bars have breakfast buffets and bloody mary specials during football season for 10:00 a.m. kickoffs. If live mid-day weekend telecasts are good enough for the NFL and college football, why not the Olympics?

If the network plans on continuing the delay of the west coast feed, they're subjecting themselves to viewer backlash, poor ratings and upset advertisers. Essentially, NBC strong-armed the IOC into changing around a bulk of the Olympic schedule in order to broadcast live events in two time zones. Great business decision, guys. Why not just push Jay Leno out the door too while you're at it. (Oh, wait.)

sneals2000

08-13-08, 04:10 AM

Anyone else besides me fascinated with the camera shot behind the platform in the synchro diving that follows the divers from the top to below the water? Just a great shot and view, IMO. I don't watch much diving so if this is old hat, sorry.

Yep - think it is called "Plungecam" - and has been used for quite a while now when covering diving. Amazing shot though - and I think it has some quite clever control systems that allow it to track with the action (someone will now prove me wrong and tell me it's just a very talented operator!)

I've also loved the very high frame rate shots they've been using - they don't show you much action - but they have an almost abstract beauty.

The Aussies doing the swimming and diving coverage (Channel Seven from Australia are host broadcasters for these events - as they were in Athens) are doing a really good job. Very clean coverage with good production values.

Rammitinski

08-13-08, 04:10 AM

bicker1

08-13-08, 04:56 AM

It makes no sense to any objectives I can think of ...Better. You cannot think of what their objectives are. That makes sense.

JCL

08-13-08, 06:42 AM

Actually, live events started at 6:00 PDT. NBC showed a live beach volleyball game starting at 9am Beijing time. And that 11:30 PDT event you're talking about was a preliminary round indoor volleyball game, that has no business appearing in a primetime telecast over coverage of a much more popular sport such as diving (yes, even if it's on tape). If you want to create a separate broadcast just for the west coast, that's one thing, but don't do it on the basis that the east coast gets a volleyball game live in late night when it's primetime out west.

So here we go again. Some wants a live feed during primetime out west, but we don't want a live (indoor) volleyball game at that time. To do this, all the earlier events have go on during late afternoon and supper hour (like 5 to 8). ....Well, NBC will do that on Saturday -- it appears.

ncxcstud

08-13-08, 07:34 AM

Anyone know when UniversalHD will show the baseball game against South Korea that the info guide from DirecTV says that they'll be showing...??? The game started at 6AM...i woke up early for it :( and all I got was a match between Russia and Georgia in beach volleyball (which isn't as dramatic as it should because the Georgian players are actually Brazilians...) and then a semifinal swimming match...

If they're going to change the schedule, just tell me...sheesh...now their bumping to tennis...

Lee L

08-13-08, 08:38 AM

Yep - think it is called "Plungecam" - and has been used for quite a while now when covering diving. Amazing shot though - and I think it has some quite clever control systems that allow it to track with the action (someone will now prove me wrong and tell me it's just a very talented operator!)

I am not sure if panning is possible or not, but as far as following the divers, they have the best control system possible to ensure that the camera always tracks the divers on the way down, without fail. Gravity. Basically the camera is on cable with a pulley at the top of the cylinder. It is pulled up to the top, then when the divers reach their apex right after they jump, the operator lets go of the cable. The guy does have to be good to do it right, but it is low tech.

If you look at tosme of the other replays, you can see the guy in the adjacent tower holding, then letting go of the cable. It is pretty cool.

I also have a question for everyone. I am looking for a laptop and was wondering what kind NBC were using for their guys at the coverage desk?

;)

hphase

08-13-08, 09:48 AM

Ratings would be higher if NBC had broadcast the events live to the west.
Sez who? You?

It's obvious you don't like the decision. It's a different thing to assume that your opinion is correct and that all the things that support your opinion are also true.

Quaker2001

08-13-08, 09:54 AM

From the TV Sports column of today's USA Today...

