Sunday Night Football on NBC HD
Chicago Bears @ Green Bay Packers
Live from Lambeau Field, 8:15pm ET
1080i & DD5.1

Please include your source in your posts (Cable, Sat, OTA) and your location.

WMTV-15 OTA Madison, WI. Lots of pixels on the FOX HD highlights. Especially the Carolina @ New Orleans game. When will NBC ever get its **** together?

Hi from Green Bay. I'll look in later.

Wendel

Here is a picture of my TV during the last moments of the pregame show. Absolutely ugly looking, on WDIV, Detroit via Comcast.

http://img46.imageshack.us/img46/9550/img9461yt7.th.jpg (http://img46.imageshack.us/my.php?image=img9461yt7.jpg)

Here we go, Game is now up!

my 5.1 isnt lighting up... WFLA over QAM

there is a black bar on the top of my picture here on WNBC via Comcast, anyone else getting this?

looks 'usual' for nbc here in PGH ( via cable feed of WPXI). nice colors, lots of motion blocks.

oh well

looks like the game's basically over already 4 minutes in :cool:

there is a black bar on the top of my picture here on WNBC via Comcast, anyone else getting this?
Seeing the same thing from WVIT-DT from Charter. Very odd.

Seeing the same thing from WVIT-DT from Charter. Very odd.

glad its not me or comcast. this bar is driving me mad.

So far it does appear to be an improvement over previous NBC SNF games. However, the quality level is still no where close to where it should be.

so i just called WFLA in Tampa to tell them theyre not sending out DD5.1... he told me, "uh... theres no engineer here... call monday"

your typical block-fest on anything that moves...... audio is clean as usual.

Watching MPEG4 WNCN Ch.17-1 via D*...... no need for me to check the OTA feed on the HR10-250..... I'm sure it's the same.

Here is a picture of my TV during the last moments of the pregame show. Absolutely ugly looking, on WDIV, Detroit via Comcast.

http://img46.imageshack.us/img46/9550/img9461yt7.th.jpg (http://img46.imageshack.us/my.php?image=img9461yt7.jpg)

Damn that is nasty...As usual, picture perfect here in Cinti via TW and my QAM tuner...Audio is outstanding as usual also...No complaints here!:D

your typical block-fest on anything that moves...... audio is clean as usual.

Watching MPEG4 WNCN Ch.17-1 via D*...... no need for me to check the OTA feed on the HR10-250..... I'm sure it's the same.

I wouldn't trust that MPEG4 would look the same as OTA...;)

so i just called WFLA in Tampa to tell them theyre not sending out DD5.1... he told me, "uh... theres no engineer here... call monday"

that's pitiful. maybe some "false advertising" lawsuits would remedy these situations.

Wendel...My hat is off to you and your team...NBC by far has the BEST SQ out of ANY of the Sunday games in my opinion...Outstanding! :D

pq adequate... no swimming grass, but there's a bit of noise... closeups seem to be worse... (gotten a little spoiled with the baseball pq)...

sound good... as usual... everyone else could take a lesson from wendel...

comcast south jersey...

ps... might as well throw in my weekly whine about the score/timer thingie on the bottom... smaller and lower would make me really happy... :)

that's pitiful. maybe some "false advertising" lawsuits would remedy these situations.
What's being falsely advertised?

Thanks, Splicer. Fighting an ear and sinus infection. I don't know how it sounds.

WS

KNTV San Francisco via Comcast. Around 17mbps, about as good as it gets for an NBC station.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v637/keenanj/SP32-20071007-182148.jpg

wendel cant you kick wfla's ass around for not even broadcasting the right audio?

All he can do is make sure all the goodness makes it to NYC.

It's great to have him here, but the problems are almost always well after his influence. I find NBC just fine for pre-recorded shows. And I think for Leno, but I seldom see that. But SNF....no, lots of pixelization. Every week, during movement. Including tonight.

Well, the first show this year was good. What was that, the Thursday opener?

Great overall pic and audio on comcast Atlanta. Some pixelation shimmering on fast motion. Not as bad as previous games it seems. Defintely digging the colors, contrast, and sharpness.

Bad time management by the GB coaching staff.

Bad time management by the GB coaching staff.

yup.

whatever happened to the bears defense? :confused:

They hid the Panasonic logo on their plasma!

