Sunday Night Football on NBC HD
Cincinnati Bengals at Pittsburgh Steelers
Live from Heinz Field, 8:15pm ET
1080i & DD5.1

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

The rain just started. We were told showers. It's pouring. Should be pretty.

WS

Go Bengals!

The rain just started. We were told showers. It's pouring. Should be pretty.

WS

Hi Wendel,

If you get what we've been getting all day in Detroit, it's lots of rain.

Thanks, Ken, for the uplifting words.

Should be a fun one to watch. Field should equalize the teams.

hopefully it won't turn into the quagmire that it was last week...

aq good as usual. immersive and realistic.
pq bad as usual. pixelation. noise. the orange on the bengals seems to really freak out the feed.

comcast south jersey.

Boston, MA, Comcast Moto DVR. PQ is pretty bad, as said above especially the orange on the Bengals uniform. I'm also seeing a bit of swimming grass which I haven't seen in a long time.

Picture and Audio are both great here in Cincinnati... WLWT OTA. Go Bengals!

Boston, MA, Comcast Moto DVR. PQ is pretty bad, as said above especially the orange on the Bengals uniform. I'm also seeing a bit of swimming grass which I haven't seen in a long time.You sure the swimming grass isn't just the field trying to float away? Also, I demand that the rain be in higher definition!

Seriously, I agree. AQ good, PQ bad. OTA from KTSM in El Paso.

Good evening Wendel...:)

Audio is superb this evening...Of course I expect nothing less with yu at the helm...;)

Video is vibrant and gorgeous...I don't think I have seen bad PQ or heard bad AQ the whole season...

TWC
Cincinnati, OH
WLWT-DT
Toshiba 51H83 CRT RPTV
LG 3510a ASTC/QAM tuner
Onkyo TX DS595 AVR
TAD 803SD Front mains & surround
TAD 805C center channel
DIY 12" 150watt Sonosub

PQ bad as usual on WDTN - Dayton, O. Please get rid of the sd subchannel WDTN.

WRC-DT (OTA, Comcast Annapolis) from Washington DC sounds just as good as normal (that is, excellent), but looks noticeably worse than normal. I wonder if the video problems are worse than normal because of the weather. The sound is always the same : awesome.

WBAL-DT (OTA, Comcast Annapolis) from Baltimore sounds poor (no DD5.1), and also looks significantly worse than normal -- although I've yet to see a good live sports broadcast on 11-1 in the roughly 2.5 years I've had HD. I remember seeing a WBAL employee on AVS Forum earlier in 2007, but I haven't seen him since. I do hope they know that their broadcast is still flatly unacceptable. I would love to work with them to fix things, however.

OTA in springfield, ma. Some of the cam's are great like the center field cam but some of the close up cam's are aweful with heavy pixelization.

Game looks ok, no center channel audio here, just game sounds:-). Watching OTA KTAL digital 6.1, Shreveport, LA DMA.

PQ is horrible for me in Savannah Georgia, Comcast.

Too much pixelization.

I'm disappointed. The SD quality NBC football is better than Fox or CBS IMO. The HD quality is just horrible. Guess its just the feed for me.

I need a better camera...;)

WVTM NBC13 in Birmingham OTA. PQ s phenominal. Looks like I'm in the control booth on my 52" Sammy LCD 1080p. Absolutely phenominal from 8 foot viewing distance. Feels like I'm on the field (wthout the rain :-).

PQ has been stellar for the last two weeks. This TV is off the charts when the signal is this clean.

Wendel...Who chooses the music bits when you fade to commercial??? Really good tunes tonight...

I need a better camera...;)

Yep, I feel your pain. I uploaded some shots of last weeks game to try to portray what I was seeing (which was nothing less than stellar) and unless your camera has a super high rez, it wont do the PQ justice...

"Behind the kicker cam" that was just used was excellent btw...

Wendel...Who chooses the music bits when you fade to commercial??? Really good tunes tonight...

Me

Watching OTA WXIA Atlanta. Overall pq is very sharp and vibrant colors. Most closeups with motion have pixelation.