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/columnist/hiestand-tv/2008-08-12-nbc-coverage_N.htm

Something similar happened at the 2002 Salt Lake Winter Games. NBC hoped prime-time action airing live in the East would also air live on its West Coast affiliates. But those stations didn't want live action, partly since it would cut into their local news shows and because they figured holding action for prime time would draw more viewers than live action would when fewer people watch TV.

igreg, you may be right that NBC botched this and should have shown everything live to the West Coast because it would have gotten them better ratings. I'm not going to argue with that point. But this decision is not without precedent (NBC in 2002 and CBS in 1998). It's not like it didn't occur to NBC that live to the West Coast might be a better idea and completely ignored it. They are in the business of making money and if they thought that advertisers would pay them more money to buy time on taped coverage, I have to assume they made that decision for a reason. You're right that it's unfair to the viewers, but guess what.. viewers don't buy ad time on NBC, advertisers do. I'd be upset too if I lived on the West Coast, but ya know what.. I'd still watch, and so have a lot of people out there even when they know the results.

DrLar

08-13-08, 10:24 AM

hphase

08-13-08, 10:42 AM

This is a baffling decision by NBC. It's hard to recall any other occasion when a sporting event has been shown live in one half of the country, but not the other. It's unheard of. Sure, some sporting events start at weird times on the west coast, but that's the norm and people adapt. Like earthquakes, wildfires and actors-turned-governors, it's just how things are. That's why bars have breakfast buffets and bloody mary specials during football season for 10:00 a.m. kickoffs. If live mid-day weekend telecasts are good enough for the NFL and college football, why not the Olympics?

College football hasn't started yet for this year, but it was common practice to delay college football games for the West Coast. And if there were any technical blunders in the East Coast feed, they would be fixed for the West Coast. The Grammys also benefited from such an arrangement.

I believe NFL football is shown live partly because, with regionalization, it would be very difficult to have enough satellite distribution feeds for both time zones. There's also a lot of money riding on these games...

Berk32

08-13-08, 10:56 AM

I also have a question for everyone. I am looking for a laptop and was wondering what kind NBC were using for their guys at the coverage desk?

;)

I think Dell....

JCL

08-13-08, 11:19 AM

^^ I'm almost sure if you lived in San Diego, El Paso, etc, you would tune in the Mexican channels to see some HISTORIC events taking place live instead of waiting 2-3 hours..

Is the Canadian network showing live events in cities like Calgary, Vancouver etc?

All Canadian time zones get the same feed. So if an event is live in the east, it's live in the west -- and everywhere in between.

mac707

08-13-08, 11:41 AM

rdclark

08-13-08, 12:12 PM

My goodness the blur and pixellation last night during the diving (this is on D*) was HORRIBLE. I generally don't like to complain about PQ but when you can't even see the divers as the camera follows them towards the water than that's just unacceptable.

Swimming and diving are the only 2 things where I've had bad transmissions or severe PQ problems, what's up with that...

It's all those individual drops of water moving randomly, plus backgrounds moving fantastically fast behind the athletes. The compression just can't keep up (and I believe NBC is using an unusually high compression rate because they are transmitting so many simultaneous streams.

You can actually see the compression artifacts in the analog SD version too.

xiaoyu

08-13-08, 12:31 PM

I don't believe his question regarded how to use CapDVHS. It was about wanting to unload a recording made on a DCH-3416 DVR to a Mits 1100U D-VHS VCR via firewire, something that absolutely should be possible 100% of the time. Actually, his further clarification suggested that he'd done this many times before without problem, but that only the Olympics DVR recordings to D-VHS were then somehow unwatchable.

If you can record something to DVR (i.e. anything other than VOD), you can offload it to D-VHS via firewire, which counts as the 1st-generation "copy" per 5C rules. The DVR recording itself does not count as a "generation".

Now 2nd-generation copies of the 1st-generation D-VHS archive are obviously not permitted, if the 5C-flag says "copy once". Only "copy always" can be duplicated from one D-VHS to another D-VHS, or to/from PC from/to D-VHS via CapDVHS.

I haven't tried dealing with CapDVHS on any of the NBC HD cable channels (other than NBC-HD), so I can't confirm your opening statement. I don't know from firsthand knowledge if these other channels are 5C=copy once or copy always.

