ABC O&O's destroy HD quality with launch of Live Well HD. - Page 9

LOL, Sometimes I feel like we are alone in this HD thing man. I'm the kind of guy that is obsessed about picture quality but realize that most folks are just going to be like, meh, whatever.

What gets me is how the show can look so soft in quality but people will just go on watching, the quality bothers me because in my mind I know what it should look like being "HD", so when programs look anything but I just cannot watch.

Has anyone ever used 16:9 SD on a subchannel? That would seem to be compromise to using more bandwidth for HD and filling the screen for the subchannels. If the mobile channels catch on (OMVC ATSC-M/H), there will be even less bandwidth for the HD service. OTH it's the foot in the door to move to MPEG 4 for OTA.

Would all current ATSC tuners still work?

No, which is why MPEG-4, as a primary channel, can never happen.

But did those supposedly "mushy crap" shows look better at 10 Mbps than 6 Mbps?

They look even better at 35+ Mbps. But then again, I do not know which "mushy crap" shows are included in this so-called list. I might not even be watching said shows anyway

LOL ... well if the number of complaints about 'losing our massively snowy/ghosty analog stations' and rants about the 'evil digital cliff' are any indication, we're in big trouble.

The bar is set pretty low, and most local station operators don't seem to care. I think HDTV via OTA is pretty much doomed.

Not really, no. Garbage in, garbage out. Can't say I actually watched the entire show on either channel, but the parts I looked at weren't noticeably different.

Desperate Housewives is the worst offender, but Grey's Anatomy moves closer every year as the female cast ages and they turn up the filtering to compensate. Few series on ABC really have eye popping HD. Lost is of course the best-looking show, along with the now-canceled Boston Legal. Dancing with the Stars can look good too. Other than that, maybe a sitcom or two, but otherwise it's all a bit too soft for my tastes.

That's what I thought. For that reason, I don't think it will happen on a primary either.

Where do you watch this content before it is recompressed and broadcast to make these comparisons? Do you work at an ABC affiliate?

Suspect you hit the Quote button on the wrong post, since mrvideo is the one with the big dish that can receive the network feeds.

No surprise. Look at how so many people and businesses will get HD sets, connect them to SD feeds, stretch the picture to fill the screen and consider that HD!

That's where I notice the lower bandwidth...that used to look pretty good but even that show looked like crap last night...

I don't watch either show. I got behind on DH and the Thanksgiving that the A-holes decided at the last minute to extend the episode by 10 minutes, resulting in my missing the last ten minutes. I then told ABC to f**koff (politely in e-mail) that I was not going to watch the series anymore because of that stupid stunt. I wasn't home, so I couldn't do anything about it. You don't pull that crap when people are away and doing Thanksgiving, not watching GA, but instead DVR/PVRingit for later viewing.

In any event, I can capture some of this week's finale and compare the 35Mbps video with my local affiliate video, who in the parent company's wisdom, now has TWO damn sub-channels. While it won't be the same as what ABC is doing to their O&Os, it will have the same feel.

Ya, that is so annoying. I've given up complaining to managers about the short-fat people on the screens.

Do you have an antenna capable of picking up WISN from Milwaukee? From what I've seen, their HD PQ is quite good with no subchannels, though the last time I saw it they were running a full-time local bug on HD content which was somewhat annoying. Would be interesting to see a side-by-side comparison with the feed, a full-bitrate channel, and one suffering from multicasting.

The antenna is capable. But the line of houses, many two story, in the direct path to Milwaukee keeps me from getting any Milwaukee stations. My street is east/west and Milwaukee is directly east of my house (single story).

I wouldn't be able to capture local and Milwaukee at the same time anyway. With the antenna pointing away from the local, even recording onto D-VHS might not work for getting one of them (the other on the computer directly).

As I understand it, local bugs and snipes are supposed to be a rules infraction. But someone would have to turn them in before anything could be done.

I remember all these guys when I first connected my HD Box to my HDTV, ABC, NBC, Fox all used to look crisp and clean, just sharp and clear to the eyes. Now its like looking through a fog on many programs, kind of like having to see Dianne Sawyer through her filters on GMA, its so obvious when they switch between her face and George Stephanopoulos. Makes me cringe at the blurr they introduce to mask her face.

http://www.rabbitears.info/oddsanden...request=widesd

These stations are using it right now.

- Trip

704 x 480p , or even 720 x 480p would have been such a good idea for this channel. It would look better than most standard 480i, (possibly look better than the current 720 bitstarved), be true widescreen, & not be the bandwidth problem the 720 channel is ...
I'd like to see more stations carry a 480p WS subchannel, instead of multiple garbage sd's ...

But then they couldn't call it High Definition because those numbers don't fit the HD standard.....

I wouldn't complain about that!

I just watched my dvr recording of Castle (Monday night - ABC) and the sound was cutting in and out the whole time. Very frustrating...

Call it "Digital Widescreen", unless Fox still has the trademark.

And changing the name from "LivewellHD" to "LivewellWS" or "LivewellDWS" would give ABC a way to save face.

At least some PBS stations are broadcasting their x-2 subchannel (PBS Digital Service) in 480i 16:9.

I was watching the Rockets-Lakers game on KTRK on Directv and it was the first time i had watched anything on ABC since they added the livewell HD. The picture quality was noticably poorer and was basically on par with what ESPN and TNT basketball games had looked like on Directv when they were still being encoded with the MPEG-2 encoding.

Here's what I dont' understand- why make the Live Well channel and HD channel? I would assume that most of the people that watch the type of programming shown on Live Well HD would watch the same programming if it were in SD so why take up the extra bandwidth to make it HD? The people watching it really don' care about HD quality since the Live Well HD quality will be even worse than the .1 main HD channel quality. Directv doesn't offer any subchannels in the Houston market so if you want to see the subchannels you need an antenna to pick it up. Maybe Comcast would add it, but again that would seem to make little sense when they could use their limited bandwidth to add channels of mass appeal than niche stuff like this.

I agree completely. In the fall when ABC divides the country up to play different college football games in different parts of the country I would like to see the alternate game on a subchannel in SD widescreen.

Rick R

It's disappointing that the new wanna-be -2 networks are just jumping in with 4:3 SD programming as if they're completely unaware that digital television (which they're literally building their networks around) even supports widescreen SD. ThisTV shows a surprising number of very good, rare and even classic movies that I would absolutely watch if they were OAR or at least something closer to it. Right there they would be giving me a reason to watch them instead of the hundreds of 4:3 channels on cable.

OK, ladies and gents, as promised here are 6 frames from the early part of tonight's Grey's Anatomy. I know, it isn't even done yet, but the dream scene is all I needed to get six examples of the great ABC net feed and the horrible local affiliate filtering of said feed.

Basically, take any area of skin and blow it up. On the net feed there is clarity. On the OTA it is filtered smooth, such that macroblock encoded areas stick out.

Also, note that the image size of the local affiliate files are smaller than the network files. The "smoother" local image compresses more

1- ABC Local

2- ABC Local

3- ABC Local

4- ABC Local

5- ABC Local

6- ABC Local

Zip file of the original BMP images

Reminder: local affiliate has two SD 4:3 streams.