NFL Concerned HD is "too good" - LOL - Page 2

So what you're saying, wally, is 1080i > 720p.

Because the first three all use 1080i.

The latter three all use 720p.

Unless you're getting the raw feed from the network you can't generalize about pq from one market to another. Local stations, cable, and satellite companies all apply compression to the raw feed which will vary among individual stations and individual service providers. NBC OTA may be better than Fox in one city while the opposite may be true 500 miles down the road.

Wow. Didn't mean to touch a nerve. From my experience with OTA tv in the SF Bay Area, Fox and NBC generally have the better live sports broadcasts than CBS or ABC. I've watched live sports broadcast from AT&T and Candlestick Park OTA and then compared it to my neighbor's Comcast broadcast at the same time. We ended up watching the game here OTA. Both feeds originated from the same broadcast truck but whatever Comcast did, it was crap 60 miles south of the park. The Bears and Niners play here at Candlestick tonight on CBS so I'll watch the game with a careful eye and see. OTA certainly is not perfect but at least in our market, and my orientation to the broadcast towers, pq is always (well, almost always) excellent.

^^^^^ half time. CBS is broadcasting in 1080i OTA (at least that's what my tv says) and the pq is great. No "swimming grass", pixelation, macroblocking, etc. Detail is superb so I guess it does depend on your market.

In the greater NYC area Fox broadcasts on DTV use to look a bit grainy, but in recent months they have improved greatly. Both the Giants games and Fringe look stunning.


Ian

If this is in reference to my last post I apologize if I came off as in any way having had a nerve struck:D Certainly wasn't meant that way and I have the utmost respect for you having always found your posts throughout this site to be helpful, accurate, honest, and imbued with that rarity called common sense. The intent of the post was really only to point out that with regard to pq from various ota stations and cable/sat systems that ymmv depending on one's market.

My own experience has been only with OTA vs DirecTV vs Dish for locals in the Fresno market--generally very good from both OTA andDirecTV with little if any difference between OTA and D feeds. Dish, on the other hand, is virtually unwatchable for Fresno locals due to overcompression. Happy Thanksgiving!

The Redskins haven't sold out 364 strait games. They have lots of unsold tickets. For sellout purposes, many of the more expensive seats are exempt. The reason is so they can continue to lie about sellouts and also so the games aren't blacked out. You can buy tickets for many of their games from them up until kickoff.

what i posted above is based on what appears to be a consensus of remarks from the hd broadcasting forum regarding sports broadcasts.
it is not as simple as 1080i v. 720p as their are endless debates about whether one is better than the other. it really comes down to which
network invests in the quality of the signal they send out.

i have no way to measure mps or compression levels although other members do and have posted their results.

yes the quality of broadcasts varies depending upon your local affiliate and your provider, but as for nfl football, most seem to agree
the best quality broadcasts are from cbs than nbc.

happy thanksgiving to all.

That doesn't "unprove" my point. If the expensive seats are exempt, the "proletariat" is still buying 100% of the available tickets, despite HD. The fact the Redskins choose to go for profit maxing on the $1000+ seats has nothing to do with HD.

And NBC sports offers free on line streaming.


Ian

I'm not trying to disprove anything. I'm just stating fact about the redksins so called sellout streak being bogus.

http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/articles/41937/sellout-streak-heres-the-truth-redskins-tickets-are-easy-to/
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/dcsportsbog/2010/09/redskins-texans_another_fedex.html

Tickets are available at the stadium at kickoff for most of their home games. Not just $1,000 tickets.

Again, the NFL decides what a sellout is and deems the Redskins sell out every game. And regardless, they come close enough that it's absurd the same NFL is yammering about HD.

Right. I'm a lifelong Redskins fan (lived the glory days back in elementary and middle school, have been suffering ever since ), the supposed season tickets waiting list has been pretty well debunked. They removed thousands of the cheap seats prior to this season (or was it last year?) due to difficulty getting them all sold. It's entirely possible there's some bizzaro world definition of a "sell out" that the Redskins manage to meet, but nearly every game sees many empty seats, on all levels. I think the stadium environment (terrible), high cost, and awful traffic to and from have more to do with it than sweet, sweet, HD though.

jeff

I'm sorry, but I just about lost it over:

"two unstopped fistfights"

Don't ask me why my sick a$$ thought that was funny, but I did.