However I can absolutely 100% confirm that I, personally, just yesterday in fact, archived from my TWC/LA Moto DCH-3416 recording of Sunday's Olympics on NBC-HD to D-VHS (my JVC 40K) via firewire with no problem. And then I copied that D-VHS tape to a .TS file on my PC (via firewire) using CapDVHS, also with no problem, where I was then able to work on it with VideoReDo and VirtualDub (plus MPEG-2 plug-in so that the .TS stream was acceptable to VirtualDub).

I would be very surprised if TWC-provided NBC-family channels like USA-HD and UHD are marked as "copy once" (which theoretically should prevent CapDVHS from being able to copy it from D-VHS, which is already that one-and-only 1st-generation legal copy). But I will absolute test this out tonight myself, to see if this is really true. And just to confirm my understanding about CapDVHS's conformance to 5C-rules, I will also try to copy a D-VHS recording archived from HBO-HD (definitely 5C=copy once) to a .TS file on my PC using CapDVHS.

I found the place: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1032148 on this forum that people had same probelm with me. This problem might be created by new firmware upgrade. I sent an email to comcast, and here is a response from them:

I apologize for this inconvenience. I am working with Comcast & Motorola
engineers to determine what is causing this issue. I will provide them
your information to assist them.

I will keep you updated.

Thank you,

George Lunski
Comcast Corporate Office
Comcast Customer Connect

dad1153

08-13-08, 12:41 PM

So, did anybody see USA's men's soccer team get kicked off the Olympic medal race by that soccer superpower... Nigeria??!! :rolleyes: Even the American NBC announcers were stunned and didn't hold back their scathing comments about Team USA. Wish they were this hard on their technical crew about the constant break-ups and macroblocking during the actual high-def broadcast.

xiaoyu

08-13-08, 12:41 PM

Hi,

I will switch my future posts to the right place (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1032148). Sorry for disturbing your subject and thanks for the helpful response.

Xiaoyu,

DrLar

08-13-08, 12:46 PM

We should do it like China is doing.. one time zone the whole country... LOL

JCL

08-13-08, 01:20 PM

It's all those individual drops of water moving randomly, plus backgrounds moving fantastically fast behind the athletes. The compression just can't keep up (and I believe NBC is using an unusually high compression rate because they are transmitting so many simultaneous streams.

You can actually see the compression artifacts in the analog SD version too.

If NBC is doing all the post-production and editing work in Beijing, then they're getting one stream from the diving venue. This stream can be transmitted to their editing suites when there are no other streams being beamed, can it not?

At the end of the day, it's the finished product that's being transmitted from Beijing to New York. Do they use the same bandwidth to transmit all the other stuff concurrently (NBCU, CNBC, Telemundo, and internet streams)?

Rico66

08-13-08, 01:37 PM

All Canadian time zones get the same feed. So if an event is live in the east, it's live in the west -- and everywhere in between.

That's correct for the CBC, but Radio Canada actually does something similar as NBC (the east coast feed gets delayed for each time zone). The difference though is that you can get the feeds for the different time zones (at least via satellite) country wide, which gives you actually the choice. And not that many people out west probably care about the French programming anyhow.

JCL

08-13-08, 01:43 PM

That's correct for the CBC, but Radio Canada actually does something similar as NBC (the east coast feed gets delayed for each time zone). The difference though is that you can get the feeds for the different time zones (at least via satellite) country wide, which gives you actually the choice. And not that many people out west probably care about the French programming anyhow.

Just so the people outside of Canada knows....... CBC French (Radio-Canada) runs a totally separate telecast with different anchors and different content from CBC English. I find that when I'm switching between the two, 99% of the time they're showing different events -- which gives you further choices.

igreg

08-13-08, 02:20 PM

Better. You cannot think of what their objectives are. That makes sense.

Originally Posted by bicker1
The same logic says that just because some viewers don't like what they're doing doesn't make them automatically wrong. They have different objectives than we do.

Not quite. I was being inclusive. Ratings, money, goodwill, etcetera. So if you have a problem with my statement let me rephrase it, "It makes no sense to any prudent objective for NBC to tape delay the Olympics". Now if NBC's objectives were to screw things up, fail to maximize its profits and alienate viewers it succeeded.

sneals2000

08-13-08, 02:34 PM

If NBC is doing all the post-production and editing work in Beijing, then they're getting one stream from the diving venue. This stream can be transmitted to their editing suites when there are no other streams being beamed, can it not?

