NCAA Men's Basketball Division I Championship Tournament
Live on CBS HD
12PM, 7PM ET
1080i and DD 5.1

Today's Games
12 PM Window
12:20 PM 8 LSU vs. 9 Butler
12:25 PM 2 Memphis vs. 15 Cal. St. Northridge
12:30 PM 8 BYU vs. 9 Texas A&M

2:30 PM Window
2:30 5 Purdue vs. 12 Northern
2:50 1 North Carolina vs. 16 Radford
2:55 7 California vs. 10 Maryland
3:00 1 Connecticut vs. 16 Chattanooga

4:55 PM Window (Areas of natural interest and CBS College Sports)
4:55 PM Washington vs. Mississippi

7 PM Window
7:10 PM 7 Texas vs. 10 Minnesota
7:10 PM 7 Clemson vs. 10 Michigan
7:20 PM 3 Villanova vs. 14 American
7:25 PM 4 Gonzaga vs. 13 Akron

9:30 PM Window
9:40 PM 2 Duke vs. 15 Binghamton
9:40 PM 2 Oklahoma vs. 15 Morgan State
9:50 PM 6 UCLA vs. 11 VCU
9:55 PM 5 llinois vs. 12 Western Kentucky

All times eastern, game times for second game in a session are approximate depending on length of the first game in the session at that particular venue.

Please post what game your watching, along with your location, and source (cable, sat, OTA, MMOD via D*).

Thank you and enjoy the madness.

CS vs MEM.
PQ looks nice on March Madness On Demand from CBSsports.com.
In the high quality setting the video is HD 16:9.
Video is close to the broadcast PQ but with a bit more compression.

And of course the local station (WVLT) just HAS to have a 5 minute crawl after every commercial break explaining that the $#$@% soaps won't be on until Monday and the stories won't be interrupted. So no HD until after the crawls.

Getting LSU/Butler on WWJ-DT CBS O&O Detroit (no subchannels) Comcast. Looks and sounds great, Nantz & Kellogg with the call, let the games begin!

Memphis/CS North on WGCL Atlanta Comcast. They added a subchannel for an additional multicast game, so a little macroblocking on quick moves, but well worth it for the additional game.

Getting Memphis/CS North on KCCI-DT Des Moines Mediacom. Looks and sounds great here.

On an unrelated note... the MMoD online app is vastly superior to last year.

Also, the free iPhone MMoD app is great too. For streaming mobile video its pretty good. It uses the widescreen player and also has two translucent graphics overlays that are brought up and dismissed with a touch of the screen. The first brings up the games stats. The second shows the other current games you can switch to and the current scores.

Watching on WWJ in Detroit with the Butler/LSU game. Looks and sounds great.

SD highlights during halftime. That's a shame.

Does anybody know why they can't ever show HD highlights at the half - even of their own games?

This is a horrid display of programming.

For starters, I see too much of the action. I mean come on, look at all that dead space on the upper right hand of the screen. A continuous display of the cheerleaders, the coaches, the mascots, and the crowd should block more of the shots. I mean why should we a follow a ball that gets lost in the scoreboard on the way to the basket, especially a shot from the high side. Just block the view altogether, the announcers can tell us if a shot was made.

Make more room for closed caption play-by-play of the other games as well. I don’t need to see players dribbling. I would rather forgo my computer plus internet to check other games and instead, block the view of the current game with more up to the second info of other games. The time left and the score does not cut it.

Bad job CBS, perhaps next year you can block the action more. of course /s

The sound and picture looks great though. Guess I am too old school for the fancy continuous displays. I remember watching sporting events in which the action was opened up and attention spans were longer. Waiting two minutes for other games scores I guess is old fashion.

This is a horrid display of programming.

For starters, I see too much of the action. I mean come on, look at all that dead space on the upper right hand of the screen. A continuous display of the cheerleaders, the coaches, the mascots, and the crowd should block more of the shots. I mean why should we a follow a ball that gets lost in the scoreboard on the way to the basket, especially a shot from the high side. Just block the view altogether, the announcers can tell us if a shot was made.

Make more room for closed caption play-by-play of the other games as well. I don’t need to see players dribbling. I would rather forgo my computer plus internet to check other games and instead, block the view of the current game with more up to the second info of other games. The time left and the score does not cut it.

Bad job CBS, perhaps next year you can block the action more. of course /s

The sound and picture looks great though. Guess I am too old school for the fancy continuous displays. I remember watching sporting events in which the action was opened up and attention spans were longer. Waiting two minutes for other games scores I guess is old fashion.
Are you trying saying the graphics take up too much of the screen?