They hid the Panasonic logo on their plasma!

samsung the official hd of the nfl:D

yup.

whatever happened to the bears defense? :confused:

Still shell-shocked from SB XLI?

http://flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=1339556570&size=l

someone at samsung must have seen this photo ;)

Dang, thanks for posting that pic. If I could do that, I would too. This is EXACTLY how EVERY SNF game is for me OTA (WGBA Green Bay) and on TWC channel 707. Matter of fact, NBC cannot even play FOX, CBS or any ABC HD replays as it looks like junk. I know that when I watch games on FOX during the day, and NBC replays part of it on SNF, it just sucks. The blocking is unreal....just plain old poor.


Here is a picture of my TV during the last moments of the pregame show. Absolutely ugly looking, on WDIV, Detroit via Comcast.

http://img46.imageshack.us/img46/9550/img9461yt7.th.jpg (http://img46.imageshack.us/my.php?image=img9461yt7.jpg)

yep... the highlights looked like crap on nbc

Nothing like some sauerkraut footage going into and out of commercials.

Full body suits. Knee high rubber boots. Gloves. No hair nets. NO HAIR NETS? Nice....

Go Packers!

Nice work by the steadicam op on the Chicago touchdown, great replay.

Sound good. Picture bad. Switched over after the baseball game. Baseball looked so much better. Sounds are on par though. Both sound pretty awesome.

Great overall pic and audio on comcast Atlanta. Some pixelation shimmering on fast motion. Not as bad as previous games it seems. Defintely digging the colors, contrast, and sharpness.

Well the OTA feed from WXIA (Channel 11) looks horrible. The MPEG4 feed from D* looks exactly the same. Any movement causes pixelation & all long shots are ever so slightly soft/out of focus. Mayhaps Comcast is getting a national feed? NBC really needs to do something about this.

Mayhaps Comcast is getting a national feed?

Perhaps a fiber feed from that station, but no chance of a national feed.

Sound good. Picture bad. Switched over after the baseball game. Baseball looked so much better. Sounds are on par though. Both sound pretty awesome.

You know I really don't complain much about the video. As I think it could be subjective but I'm going to have to say I gotta agree with what he said. Maybe the Yankees game looked better cause they won but it definitely looks better than this game. And is it me or does everyone skin looks a bit pinkish?

. And is it me or does everyone skin looks a bit pinkish?
Have not noticed it myself.


However, it is breast cancer awareness week for the NFL, maybe the video guys wanted to help spread the awareness. :D

The video really sucks tonight and it is not even when the plays are happening, but rather when they show a player walking off the field and things like that. The macroblocking is just ridiculous.

PQ on low-motion scenes is better than usual, but on moving scenes it is worse than usual. AQ is excellent as always. KPNX-DT Phoenix via Cox Cable/QAM tuner.

What's being falsely advertised?

just a bit of a snide comment about the lack of someone being around to make sure the hd/5.1 is on


reread your 1st post. then think about the in game "presented in hd and 5.1 blah blah blah" that htey always do before running some hdtv commercial tie in


if there's not an engineer on the job in your market making that happen i'd call it "false advertising" when they claim you can get it if you have the gear. i'm sure nobody else will agree. :)

What are they talking about? Green bay won the challenge they just didn't get the results they were looking for. They don't lose their timeouts. Green bay challenged the spot of the ball. Not the first down.

EDIT: Now he's correcting himself. Man can an engineer fix these guys brains while they're fixing the signal?

read your 1st post. then think about the in game "presented in hd and 5.1 blah blah blah" that htey always do before running some hdtv commercial tie in


if there's not an engineer on the job in your market making that happen i'd call it "false advertising" if you have hd equipment/5.1 gear

And the HD and 5.1 promos are almost always followed by the words "Where Available".

And the HD and 5.1 promos are almost always followed by the words "Where Available".

...AND when it IS available in the area... and employee incompetence or station cheapskateness prevents its presentation :confused:


*referring to...
so i just called WFLA in Tampa to tell them theyre not sending out DD5.1... he told me, "uh... theres no engineer here... call monday"


i guess to me "where available" doesn't mean "where available and subject to our whims of actually having an employee in at the time to make sure it's turned on... even though we keep advertising products encouraging you to buy and access this service..."

My only audio complaint of the night - the NFL Network ad at approx 11:38pm ET starts with a blaring alarm clock sound - I thought my damn smoke alarm was going off. Who are these idiots who make commercials with common cell phone ring tones and alarm type sounds? Whatever your product is you've just royally pissed me off.

What are they talking about? Green bay won the challenge they just didn't get the results they were looking for. They don't lose their timeouts. Green bay challenged the spot of the ball. Not the first down.

EDIT: Now he's correcting himself. Man can an engineer fix these guys brains while they're fixing the signal?

He was right the first time, they lost the challenge.