At the end of the day, it's the finished product that's being transmitted from Beijing to New York. Do they use the same bandwidth to transmit all the other stuff concurrently (NBCU, CNBC, Telemundo, and internet streams)?

I don't know what the split of production between China and the US is for NBC's various HD outlets.

I would imagine there is an HD stream per HD outlet between China and the US as a minimum. That's a lot of HD streams potentially.

The BBC (the only HD broadcaster where I can find the online delivery specs), in their technical delivery standards for BBC HD, require a minimum of 60Mbs MPEG2 for their live HD content (anything below this is defined as SD). (This may be optimistic, particularly for satellite, but not at all for fibre...)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/guidelines/dq/pdf/tv/hd_delivery_v01_09.pdf

If NBC are running at significantly lower than 60Mbs for backhaul than that might be an issue?

(The main NBC network has a somewhat "compromised" distribution model that stresses content quite heavily, if that content has already been compromised on the backhaul, then things aren't going to be good)

dad1153

08-13-08, 02:37 PM

Ratings, money, goodwill, etcetera. So if you have a problem with my statement let me rephrase it, "It makes not sense to any prudent objective for NBC to tape delay the Olympics". Now if NBC's objectives were to screw things up, fail to maximize its profits and alienate viewers it succeeded.

I sympathise (I really do) but this is just not backed by the Nielsen numbers. Just look at the Nielsen ratings for last night: http://pifeedback.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/63310451/m/159104431/p/1.

Plus this from the website www.tvbythenumbers.com: between 11:39pm and 12:18am last night, when the women's gymnastics team was on, NBC got 24.4 in the 18-49 demo and 44.8 million viewers. Sorry, but with numbers like that NBC will be happy to put up with the squeals of anger of any viewer West of the Mason-Dixon line and swim in the truckloads of cash they're making. :cool:

dad1153

08-13-08, 02:50 PM

A lot of us that just recently (less than two years) got into high-definition couldn't agree more with Mrs. McNamara's comments below, crappy macroblocking/bit-starved signals and all. :) From Fredfa's "Hot Off the Press" thread:

Olympics HDTV Notebook
Dick Ebersol Was Right: High Drama at The Olympics,
in Brilliant HD
From Mary McNamara's Multichannel News Blog - August 13, 2008

There has been much hand-wringing about NBC's tape-delayed broadcast of the Summer Olympics. After a couple of drama-packed evenings glued to NBC, can I just say: I'm having a blast.

I've never been so grateful for my plasma screen and my Comcast HD. My investment has paid off in spades and spades of viewing thrills. For all the talk about the "digital platform explosion," on-line viewing has its limitations.

I watched Sasha Artemev's spectacular pommel horse routine this morning on-line, on the NBC site. (Forms must be filled out each time users tap the live coverage. The registration process was simple but a bit of an impediment.)

While it's great to have access to extra footage, the on-line picture quality is mediocre (compared to the plasma) - it's muddy, as if someone slathered Vaseline on the camera lenses.

Some vids didn't stream smoothly. They were erratic and jerky - stopping, starting, halting every couple of seconds.

Caveat - resident tech geek on my Twitter group, Dave Winer, cancelled his Comcast account after much frustration. Dave offers sage advice on high def receivers that work with EyeTV software. "It plugs into a USB port on my Mac, and it receives digital high-def programming over the air," reports Dave.

David Neal, executive producer of NBC Sports and also executive vice president of NBC Olympics, touted NBC's high def efforts at TCA press tour.

"All 34 Olympic sports from all 37 Olympic venues throughout China will be 100 percent in HD, it's really a remarkable evolution of the technology...." Neal told critics by satellite from Beijing, "the thing for me that's so amazing is how quickly the technology has matured. So not only are the handheld and the hard cameras in HD, but even the smallest lipstick camera - the camera that's embedded in the target at archery that gives you that point of view of the arrow coming directly at the target - even that camera is in HD."