Me

A second to elaborate. I choose 30 cuts. Producer Oks 'em. I try to choose something appropriate to go to break. Big music if something big happened. Mellow for a scenic. Etc.

WS

Watching on Comcast NYC. Usual NBC mess. Not the worst I've seen from them not the best either. Sound is great as usual. Man Pittsburgh cannot catch a break with this weather. Though for some reason the game looked a lot better on MNF last week. The video levels were more vibrant. This show feels very dark in comparison.

A second to elaborate. I choose 30 cuts. Producer Oks 'em. I try to choose something appropriate to go to break. Big music if something big happened. Mellow for a scenic. Etc.

WS

Interesting...Keep up the good work...:)

Can someone explain (or at least guess) how the onscreen graphics can be blurry at times? It just doesn't seem like that should be possible.

Can someone explain (or at least guess) how the onscreen graphics can be blurry at times? It just doesn't seem like that should be possible.Blurring is usually an issue with CBS affiliates, but I think it's a setting on the local station's encoder called "adaptive filtering" or something like that... someone else may recall better than I can. No blurring here from WLWT Cincinnati, but we do get it from WKRC (CBS) sometimes.

:mad:Bengals suck...:mad:

Wendel, please pass this message on to your superiors.
____________________________________

I'm writing this message on behalf of the members of AVS Forum, the most popular online HDTV forum in America. I'm concerned about NBC's future reputation if no action is taken on something.

The future of TV is in HDTV, and while the HD picture quality of shows that contain low amounts of motion, such as Leno, Today, and NBC Nightly News, is generally fine, there have been many complaints in this forum about the HD picture quality from shows that have higher levels of motion, such as Chuck, Bionic Woman, and Sunday Night Football. They've been complaining about unusual levels of motion blur and macroblocking versus their other stations. There have even been complaints from people watching on subchannel-free stations in various spots across the country, and such stations usually have pristine picture quality.

A lot of these viewers are watching on older 720p HDTVs. If these viewers can see issues on 720p TVs, just imagine what might happen when those viewers, as well as those entering the HD world, purchase ever-more-popular "full HD" TVs that can display all the detail of your 1080i signal, unlike the 720p TVs which downresolve the 1080i picture to fit the screen. People might not want to watch a show full of motion-related artifacts, and that would risk your bottom line.

If we've been complaining, just imagine the complaining when HD becomes mainstream. A lot of people are going to come on board to HD for the Beijing Olympics, and there should be at least a stopgap measure to making the PQ better for at least that point onward.

In the meantime, from what I've read, your MPEG-2 distribution feed is set in the 22-24 Mbps range, compared to the 40 Mbps or more of CBS and ABC. While I'm not an engineer, so I couldn't properly explain why, it's best to encode an MPEG-2 HD feed for distribution at two times the final encoded-at-the-station bitrate, which, for ATSC 1080i, is 38 Mbps or more. CBS encodes their HD distribution bitstream at over 40 Mbps if I recall correctly, and they're known to have stunning HD picture quality, especially on stations that air no subchannels.

The simplest way to fix your issue is to encode the HD distribution feed at 38-44 mbps. However, there may not be enough bandwidth on the Skypath system for that. I will say that, at least for Sunday Night Football, since it's a national broadcast, if the Skypath sat space is normally taken up by two 22 Mbps NBC feeds, one for Leno on the East Coast while the other's for a primetime show on the West Coast, the bandwidth could, and should, be combined manually each week. If this applies, it would also be a good idea to combine the bandwidth for the 2009 Super Bowl, from pregame, straight to the local news after the postgame show and, say, a one-hour Office or 30 Rock or something.

Another stopgap measure is to purchase a newer, better MPEG-2 encoder. It wouldn't cost as much as rolling out a VC-1 or AVC MPEG-4 distibution system, so you can wait for the costs to come down some more. As for an encoder suggestion, I suggest the Harmonic MV500, which is generally regarded as the best MPEG-2 encoder available. However, I suspect any modern HD encoder would be better at encoding an MPEG-2 feed than the current one, which must be very old.