You must not watch a lot of TV sports; CBS is widely noted for having less obtrusive graphics taking up less on screen space than other broadcasters.

WISC-DT MADISON lost HD feed down to SD for Butler/LSU.

CS vs MEM.
PQ looks nice on March Madness On Demand from CBSsports.com.
In the high quality setting the video is HD 16:9.
Video is close to the broadcast PQ but with a bit more compression.

silverlight kinda sucks for me, looks nice in HQ but it choppy at times. I have 5meg

CBS-College HD is showing streched 16x9 SD for their own CBS highlights, LOL what a joke!

is there a site that shows which stations are showing flex/constants?

is there a site that shows which stations are showing flex/constants?

This year is going to be somewhat different, because for the first time CBS has enough HD control rooms to dedicate an HD feed for each game. I think the only question is; what game is slotted for your area, and will it get preempted because it's a blowout?

Let me ask.

Are you trying saying the graphics take up too much of the screen?

You must not watch a lot of TV sports; CBS is widely noted for having less obtrusive graphics taking up less on screen space than other broadcasters.

Really? First year CBS got the rights to the NFL back (1998) what did their logo look like on their "graphics taking up less on screen" continuous scoreboard? Hint, it was rather large and rather colorful.

Are you trying saying the graphics take up too much of the screen?

You must not watch a lot of TV sports; CBS is widely noted for having less obtrusive graphics taking up less on screen space than other broadcasters.

Maybe for the NFL, but CBS has adopted the horizontal bar for college sports, and it's anything but unobtrusive. And I believe they put the bar closer to the center of the screen than any other network.

This year is going to be somewhat different, because for the first time CBS has enough HD control rooms to dedicate an HD feed for each game. I think the only question is; what game is slotted for your area, and will it get preempted because it's a blowout?

Let me ask.

If it doesn't involve your local team, there's a chance it might. If it does, well, you're stuck until the end.

I'm on the west coast in San Diego (SDSU missed getting in by that much! - paraphrasing Maxwell Smart) and we're getting all games involving California and west coast based teams (CSU Northridge, Cal, Gonzaga, UCLA), so we may get moved, we may not.

FYI, several years ago, there was a sensational court case here in San Diego that preempted local programming to cover it - it was during March Madness, the only game they showed that day was the one involving San Diego State. I know a lot of people complained about the preemption (on that day of all days).

CBS-College HD is showing streched 16x9 SD for their own CBS highlights, LOL what a joke!

Agreed. Hopefully the games scheduled for broadcast on this channel later in the day are in HD. But even if it is HD, my guess is the PQ will suck on E* because I see so much macroblocking on SD porgramming on this channel it is rediculous.

Of the games I've seen so for on CBS, Purdue/N Iowa has had the best PQ. This tournament is a good example of how much the PQ can very on the same type of programming from the different venues/setups. Watching WCCO-DT OTA in Minneapolis.

Agreed. Hopefully the games scheduled for broadcast on this channel later in the day are in HD. But even if it is HD, my guess is the PQ will suck on E* because I see so much macroblocking on SD porgramming on this channel it is rediculous.

Of the games I've seen so for on CBS, Purdue/N Iowa has had the best PQ. This tournament is a good example of how much the PQ can very on the same type of programming from the different venues/setups. Watching WCCO-DT OTA in Minneapolis.

The HD version on E* doesn't look so great either. Even when they have actual HD.

my local is still in SD for the 2nd game, must be a local issue.

The HD version on E* doesn't look so great either. Even when they have actual HD.

Yah, what I meant was SD programming on the HD channel. This morning they were showing highlights during the pre-game show, which was SD. The PQ was the worst I have seen for SD.

I guess I can't fault E* for limiting bandwidth on this HD channel that has very little HD content, the channel sucks at this point.

WISC in Madison keeps switching HD to SD, back to HD, back to SD...very frustrating...this is happening within the same game, not when they necessarily switch games

San Francisco - KPIX - Comcast, Maryland/Cal, no announcers, suhweet! :p

I found it ironic that CBS was having audio problems with their on-line services, too. The beginning of the N. IA vs Purdue game had court sounds but no announcers. Eventaully they got it fixed, but not before the announcers visited L and R before settling into both channels.

Shades of CBS News with Katie Couric......:rolleyes:

Also, isn't Dick Enberg supposed to be with Jay Bilas? Carter Blackburn is intolerable...

This year is going to be somewhat different, because for the first time CBS has enough HD control rooms to dedicate an HD feed for each game. I think the only question is; what game is slotted for your area, and will it get preempted because it's a blowout?