And wow, does it show. On my big plasma screen, on Comcast HD, the Summer Olympics are thrilling and visceral. It's a bit like being right there, hovering in and around the drama.

And drama it has been. At TCA, Dick Ebersol - chairman of NBC Universal Sports and Olympics and executive producer of Olympics - promised there would be drama.

"I think the country is really ready for this," said Ebersol, also by satellite from Beijing, "it isn't exactly a joyful time in America right now, $4 gas, people who can't afford vacations, wild prices on food....they're really looking for something to cheer for. This American team, these Olympic athletes certainly offer that...The audience has really suffered of late from a paucity of great, scripted drama. They're about to get 17 days and nights of unscripted drama."

While I agreed with Ebersol's "paucity" observation, at the time I brushed off his comments as just so much network hype. But Ebersol's remarks have proved to be prescient so far.

Fireworks began with the French 'ze Americans, we are going to smash them' trash talk. This led to one of the most exciting (and satisfyingly crow-eating) races in Olympic history - the men's 4x100-meter freestyle relay. Twitter went nuts.

"Magnifique! IncreDAHble! Pass ze freedom fries," pecked Kansas City Stars' Aaron Barnhart on Twitter after the Americans captured the gold by a mere 0.08 seconds.

Last night, the men's team gymnastics competition also shifted into high gear. I'm just sayin'. It doesn't get any better than this.

The underdog (read: not a snowballs' chance of medaling) U.S. team was written-off after losing Olympians Paul and Morgan Hamm to injuries.

"Their six-man roster was a makeshift thing," said Washington Post's Sally Jenkins, "pieced together out of rookies and retreads, not one of whom had ever been in an Olympics."

The team stitched themselves together with heart and camaraderie and can-do, jumping and leaping for joy at every success. Pumped by the endearing, pep-talkin' Jonathan Horton, they thumbed their noses at the pundits and doubters.

Raj Bhavsar, an alternate admitted to the team after the Hamms withdrew, set the tone by leading off with an excellent ring display. Bhavsar, born of parents who emigrated to the U.S. from Gujarat, is now something of a cross-cultural ambassador, the darling of the Indian press, too.

An African-America presidential nominee. An Indian-American, a Chinese-American and a Russian-American on our gymnastics team. An African-American on our French-trouncing gold-medal 4x100 meter relay team. I'm starting to feel a little warm and fuzzy inside about the rainbow representing our country.

Top contending Japanese flopped all over the place while the U.S. guys killed it on the high bar and the vault. Horton nailed his routines again and again. On high bar, the aptly named Justin Spring flew so high and so far on his TRIPLE somersault dismount that he landed at the very edge of the mat - a landing that he stuck.

Then, American hopes for a medal dimmed following a mediocre showing on the floor exercise. Hopes were almost dashed after team captain Kevin Tan's (a Chinese-American) heartbreaking dead stop on the pommel horse.

The only chance for a medal came down to the last routine (for the Americans) on the very last apparatus: the pommel horse and Russian-born Sasha Artemev - an American initially nixed from the team because of his tendency to fall from...the pommel horse!

At this point in the competition, I'm thinking: you're kidding, right? Who wrote this script!?

Artemev flew, his long legs windmilling around the apparatus. He seemed nearly weightless, suspended by an invisible thread above the horse.

He was brilliant. His routine was the clutch performance of a lifetime. On the sidelines, the U.S. team went mad with joy, leaping wildly into the air. I dashed over to Twitter to post this: "We're goin' swimming in the river tonight. [the Yangtze] ..never give up, that's how we roll!" said Horton.

According to The AP, when the final standings popped up confirming a team bronze, Horton screamed: "Nobody believed in us! Nobody believed in us!"

Can I just say, Mr. Ebersol, you were so right.

Oh, I forgot to mention: David Durante was the other alternate. He never had a chance to compete. He sat in the stands and wept openly for his team after Artemev completed his routine.

P.S. Props to the Chinese crowds too...who showed great sportsmanship by cheering for other teams.

http://www.multichannel.com/blog/1300000330/post/1600031560.html

scowl

08-13-08, 02:54 PM

Swimming and diving are the only 2 things where I've had bad transmissions or severe PQ problems, what's up with that...