Of course NBC could go all the way immediately and install a VC-1 distribution system (which would be cheaer to license than MPEG-4, IIRC, otherwise AVC MPEG-4 is fine). However, this would cost significant $$$ retrofitting all the stations.

No matter what, you can't do nothing. Your reputation as a first-tier broadcaster is at stake with this. Well, this and those bottom-of-the-screen pop-ups coming out of commercials.

Sincerely,
mikemikeb

Great letter Mike, lets hope you get some answers. I would have to include journeyman and today's horrendous "Pro-Son" golf presentation. The motion trails were horrendous. Tonight's game looks like Blu-Ray by comparison to the PQ of those two...

I'm writing this message on behalf of the members of AVS Forum, the most popular online HDTV forum in America.Please don't assume you speak for other forum members...

Dear mikemikeb:

We are confident that the fine reputation of NBC can withstand the past few years of assault by our accountants and marketing departments. We also fully expect enough of NBC's reputation to be intact to garner a handful of very handsome bids once we decide to shop the network around immediately following the closing of the Beijing Olympics - a time in which our value will be at its peak due to the influx of cash.

Until that time, we don't feel there's a whole lot we could do to diminish the sale price of the network by taking advantage of the short term cash gains we get from treating the broadcasts we send like NASCAR vehicles with ad space waiting to sell. There certainly is no short term downside since you and your fellow forum members aren't paying us for our services.

As far as nit-picking the quality of our HDTV broadcast, we'd say that you are being a bit unrealistic. Nobody knows television better than General Electric and NBC - and this whole HDTV abomination isn't at all what was intended when the television system was created. This isn't your fault, the whole market went to hell when manufacturers started adding remote controls to their consoles and people lost touch with their televisions. Now it is just another appliance that is easily imported - in a market that our fine company has been squeezed out of. But we didn't leave you, you left us when you started wanting cheap black bezels instead of 250 lbs. of fine furniture grade wood surrounding your screen. When GE consoles make a comeback, we'll shop for a network again - but in this current environment, we just want to cut bait.

But enough animosity, it's the holiday season and its important we remember what really important this time of year. It isn't just a little bit better picture on our fancy new HDTVs - it's getting the best refrigeration, cleaning and cooking appliances in our homes so we can provide a quality holiday meal for visiting family. So upgrade your appliances this fiscal year - and please do it quick because we heard that some bastard is starting to put LCD screens in their refrigerators - so there's no telling how long you'll be able to get a fine Hotpoint refrigerator.

Sincerely,

Your friends at General Electric
(ask your granparents - we're a big deal)

wow

wow
Double wow.

Now I know who can fill in for the writers until the strike is over... :D

Please don't assume you speak for other forum members...

I can say with absolute confidence that he speaks for the overwhelming majority of AVS members.

Sincerely,

Your friends at General Electric
(ask your granparents - we're a big deal)Dear General Electric,

It's very odd that you mention how GE will sell NBC Universal. I especially state this as Mr. Zucker (http://www.redherring.com/Home/23060) and Mr. Immelt (http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/business/news/e3i46b00c7ea4be29961b5117d8d771abc6) have both stated recently that NBC Universal won't be for sale anytime soon. But whatever, I guess you always have a deliberate plan up your sleeves, like you did when you failed to change the physical styling on your RCA TVs. You saw the others were changing their TVs' styling, and the people were buying them instead of yours. But you had your plan and you stuck to it 'til the very end of your TV manufacturing business. After all, nobody knows television better than GE, and therefore today's NBC.

Have you ever considered that Americans stopped buying your TVs because they didn't perform as well as the competition? People are fickle. They could stop watching your shows before your underground market research has predicted. Your plan of making the most money possible in such a short term may backfire: What if nobody watches the Olympics? That may gather a lot of ad revenue in the short term as the ads have already been sold in all probability, but what does that do for the 2010 and 2012 Olympics? I would think it would decrease the value of NBC Universal if you chase everybody away to the point of not wanting to come back. Who would buy time on a network that nobody watches? And once they're gone for good, it's hard to get 'em back. Look at GM. Their cars were overpriced, mediocre in performance, and unreliable compared to the new Asian competition. Even though GM's getting better, a lot of people still are too scared to even consider test-driving another GM car or truck.

