2009 Australian Open on ESPN2 HD & Tennis Channel HD

ESPN's online guide lists the event as HD on ESPN2HD (also listed as HD on my TWC channel guide)

The poor excuse for a host broadcaster (Seven Australia) are showing it in SD widescreen across Australia right now. Looks pretty poor. Amazing how they can't produce the centre court matches in HD at least. It's a world event.

Directv has six channels of "HD" coverage but yeah this doesn't look great.

more stretched SD content on HD channels that we come to love right?

B.S.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

stretched SD? where?

sd widescreen does not equal stretched hd

The Ivanovic and Roddick matches look like they're in much higher quality than the others.... HD is not as good as NBC's Wimbledon coverage, but the two main courts look like HD to me.

Oh, I know -- so much "dead space" in the upper corners, and instead they have the scoreline actually covering the baseline sometimes! Worse, the scoreline itself is mostly just grey/black bar, with a little text in the middle. No reason it all it has to be where it is.

picture looks pretty good to me on ESPN2HD (except for having to see the damn bottom line, but with that and the scorebar on the bottom and dead space on the top, this isn't ideal. I don't know how much ESPN has to do with the camera placement, etc. there.

And on the schedule, Tennis Channel's "Australian Open Today" daily replays is missing. It's not live, but it's on when we can watch it, and ESPN2's replays are listed.

That would be acceptable if they hadn't issued that release last year stating they would show it in HD. There really is no reason why they can't.

As for images, I left these interlaced rather than destroy image quality but you can see that it is normal ugly SD here. BTW, what on Earth is with that hideous ESPN bar!? The normal scoreboard (that Seven use here in Australia) looks so much better it isn't funny.

Great coverage so far on DirecTV! The HD Mix channel 701 is nice!

Couple courts look to be HD. Rest are widescreen SD. It is nothing like US Open, but the no tennis tournament is as far as HD PQ.

Yah i was watching the HD mix channel last night, its really great. you can even view the complete draw.

What's with the ringing on the edges of the score caption and court markings??

(Can't be camera detail wound in if it is on the captions? Are Seven winding in some edge enhancement prior to upconversion? They can't be going analogue anywhere after the main mixer can they?)

Andy Murray match being shown live on Eurosport HD from the Rod Laver Arena is definitely HD. HD host graphics and HD cameras - definitely not an upconvert from 16:9 SD.

Eurosport are - as usual - tagging it with their annoying NATIVE HD bug bottom right, which they take out for SD upconverts.

The BBC are showing it live in SD on BBC Two - presumably because they are running it through an operation in London (and the main London control room for BBC Sport is still SD) and can't therefore show it in HD on BBC HD? (It is also being shown overnight in the UK...)

Notice it is shot a bit wider than Wimbledon, but not as wide as the US Open.

That score bar is awful, they need to go back to a score box.
Plus if you are watching the HD feed letterboxed on an SD TV the lines at the ends of the score bar keep vibrating.

I like the shot framing this time around, the Aussie camera operators finally got it right! The ESPN2 double-ticker kills me. The top line with all the scores oughta go back to a box, or at the very least they should make it somewhat transparent -- the legs of the bottom player keep getting cut off!

Just a note that with ESPN2 switching matches frequently, you can watch SD 4:3 coverage on ESPN 360 if you internet provider subscribes to it.

Most of the ESPN 360 coverage is using the international feed with just the score box on screen.
http://sports.espn.go.com/broadband/espn360/index#

Viewing on ESPN2, Comcast Detroit

Rod Laver Arena seats 15,000 spectators - looks HD
Hisense Arena seats 10,000 - looks HD
Margaret Court Arena seats 6000 - haven't seen as yet

Can anyone who's seen Tennis Channel HD coverage chime in, please.

MCA is definitely not HD (on ESPN2 right now).

If Hisense/RLA are in HD, that's pretty crappy HD.

I have yet to see any hd on Tennis Channel hd or ESPN2 hd.
My question is, where would they be getting the hd feed if Seven is only doing sd??

Yes. Two of the show courts look better than the outer courts but the 2 main courts still look very soft.

If it's HD, there would either be two productions, or Seven would be downconverting.

Are 7 the host broadcasters, or are they taking a 3rd party host broadcast feed?

The BBC are both host broadcaster AND domestic rights holder for Wimbledon - so produce the coverage and broadcast it in the UK. However other events are not run like this - with the host broadcaster often NOT being the rights holder.

Equally - if 7 are the host broadcaster they may have to produce some coverage in HD to meet the host broadcaster contract they have signed with the organisers of the Australian Open - even if they don't use the HD feed domestically.

For the showings that say "same day" in the ESPN schedule, do they broadcast the matches that weren't shown during the preceding live broadcast, or is it more like highlight of the day, including the matches already shown during live broadcast, or something else?

From the one day I recorded it, it was simply a re-run of the "key" match of the day (the one that's going to draw the most viewers). They replayed Federer's match in the case that I saw. Doesn't really come as a surprise since they're probably wanting to cater to as many fans as possible in that ~4 hour afternoon slot.