The whole deal is pretty straightforward to me:

1. In many NFL arenas it's stupidly (yes, stupidly) expensive to have decent seats to watch a decent team.

2. The above "decent" seats are still, largely, dreadful, when it comes to actually watching/following the game. Seriously, think about how far away from a play you typically are in a stadium with 75+ feet between the stands and a field 360 feet long and 160 feet wide.

Now, consider how many seats are within 100 feet of the infield in a typical ML park that can be had for much, much less. Basketball of course is no contest in 95% of the NBA arenas. Great seats, everywhere.

3. Concessions? In the cold in most stadiums from October to January? Abysmal and the priciest in American pro sports. Double. Whammy.

4. The cold.

5. The cold for 4+ hours.

6. The cold.

Oh yeah, most NFL broadcasts are great...and free, HD or not.

I'll prolly never go to another NFL game again in my life.

And I'm a Green Bay fan living in Wisconsin...I really do not mind the cold at all, but a huge majority does...especially for 4+ hours (yes I realize Pittsburgh and Green Bay sell out every game)...but seeing you "only" need 70,000 of 6 million residents to attend, it really doesn't matter what the majority cares to endure. The NFL knows this, of course.


HDTV is the least of the problem for the NFL.

James
Edited by mastermaybe - 1/3/13 at 7:22am

I understand all of the points in the thread so far. I agree that HD is certainly not the problem with attendance. I would chalk that up to product. TB, Jacksonville, Oakland, (and others), have a terrible product and attendance suffers. However, for me, there is no replacement for the actual game experience. Being a Packer fan living in Canada, i've made the pilgrimage twice and enjoyed every second of it. I've also been to Minny a couple of times for games there but their stadium is a horrible mess. I love everything about the game day experience and wouldn't trade it for all the tv's in the world. Now don't get me wrong, i do love my sunday ticket and red zone and enjoy watching but i hate not having an all 22 view, actually seeing the entire field and the play develop. I might feel differently if i grew up witha stadium around the corner with a subpar team but as it stands now, i'll continue to travel to games whenever i can regardless of the quality of tv product.

I went to every Stanford game this year that was realistically available in person (including a rainy Pac-12 championship game). I watched the rest on TV.

There are great things about TV, don't get me wrong, but there is no substitute for being there. It's all about price, convenience, comfort, etc.

The Rose Bowl spent $100MM on renovations and still has no WiFi. Fans like to check stats, tweet, etc. It's ridiculous they felt it was OK to rebuild the place and still keep you disconnected (I did get a Facebook post right after the win, but I was surprised it went out to be honest). I couldn't watch replays on my Slingbox (at home, I can always do that obviously)....

Stuff like that is why people don't want to pay triple digits to be there. Add in everything people mentioned above and there is a problem, but it's not "too good video quality".

CBS is usually the best OTA with virtually no mpeg decompression artifacts. NBC is slightly oversaturated but lots of compression artifacts. Fox is if Iffy. ABC and ESPN can get just make a mess of it. With the exception of ESPN these are all local OTA broadcasts from the network affilliates. I never watch the OTA available broadcasts on Cable unless I have to. I remember one day walking into my brothers home and there was an NFL game on. Can't remember which network but it looked like crap to me. He was using Comcast. I said man you have an antenna switch to it. It was an instant and dramatic upgrade to his TV and NFL experience. Sometimes the CBS OTA broadcasts here for the NFL are scary good. On a game to game basis, the work of the crew at the stadium and the caliber of the cameras makes a huge difference too.

Too good?!?

Oh, God, no. Are they gonna start exerting influence on providers to compress their signal even MORE?

That's what we need.

They're going to have to start smearing Vaseline on the lenses ala Doris Day...

Coverage wise I'd take Fox over CBS. The CBS version of NFL game coverage is the equivalent of two guys commenting on a game on TV with mute on.. Can't hear anything going on in the field. PQ wise NBC is the best.

What's mysterious is how Simms and Billick remain employed in an era with so many excellent, recently-retired athletes and coaches who can speak intelligently about football.

Very interesting comments and a friend of mine said the same thing in regards to RB.

The complete opposite of the new 49ers house being built. Going after software and apps. Partnering with Sony.

Very smart. Can't wait to see it next year.

http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2012/12/12/san-francisco-49ers-partner-with-sony-on-new-stadium-technology/

And go 9ers!

Rick

I have no doubt that place is going to be a huge hit. And sell out for years to come.