Bears needed that win bad! :D:D

if they lost the challenge why did they respot the ball?

if they lost the challenge why did they respot the ball?

made about as much sense as the pack's clock management on the last drive ... no timeout at 0:36 ??? lame.

Better PQ tonight than previous NBC games. Still not where is should be.

if they lost the challenge why did they respot the ball?

They challenged that the ball did not make the line to gain, even after the respot it still made the line to gain, thus they lose the challenge.

thats ridiculous... does the coach have a choice between choosing to challenge the spot versus challenging a gain? if not then you cant penalize one vs. the other... and if so then coaches would always choose to just challenge the spot

bet the league will admit their screw-up tomorrow

They challenged that the ball did not make the line to gain, even after the respot it still made the line to gain, thus they lose the challenge.

Exactly...:D

GO BEARS!!! :cool: :D

thats ridiculous... does the coach have a choice between choosing to challenge the spot versus challenging a gain? if not then you cant penalize one vs. the other... and if so then coaches would always choose to just challenge the spot

bet the league will admit their screw-up tomorrow

You can't simply challenge the spot of the ball. Forward progress with respect to a first down, however, is challenge able and that was what was being challenged.

Cablevision LI NY
Overall picture looked good. Not great, but it was an improvement from past games.
Funny I was questioning that first down challenge also and why GB lost it. Al Michaels explained it. They were challenging if they got the first down, not the spot of the ball. Technically, they lost the challenge. It does not make sense, but I'm sure we would have seen the GB coach and staff make an issue out of it during the game.

You can't simply challenge the spot of the ball. Forward progress with respect to a first down, however, is challenge able and that was what was being challenged.
I don't know about that. I know I've seen coaches challenge the spot of the ball even first down was not in question. Just this year someone did it I know. Just can't recall.

I don't know about that. I know I've seen coaches challenge the spot of the ball even first down was not in question. Just this year someone did it I know. Just can't recall.

You can only challenge the spot of the ball in regards to the line to gain, goal line, or sideline. You can also challenge the spot in some other circumstances involving turnovers.

Can somebody tell me why NBC's HD is the worst by far of all the HD I watch when it comes to motion artifacting?

What the hell is their problem?

Anytime there's motion in their NFL games, the grass becomes a blurry mess and the pic shows mcroblocking. When there's no motion it's pretty sharp.

Thais has been the case for a WHILE.

NBC has numerous issues getting a quality signal through to the affiliate. However, it is likely most of what you're describing can be attributed to your local affiliate's multicasting. Does your local carry any SD feeds like Weather Plus?

Yea but remember they tied for second for PQ on a Neilson survey.

The average Nielsen viewer has had multiple cataract surgeries.

True that.........

I have to agree this time about SNF. NBC really does have motion problems. Not terrible for me, but very annoying and sub-par.

I wouldn't trust that MPEG4 would look the same as OTA...;)


:D LOL!

NBC has numerous issues getting a quality signal through to the affiliate. However, it is likely most of what you're describing can be attributed to your local affiliate's multicasting. Does your local carry any SD feeds like Weather Plus?


I'm not so sure about that CP...... I see the same crapola when viewing WITN-DT 7.1 via OTA and they run no subchannels(or at least they wernt the last time I did an A/B comparison).

So assuming I'm correct..... where does the problem originate from? NBC's distribtuion point to the affiliates?

Yeah, it can be. Even rain in NYC can screw up the national feed to affiliates.

So assuming I'm correct..... where does the problem originate from? NBC's distribtuion point to the affiliates?
Yes, NBC runs a Ku-band distro system for the digital signal as opposed to the other 3 nets which use C-band. Ku-band is the same as the system used by DirecTV to deliver their signals(not the new MPEG4 signals which are Ka, the original MPEG2) to their subscribers. Ku-band is more susceptible to adverse weather conditions. As CP noted, when there is a bad storm situation in the New York area, heavy rain, snow, blizzard, NBC has problems getting the signal out. It's happened on a somewhat regular basis during the heavy winter months each year.

It usually manifests itself as audio/video artifacts, loss of image, and finally you'll end up with no signal at all or an SD signal being fed from the local station encoders.

Appreciate the info kennan...... it's a shame that NBC's HD looks so bad. With me having a 1080i native set, I'd love to see them clean up their act, so to speak. It's hard on the eyes watching their NFL coverage.