Let me ask.

I thought last year was the 1st time they had enough capacity for 8 HD feeds, so all the flex/constant feeds were in HD for the first time? I know 2007 was the year the constant feeds had to be in SD, and the flex feeds were HD. So if you wanted HD for your local team of interest, it came at the expense of loosing constant coverage, and vice versa. But 2007 was the first year every game/site was HD. 2006 and before was when many affiliates(including CBS O&Os) showed different games on their SD/HD channels.

Maestro J-
For Philly they have Enberg and Blackburn, along with Bilas. I think one does the afternoon games, and the other does the evening games, with Bilas doing color for both. .

silverlight kinda sucks for me, looks nice in HQ but it choppy at times. I have 5meg

I've read that this latest version of Silverlight was designed to use lower bitrates and suffers because of it. Could be just internet scuttlebutt, haven't tried it myself yet.

I'm watching it on WBZ-TV 4.1 out of boston (over the air)

and yes, HD 1080i, looks stunning on my lcd

Also, isn't Dick Enberg supposed to be with Jay Bilas? Carter Blackburn is intolerable...

Dick Enberg will be doing the evening games with Jay Bilas.

CBS is paying Enberg enough money; you would think he could suck it up and do 4 games one day per year, even at his ripe age.

I've read that this latest version of Silverlight was designed to use lower bitrates and suffers because of it. Could be just internet scuttlebutt, haven't tried it myself yet.

Having had to install a copy of Windows (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1130318) just for the purpose of watching these games, I have to say I was a lot happier in past years when they weren't using Silverlight. In the past the streams were in either the AVI or WMV9 containers. This year's presentation suffers from serious pixellation and/or repeated buffering at just about any of the quality settings, and this is on a 20/5 FiOS connection.

It also appears to block you from switching games during commercial breaks. I tried a couple of times to switch to another game during a break and could not get the application to accept my mouse clicks at all. Once the commercials were over, I could switch. Worse, the application seems to take over the entire desktop; I don't see any simple controls to minimize it or otherwise return to the Windows desktop to choose another application. Perhaps it was just my frustration getting in the way, but it just doesn't seem as "user-friendly" this year as in the past.

I'm using Windows 7 RC1 in a VirtualBox VM on Linux . I don't think that's what's keeping me from switching games, though. That "feature" appears built into the Silverlight application itself.

The first round of the Tournament was always the best one to watch online because the audience was spread over many simultaneous games. As we moved into the later rounds, quality declined because the demand was more focused. I can only imagine what it might look like next weekend based on what I've seen so far today.

I think the only question is; what game is slotted for your area, and will it get preempted because it's a blowout?

Let me ask.

Did this get answered? Because im watching an absolute blowout by UNC in Atlanta and they arent switching to a very competitive Cal/Maryland. Could just be isolated, but i'm interested if this is a sign of things to come. Uconn Nova is on the Multicast channel and its not switching either (40 pt game).

Bad job with on-screen garphics. And, why no HD Mix Channel. I'm only getting the SD version (Ch 701) and it looks terrible. If they can give us HD Mix with 8 NFL games, why not now???

I'm in Kansas City and they are not switching away from the UNC game either and they have a 40 point lead. Very frustrating.

via KOIN-OTA & Comcast, looks like another great job by CBS, although I miss having a SD subchannel alternate game being available. The CE was pretty good at pulling it off, but he's no longer with the station. Too bad.

Of the games I've seen so for on CBS, Purdue/N Iowa has had the best PQ. This tournament is a good example of how much the PQ can very on the same type of programming from the different venues/setups. Watching WCCO-DT OTA in Minneapolis.

I walked over to the Rose Garden this morning for a little exercise but didn't notice who's truck was working the game. It's a relatively new arena, so the wiring & lighting should be up-to-speed.

Shades of CBS News with Katie Couric......

It never fails to amaze me that if there are more than two mic's used on their flagship network news broadcast, one of 'em ain't workin'. Go figure.

I have a request for the cappers watching the games tonight.

Can someone please grab a screencap of the "HDTV by Harris" logo at the beginning of a game? I'd be very appreciative. Thanks.

I really wish CBS allowed different games on HD/analog again this year. Wonder why they won't.

As expected, the Miss St / Wash game is brutal on CBS C on E*. You literally cannot make out the eyes, nose and mouth on the faces.

Having had to install a copy of Windows (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1130318) just for the purpose of watching these games, I have to say I was a lot happier in past years when they weren't using Silverlight. In the past the streams were in either the AVI or WMV9 containers. This year's presentation suffers from serious pixellation and/or repeated buffering at just about any of the quality settings, and this is on a 20/5 FiOS connection.

