This is concerning the golf coverage today. I'm in Virginia, and the Pebble Beach golf coverage was bumped off the air because UVA was playing a basketball game during the same time. This basketball game was not broadcast in HD, (and usually isn't since it is just a local station carrying the game) but was shown on the analog and digital channels. My question is, can the local CBS affiliate show the Pebble Beach coverage on the digital channel since it was in HD, all while keeping the bball game on the analog channel? This way everyone is happy, and nothing is compromised. I just feel it is a huge waste when the same thing is on the same channel, and it is not even in HD!!

It is possible depending on the stations equipment, but most stations don't do things like this because of the added work and no extra revenue as they most likely would not be able to insert local ads into both the analog and digital channel.

Last september, my cbs local showed US Open Tennis on the HD channel and the Jerry Lewis Telathon on the SD. Only time I've ever seen it like that.

Last year, the early rounds of the Master's Golf Tournament were shown in SD on the USA network with an HD simulcast on the local CBS-HD while the analog local CBS was showing soap operas.

The political pull of the folks in charge of the Masters may have had something to do with it.

This is concerning the golf coverage today. I'm in Virginia, and the Pebble Beach golf coverage was bumped off the air because UVA was playing a basketball game during the same time. This basketball game was not broadcast in HD, (and usually isn't since it is just a local station carrying the game) but was shown on the analog and digital channels. My question is, can the local CBS affiliate show the Pebble Beach coverage on the digital channel since it was in HD, all while keeping the bball game on the analog channel? This way everyone is happy, and nothing is compromised. I just feel it is a huge waste when the same thing is on the same channel, and it is not even in HD!!
The station can show different programming on the digital and analog channel. My local CBS has done this before during the Master's and NCAA tourney time. They cannot do it during NFL games.

Hmm, now that I think about it, I do remember the Masters coverage last year while the soaps were on the analog stations. Well, unless it's the Masters or some huge event, it seems like it is less than ideal for stations to do this with lesser events.
Thanks for the replies.

We've occasionally done this, when there is huge interest in something else going on. It's usually been when there is minimally interesting sporting event and a big, live musical holiday production (in HD) from the LDS Church. Networks usually don't like substitutions, though.

The 2004 Olympics were like that, in which NBC split out the HD frequencies for special Olympic programming, different than the SD channel. Unfortunately, the HD offerings were WAY taped delayed...even more so than usual.

The political pull of the folks in charge of the Masters may have had something to do with it.No.

It's in the CBS contract, since they were doing The Masters in HD before USA had an HD outlet, it would have been a waste not to make it somehow available.

I would speculate that in the next two years and one week, you will not see too much of a SD/HD split of programming on most stations due to the analog shut off. Stations are beginning to consolidate their seperate program lines as one line to two transmitters instead of seperate lines of a pure digital line and a pure analog line with A/D converters to take the analog line to digital when needed and then on to two separate transmitters . As that happens, it will be more difficult, not more easy to send seperate feeds. Stations are really now beginning to look past the Feb 17, 2009 date and in the next two years, do things that will help in the transition, not do things that help now and then have no need in two years.

In my own market, for example, The CW station is sending a HD 16:9 signal to their transmitter and then center cutting and running to the analog channel. Other channels here are looking at doing that or just putting in a digital program line and dropping one tap to analog SD for the analog transmitter and leaving the other in digital.

If a station has in the past done a SD/HD split, it would make sense to keep that in place until the shut off. If a station hasn't already invested the 10's of thousands of dollars to do even a simple split, there is not enough audience or time left before the transition to spend the money now to make it cost effective. Once the analog transmitter is turned off, there will be no more need for it.

We're sending a 15.0 MBpS SDTV signal to our mountain, as part of the 45 MBpS overall DSTL. I'd love to see what that would look like on air (digital) by itself.

It's our backup feed to the analog transmitter, but I can't remember it being on the air for any length of time.

We're sending a 15.0 MBpS SDTV signal to our mountain, as part of the 45 MBpS overall DSTL. I'd love to see what that would look like on air (digital) by itself.

It's our backup feed to the analog transmitter, but I can't remember it being on the air for any length of time.

We feed an analog transmitter with 22 MBpS of SD:4:2:2 via Telco DS3..the remainder of the 45mb/s is the ATSC transport..Looks gorgeous.. Depends on what we do with the current analog fiber feed to cable as to whether we keep
the SD 4:2:2 feed after cut-off. Plus,we do have an SD channel in the ATSC multiplex, which we'll probably keep.

This is concerning the golf coverage today. I'm in Virginia, and the Pebble Beach golf coverage was bumped off the air because UVA was playing a basketball game during the same time. This basketball game was not broadcast in HD, (and usually isn't since it is just a local station carrying the game) but was shown on the analog and digital channels. My question is, can the local CBS affiliate show the Pebble Beach coverage on the digital channel since it was in HD, all while keeping the bball game on the analog channel? This way everyone is happy, and nothing is compromised. I just feel it is a huge waste when the same thing is on the same channel, and it is not even in HD!!

Raycom Media strikes again, unfortunately.

My question is, can the local CBS affiliate show the Pebble Beach coverage on the digital channel since it was in HD, all while keeping the bball game on the analog channel? This way everyone is happy, and nothing is compromised.Well, if I was a UVA fan living in Richmond who went digital to clean up my picture on channel 6, something is STILL compromised and I wouldn't be too happy about it, even if the UVA game was only SD.