I think in these postings that the TV type, manufactuer and any other equipment (STB) type, manufactuer needs to be listed as well as the source and city location as well as any sub-channels...Something like (for me)
Toshiba CRT RPTV
LG 3510a STB via QAM TW
or
LG 3510a STB via ATSC OTA
1 subchannel WeathrPlus
WLWT-DT
Cincinnati

I think that may aid in figuring all these "worst I have ever seen" posts out...

Appreciate the info kennan...... it's a shame that NBC's HD looks so bad. With me having a 1080i native set, I'd love to see them clean up their act, so to speak. It's hard on the eyes watching their NFL coverage.

Shame they can't simulcast SNF on USA.

Their drama replays look fantastic (and with minimal, if any, pop ups).

. Ku-band is the same as the system used by DirecTV to deliver their signals to their subscribers. Ku-band is more susceptible to adverse weather conditions.

Ku is only adversly affected more than C band ONLY if the dish itself is small. A larger dish will (and does) alleviate the above mentioned issues.

Does NBC have their backup uplink in Burbank HD ready yet? I know it was discussed as being in the works during the 2006 Winter Olympic Games.

Does NBC have their backup uplink in Burbank HD ready yet? I know it was discussed as being in the works during the 2006 Winter Olympic Games.

Yes. They have had the capability of uplinking out of Burbank for a while now. In fact they have used the Burbank backup quite extensively over the summer. For a few weeks this summer they were coming out of Burbank almost every day due to weather in New York.

They will typically switch to Burbank if there is weather or the threat of weather in the New York area and stay there until things clear up and they can switch back to the New York uplink (like during late local news or some other time the stations are in local programming).

-We have an audio problem and the Dolby 5.1 processor is out of service. We hope to have it repaired soon. Thanks for watching News Channel 8.


Mark Schaefer
Dir. of Engineering
WFLA TV/DT
V 813 225-2709
F 813 275-8809

I found the broadcast last night to be below par as well.

However I do not recall ever being satisfied with any HD programming via nbc.

The audio was pretty good, but it was very quiet as well.

I had to turn up the pre amp much louder than other channels.

I was viewing via mpeg4 D* locals in Chicago. OTA was not any better.

92" firehawk Epson 720p projector.

I think in these postings that the TV type, manufactuer and any other equipment (STB) type, manufactuer needs to be listed as well as the source and city location as well as any sub-channels...Something like (for me)
Toshiba CRT RPTV
LG 3510a STB via QAM TW
or
LG 3510a STB via ATSC OTA
1 subchannel WeathrPlus
WLWT-DT
Cincinnati

I think that may aid in figuring all these "worst I have ever seen" posts out...

DirecTv Distant Network 80. Same on Midcontinent Cable via cable card.
HR20 or H20
Pioneer PDP-6070HD properly calibrated

Finally, here in PDX, we have little to complain about with respect to sound. This is likely due to our affiliate, KGW, fixing something. Would like to have a bit more ambiance, though.

Picture looks very good with only minor blocking noticeable from from normal distance (about 4 screen height (64" plasma.))

However, I don't like the screen below the score graphics. I like the way CBS does it at the bottom -- very clean.

its funny that with all their bandwidth problems they still use that metal grate graphic because that is probably one of the most difficult patterns to compress

its funny that with all their bandwidth problems they still use that metal grate graphic because that is probably one of the most difficult patterns to compress

I think they use that grate to cover up their real problems and figure people won't notice, Not!

I also think last night was their worst PQ of the season so far, just when you think they are making progress, they go backwards. Way to go NBC!

NBC has numerous issues getting a quality signal through to the affiliate. However, it is likely most of what you're describing can be attributed to your local affiliate's multicasting. Does your local carry any SD feeds like Weather Plus?

Hi CPanther,

I have to disagree with your assessment of multicasting. Even with 1080i,
and one subchannel at 3 MB, it can look incredible. Ask anyone who saw:

1. Our local PBS affiliate with one sub at 1080i before they added more and went to 720p

2. Our local NBC affiliate, WMAQ-DT Chicago, who showed a Bears preseason game and WOW, did it look good! That with Weather Plus as a subchannel.

If you run two subchannels at 1080i, you're right...nothing will make that look great. But one sub and...here's the big must-have...the latest generation
of encoders...it will look fantastic.

Granted, to a purist, no subchannels and the latest generation of encoders make you want to drool. But in reality: it's all about the backhaul, and if you dumb it down, it doesn't matter what "p" or "i" resolution you're at...it will look bad. Any NBC affiliate that runs 2 subs or more needs to be 720p. Period.

Just my thoughts.

Some big "ifs" there in order to get it right. Doesn't really conflict with what I said. I'm not talking about what could be done with the right technology, just commenting on what is currently out there in most places.