It also appears to block you from switching games during commercial breaks. I tried a couple of times to switch to another game during a break and could not get the application to accept my mouse clicks at all. Once the commercials were over, I could switch. Worse, the application seems to take over the entire desktop; I don't see any simple controls to minimize it or otherwise return to the Windows desktop to choose another application. Perhaps it was just my frustration getting in the way, but it just doesn't seem as "user-friendly" this year as in the past.

I'm using Windows 7 RC1 in a VirtualBox VM on Linux . I don't think that's what's keeping me from switching games, though. That "feature" appears built into the Silverlight application itself.

The first round of the Tournament was always the best one to watch online because the audience was spread over many simultaneous games. As we moved into the later rounds, quality declined because the demand was more focused. I can only imagine what it might look like next weekend based on what I've seen so far today.

Just some observations from playing around with this...

I have 1 player opened up in FF and another IE. In FF you can re-size the non-video portion of the screen, but apparently you can't with IE. IE has a zoom feature, FF does not. The IE stream is ahead of the FF stream by a few seconds, the images look the same, no surprise there. I think I prefer the FF player as I can size it to fit right under my local broadcast via SageTV. The IE player has all this bloated ad material, especially on the right side of the player. This could be due to the ADP I'm using with FF, I rarely ever use IE so I haven't tweaked it at all.

Being that it's 2009, and internet video has been around for awhile now I would have expected a bit better video quality, although, streaming fast motion material like basketball has to be pretty tough to do.

Using a Q6600 with 3GB ram and system resources are running about 33% with all 3 feeds going.

how do you resize the top bar in FF? I can't. I think the bar is there to keep a proper aspect ratio for 4:3 right screens right? But since my monitors are widescreen, its pillarboxing

how do you resize the top bar in FF? I can't. I think the bar is there to keep a proper aspect ratio for 4:3 right screens right? But since my monitors are widescreen, its pillarboxing

The only thing I've been able to do is resize the right side and bottom. Trying to resize the top or left moves the image out of the window. With IE, I can't seem to adjust or resize the window at all.

If you're talking full-screen, then I don't believe there's any way to remove the top bar. On my 16x10 monitor it goes from top to bottom with about an inch not used on either side.

I was a bit too critical perhaps after using an XP SP3 machine; getting to the desktop while running the Silverlight application wasn't so difficult.

I'll give the two-browser approach a try. Thanks!

Although the interest in web sourced games is natural, please take in depth technical discussion off line, thanks.

I really wish CBS allowed different games on HD/analog again this year. Wonder why they won't.

My guess is, in most areas now on cable and dish, the local broadcast SDTV feed is coming from a downconvert of the HDTV feed.

I have a request for the cappers watching the games tonight.

Can someone please grab a screencap of the "HDTV by Harris" logo at the beginning of a game? I'd be very appreciative. Thanks.

http://thumbnails2.imagebam.com/3022/e3162b30214984.gif (http://www.imagebam.com/image/e3162b30214984) http://thumbnails12.imagebam.com/3022/cad5d130214986.gif (http://www.imagebam.com/image/cad5d130214986)
Free Image Hosting by ImageBam.com (http://www.imagebam.com)

http://thumbnails2.imagebam.com/3022/e3162b30214984.gif (http://www.imagebam.com/image/e3162b30214984) http://thumbnails12.imagebam.com/3022/cad5d130214986.gif (http://www.imagebam.com/image/cad5d130214986)
Free Image Hosting by ImageBam.com (http://www.imagebam.com)

Thanks a lot!

Minnesota-Texas looks great on CBS O&O KTVT in Dallas via FiOS. Nice use of DD5.1 too.

Michigan/Clemson on WWJ-DT CBS Detroit O&O via Comcast. Looks and sounds great.

Did this get answered? Because im watching an absolute blowout by UNC in Atlanta and they arent switching to a very competitive Cal/Maryland. Could just be isolated, but i'm interested if this is a sign of things to come. Uconn Nova is on the Multicast channel and its not switching either (40 pt game).Here is the answer.

There is an HD Constant and an HD Flex for each of the 8 first/second round locations.

Special situations can arise, for example two teams from the same state playing in the same window at different locations. A special Flex can be created, same as before full HD capability.

When they have a blowout, they decide on the fly whether to stay or switch.

New Orleans, Cox/ota, 1080i
no issues until recently in the Nova/American game. thought it might have been Cox but switched to the ota and it was glitching up as well almost like a bad sat signal.

they quickly switched from the unc game to another.