But back to NBC: Just because you have a grudge against America for turning their back on your TVs, doesn't mean you should retaliate in reducing the level of sophistication in the network. It's not good business practice, only pride. You still have a shot at making money off the people who slighted you. So what if it's through something you somewhat hate, at least according to your attitude in your previous letter? Remember that the customer is always right, and there are two types of customers involved in the TV world: Viewers, and advertisers. Without viewers, advertisers will leave, too.

"No short term downside"? What would be the value of a city in a valley that had lots of money stashed away in vaults, yet was deserted, and nobody wanted to come back? Who would buy Reno if everybody wanted to live in or visit/gamble in Vegas? Basically, don't press your luck by turning NBC Universal into a less classy network than it was. Let's get back to proper and decent footing in operations. We can wait for the "planned" next owner, say, Murdoch, to grind the network into rubble.

And besides, what could anybody do with NBC? Turn it into the biggest Lane Bryant in Midtown Manhattan? And who would have the spare four million dollars to BUY NBC? Jerry Seinfeld?

And yes, indeed, it's the holiday season. Therefore, how 'bout I give you, as an early Christmas gift, the next billion-dollar idea. How about partnering with the manufacturer of some rear-projection TV, say, Samsung, and create the Telefridge? It's a 65" Full HD 1080p LED DLP HDTV with a full-size GE bottom-freezer refrigerator directly on the side. That way, every Sunday, the consummate American football watcher need not take his eyes off the screen for fifteen seconds walking to the kitchen to get to the fridge; he need only walk a few feet to the TV to open up his trophy case full of beers. After handing some to his friends, and returning to his seat, as he chugs down his prize, he can feel the ice-cold spoils in his victory against the terrorists.

Have a spectacular day.

Sincerely,
mikemikeb

WILX in Lansing, OTA.

I've seen much better from NBC, but I've also seen much worse. For the amount of rain, I was satisfied for the 2 quarters that I watched.

The BUNGLES are Back!

I can say with absolute confidence that he speaks for the overwhelming majority of AVS members.

Please don't assume you speak for other forum members...

I know he speaks for me! Every close up shot that had any kind of movement went out of focus/pixilated. Especially if someone walked between the person being zoomed and camera. It's almost like there was an auto focus that went bananas. Although, giving credit where credit is due, if there was no motion it was spectacular. But how often is that during a football game...

The BUNGLES are Back!

They never left...;)

Funny as hell comment was told to me when I was at an appointment when discussing Carson Palmer...The gentleman I was speaking with says that he has finally become 'Bengalized'!!! LOL!:D After last nights performance I couldn't agree more...:(

Bengals have the longest drought of seasons without a playoff victory. Here's the list of the 7 worst teams in that regard. (Everyone does a top 10 list - I picked 7 for no particular reason. ;) )

Bengals (1990)
Lions (1991)
Chiefs (1993)
Browns (1994)
Chargers (1994)
Bills (1995)
THE DALLAS COWBOYS (1996)

This PQ for this game looked like one of the best I've seen on the NBC football games so far. Similar comments, as the main cameras looked very sharp, but some of the close-up camera shots had pixellation and fuzziness when the camera panned around.

Two things:

1. This post (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=12389877#post12389877) describes a subchannel-free station (WAVY-DT). Just wanted to throw that in.

2. What you describe with the out of focus closeups is an issue with the Harris Flexicoder. This thread (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=10086852#post10086852) goes into more detail, and shows a fix.

3. Just wanted to throw this post in. (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=12390982#post12390982) NBC, if you're reading this, I can't stress this enough: please have one ~38 mbps HD feed for any programming that won't be aired more than once that day/night, and will be aired simultaneously across the country. This includes Football Night in America, Sunday Night Football, and the 2009 Super Bowl Pregame, game, and postgame shows. It'll really help with PQ at stations with one subchannel or less.