The synchronized diving (if anyone watches that) is hopeless to watch real time. Half way before the divers reach the water they're just a blob of square pixels. There's no way to tell if they're synchronized or not. You have to wait for the replay.

This is exactly how it was four years ago.

sneals2000

08-13-08, 03:17 PM

Swimming and diving are the only 2 things where I've had bad transmissions or severe PQ problems, what's up with that...

Put simply - they're the most difficult to compress. Lots of unpredictable motion (rippling water, splashing water is effectively random, and thus unpredictable) which doesn't compress well using compression schemes based on large amounts of redundancy, or predictable motion, between frames.

The sports also have lots of very fast movement in the background, which is so fast that it is also less "temporally redundant".

Put simply - swimming and diving, along with rowing, are horrendous to compress. Every point in the transmission chain that uses motion compression (which is most of them) is being hammered...

reuthermonkey

08-13-08, 03:38 PM

It's all those individual drops of water moving randomly, plus backgrounds moving fantastically fast behind the athletes. The compression just can't keep up (and I believe NBC is using an unusually high compression rate because they are transmitting so many simultaneous streams.

You can actually see the compression artifacts in the analog SD version too.

I haven't seen the diving, but i'm surprised to see this considering how good the pq is for the swimming (imo). I've been looking for pixelation with the swimming but haven't seen anything distracting... I hope I get to see the diving to see what all the hubbub is about...

bicker1

08-13-08, 03:46 PM

So if you have a problem with my statement let me rephrase it, "It makes not sense to any prudent objective for NBC to tape delay the Olympics". You're welcome to your opinion. http://www.wdwinfo.com/images/smilies/hippie.gif

I sympathise (I really do) but this is just not backed by the Nielsen numbers. Just look at the Nielsen ratings for last night: http://pifeedback.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/63310451/m/159104431/p/1.

Plus this from the website www.tvbythenumbers.com: between 11:39pm and 12:18am last night, when the women's gymnastics team was on, NBC got 24.4 in the 18-49 demo and 44.8 million viewers. Sorry, but with numbers like that NBC will be happy to put up with the squeals of anger of any viewer West of the Mason-Dixon line and swim in the truckloads of cash they're making. :cool:Precisely. Thanks for presenting this information in such a clear and compelling manner.

Erik Tracy

08-13-08, 03:51 PM

I haven't seen the diving, but i'm surprised to see this considering how good the pq is for the swimming (imo). I've been looking for pixelation with the swimming but haven't seen anything distracting... I hope I get to see the diving to see what all the hubbub is about...

I'm still trying to figure out what the root cause is.

Folks more knowledgeable than I have said that the backend haul direct from NBC isn't to blame.

So it could be on the frontend haul (distribution) to the affilitiates or the individual affiliates using lower quality codecs, or the cable and satellite distributors using rate shaping to bit rob a little more bandwidth for additional programming.

I really don't think it is at my end and BD movies and HD Football are great with no macroblocking.

For me - any NBC Olympic programming has suffered from macroblocking, from NBC HD prime, to USA-HD, to the Soccer and Basketball channel feeds.
[TWC, San Diego]

It gets pretty bad sometimes - what a shame as the Olympics only come every 2 years. :mad:

Erik

scowl

08-13-08, 03:56 PM

Despite all the pixelization, the Olympics have looked great in 16:9. It's been the only way we've been able to to see the other swimmers when Michael Phelps has been in the race. ;)

scowl

08-13-08, 04:15 PM

Put simply - they're the most difficult to compress. Lots of unpredictable motion (rippling water, splashing water is effectively random, and thus unpredictable) which doesn't compress well using compression schemes based on large amounts of redundancy, or predictable motion, between frames.
But diving seems to be the classic compression scenario of a panning camera following a subject moving in a predictable way. Unfortunately only one second of this motion will bring the effective resolution below SD levels from my affiliate.

I wonder if they could make MPEG-2 encoders smart enough to recognize this situation and concentrate bits on the more-important less-moving subject in the center of the screen and let the less-important background pixelate instead. I know MPEG-4 has tools to separate foreground subjects from the background but I don't see how they could help with a single pan like a dive.

sneals2000

08-13-08, 04:19 PM

I'm still trying to figure out what the root cause is.