MMOD using FF and 6m dsl is good enough to keep up with other games but would rather have the option on tv.

EDIT: It is just Cox with the busted feed, as other hd channles are also not showing... OTA is perfect.

Ugh. CBS just switched Greenville, SC (the heart of ACC country, last time I checked) to VCU/UCLA instead of a competitive Duke/Binghamton game!

-c

The thing that bothers me the most is all the crap on the screen. Is it really necessary to have the box with the other games on all the time? I wish they would just put it up every 5-10 minutes. All this crap on the screen is very annoying.

Although the interest in web sourced games is natural, please take in depth technical discussion off line, thanks.
Well, you can get an HD version of the games on-line, and their version of a halftime show is even 16x9. I don't think it's too much of a stretch to include it here. It's more appropriate here than game or show chat...

Thanks a lot!
Looks like the Harris boys in FL now have a new screensaver/wallpaper.

It never fails to amaze me that if there are more than two mic's used on their flagship network news broadcast, one of 'em ain't workin'. Go figure.
That wasn't the problem there. CBS had a problem handling the 5.1 audio that night.

The only thing I've been able to do is resize the right side and bottom. Trying to resize the top or left moves the image out of the window. With IE, I can't seem to adjust or resize the window at all.

If you're talking full-screen, then I don't believe there's any way to remove the top bar. On my 16x10 monitor it goes from top to bottom with about an inch not used on either side.

The on-line video lagged the off-air video by almost a full minute. On-line also ran their own commercials.

I haven't tried, but if it's true that you couldn't change games once the commercial started, that is really nasty. Imagine the uproar if broadcasters could get that feature implemented in set-top boxes.:mad:

In a classic case of over-redundancy, the annoying side banner ads changed to exactly follow the sponsor being shown on the video commercial. Did they get to charge twice for the spot?

It's annoying that they can get the ancilliary crap right but stll botch the actual game coverage....

I'm in Kansas City and they are not switching away from the UNC game either and they have a 40 point lead. Very frustrating.

We (Knoxville, TN) kept getting switched during the early prime time game. We got moved to 2 different games within a 10 minute period. Everytime they'd show a close game, the game started getting out of hand. They finally went back to the game we had been seeing early on.

I hope someone is charting the minutes of actual game coverage versus all the switches and commercials in between the switches. I saw as much commercial time last night with all the switches as I did game play time.

Well, you can get an HD version of the games on-line, and their version of a halftime show is even 16x9. I don't think it's too much of a stretch to include it here. It's more appropriate here than game or show chat...

I rather thought it was too given that more and more media will be online in the years to come, but it's not my playground. :)

The on-line video lagged the off-air video by almost a full minute. On-line also ran their own commercials.

I haven't tried, but if it's true that you couldn't change games once the commercial started, that is really nasty. Imagine the uproar if broadcasters could get that feature implemented in set-top boxes.:mad:

In a classic case of over-redundancy, the annoying side banner ads changed to exactly follow the sponsor being shown on the video commercial. Did they get to charge twice for the spot?

It's annoying that they can get the ancilliary crap right but stll botch the actual game coverage....

Noticed that too and the trick is to just open up additional browser windows, I have all 3 current games running on my desktop right now and the audio slider allows you to lower and raise each games audio. It really would be nice to be able to make them re-sizable beyond their current "locked" size though. With Firefox I don't get that right hand advert pane but that could be due to using AdBlockPlus(freeware).

<edit> Just clicking the speaker icon turns the audio on/off so using the slider is not needed.

I haven't tried, but if it's true that you couldn't change games once the commercial started, that is really nasty. Imagine the uproar if broadcasters could get that feature implemented in set-top boxes.:mad:

if you click the 'audio' link, the the 'Live Games' link works and you can switch games.

all of the games are broadcast in 5.1+2 surround. Your carrier must not be passing this on to you.

I'm watching on WBZHD Boston and the CBS HD broadcast keeps going in and out of sharpness. It will look good 1080i most of the time but then it looks like the picture blurs a bit as if it's downgrading the bitrate or resolution or something. My cableco is Charter.

Anyone else experiencing this?

Please use the proper thread, this one is for the Thursday games, the Friday thread is at the top of the forum.

I'm watching on WBZHD Boston and the CBS HD broadcast keeps going in and out of sharpness. It will look good 1080i most of the time but then it looks like the picture blurs a bit as if it's downgrading the bitrate or resolution or something. My cableco is Charter.

Anyone else experiencing this?

Yes I have seen this happen for a long time now. I thought my eyes were going glad to see someone else notices this