Swimming and diving are not particularly artefacty on BBC HD or Eurosport HD in Europe, so it isn't likely to be the host broadcast feed that is at fault.

Folks more knowledgeable than I have said that the backend haul direct from NBC isn't to blame.

No - though concatenation is a tricky thing to manage.

Annoyingly a feed that visually appears fine at a given data rate, can have artefacts that get exponentially magnified further down the chain, so pictures that appear good on the backhaul can still cause problems later on in the chain, particularly if the fronthaul (or whatever the affiliate distribution satellite system is called in US parlance!) and then the final compression for transmission (potentially followed by yet another compression if you're watching on satellite?) are lower than ideal.

Standards conversion from 50i to 60i can also introduce artefacts that cause compression issues - requiring higher bandwiths elsewhere to compensate.

Snipping a bit here and a bit there in bandwith all adds up, and the results are worse than many imagine.

JCL

08-13-08, 04:26 PM

Swimming and diving are not particularly artefacty on BBC HD or Eurosport HD in Europe, so it isn't likely to be the host broadcast feed that is at fault.

No - though concatenation is a tricky thing to manage.

Annoyingly a feed that visually appears fine at a given data rate, can have artefacts that get exponentially magnified further down the chain, so pictures that appear good on the backhaul can still cause problems later on in the chain, particularly if the fronthaul (or whatever the affiliate distribution satellite system is called in US parlance!) and then the final compression for transmission (potentially followed by yet another compression if you're watching on satellite?) are lower than ideal.

Standards conversion from 50i to 60i can also introduce artefacts that cause compression issues - requiring higher bandwiths elsewhere to compensate.

Snipping a bit here and a bit there in bandwith all adds up, and the results are worse than many imagine.

It's the last "mile" to the home, the final link in the chain, so to speak. That's the part NBC cannot control.

JCL

08-13-08, 04:30 PM

TVOD

08-13-08, 04:30 PM

Dick Ebersol Was Right: High Drama at The Olympics,
in Brilliant HDThe Olympics isn't the only high drama occurring in China. I don't know if this story (http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,24174888-1702,00.html) was covered in brilliant HD but the stream looks to be in 16:9. How embarrassing for the victim if there was micro blocking.

sneals2000

08-13-08, 04:32 PM

It's the last "mile" to the home, the final link in the chain, so to speak. That's the part NBC cannot control.

Yes - if the final point in the chain is awful, then nothing can change that, but the quality of the source feeding the encoder at the beginning of that final mile can significantly impact on the final picture quality.

A final 12Mbs MPEG2 encoder fed uncompressed 1.2Gbs HD-SDI can look a LOT better than the same final leg fed with an artefacty and compromised 24 Mbs distribution feed... Concatenation is a very important factor, that is often not always considered.

(Compression artefacts are themselves very difficult to compress)

Erik Tracy

08-13-08, 04:37 PM

It's the last "mile" to the home, the final link in the chain, so to speak. That's the part NBC cannot control.

But I don't believe that is what my particular problem is -especially when I can flip a channel in real time to a different broadcast and see a glorious HD sporting event with no macroblocking.

So it MUST be upstream -either at the distributor (in my case, TWC San Diego), or the affiliate (KNSD - NBC San Diego).

I'm not a video broadcast expert, nor do I play one on the internet.... so I may have my terminology mixed up.

Does "Front End" haul refer to event source to broadcaster uplink, or from the broadcaster out to the affiliates?

I'm somewhat mollified to know that the "whining" over the crappy Olympic picture quality is not just me.... :rolleyes:

TVOD

08-13-08, 04:39 PM

Besides the artifacts being hard to compress, such as high frequency quantizing noise, it also makes motion compensation more difficult. Add in standards conversion and other previous compressions and one can see why it becomes a challenge. Of course the low network fronthaul bitrates coupled with many stations (especially O&Os) running subchannels (like Weather Plus) makes it even worse.

lvthunder

08-13-08, 04:39 PM