Dancing with the Stars...on ABC...in HD! - Page 171

When the tickertape started to drop when the winner was announced, my HD picture became a sea of mpeg artifacts. Truly horrible. Did anyone else experience this?

Verizon FiOS, New Jersey.

I typically notice such and I don't remember seeing the image breakup. Now my recording stopped right about then (I recorded the news afterwards as it looked like they were running late) so I could have missed it while I switched from one recording to the other... not paying as much attention. I record OTA and the station roughly sends out 16Mbps (average).

It was simply AWFUL!!!
My local ABC channel is so bitstarved even during the dancing I get a macroblocking mess. During the confetti drop it was so gad-awful even my wife and kids noticed now thats got to be bad
Charles R, I'm VERY envious of you, I'd guess my local ABC channel is running <5mbps, the 2hr finale was a pitiful 7GBs, 3.5GBs/hr. is just way to compressed for quality HD(even 720p) motion or not

I don't think our locals are anything to brag about...

ABC - 5.6GB per hour (only one show to compare)
CBS - 7.2GB per hour
NBC - roughtly the same as CBS
FOX - 6.7GB per hour
CW - 5GB per hour (only one show to compare)
PBS - 12.5Mbps - switched to 720p since 1080i looked so bad (tons of sub channels)

ABC- 3.5GB/hr 720p, OK HD, awful macroblocking, 2 SD sub but a ton of bandwidth allocated to MDTV
CBS-6.6 GB/hr 1080i, great looking HD, best in my market, no subs
NBC-6 GB/hr 1080i, very good looking HD, minimal macroblocking, 1 Wx sub
FOX-5.8 GB/hr 720p, decent HD, very minimal macroblocking, 1 SD sub
CW-6.1 GB/hr 1080i, very good HD, minimal macroblocking, 2 SD subs
PBS-5.4GB/hr 1080i, very good HD, minimal macroblocking, 1 SD sub

I don't really have a problem with most of the majors in my market, NBC can get blocky with lots of strobes or confetti but my ABC is really the pits which is bad for a HD intensive program like DWTS What really kills me is they waste so much bandwidth on something like MDTV that basically no one watches!
All GB file sizes are for a 1hr program, file size as reported by my Tivo HD.

Divide the amount of space per hour in GB by .45 to roughly get the average transport stream rate in Mb/s.3.5GB in one hour would be around 7.8 Mb/s total. That includes the audio and overhead so subtract about a half a meg and that's around 7.3 Mb/s. That's not too bad ... for a SD DVD.

Thanks for the trick to getting Mb/s, I agree, SD DVDs(480i) can top out at 10Mb/s, 7.3Mb/s for 720p HD

FOX used to be nearly that low. One time I captured a House and the entire hour fit on a DVD. On Fox it wasn't too bad at 24fps with the single encoding by the splicer system. Since they upgraded the satellite distribution bitrate it's usually around 15-16 Mb/s. There are several programs to show bitrate such as TSReader.

I really wonder how they will follow up last season which IMO was terrific If they learned anything I hope they eliminate the obviously bad stars, IMO a bad star going much further than they should really detracts from a otherwise great show.
humdinger70, we'll have to hope you don't get run over by a beer truck..... this has to be one of the longest ongoing threads still actively frequented by the OP

Possibility of no Maks this upcoming season?

http://tv.yahoo.com/news/maksim-chmerkovskiy-leaving-dancing-stars-161600113.html

IIRC, they announced Maks' retirement during last season.

My first guess is that we'll see Kiki promoted from the troop to take his spot since Kiki was so well known and had such a good reputation when he was a junior ballroom competitor.

The season 16 cast has been announced:

http://news.yahoo.com/dorothy-hamill-andy-dick-among-dancing-stars-151507100--spt.html

My early faves (based entirely on personal likes) are Kellie Pickler, Aly Raisman and maybe Zendaya (who I hear shows off her dancing skills on "Shake It Up"-my house does not currently get Disney Channel, so I have not seen that show).

I see Zendaya's last name is Coleman...I wonder if she is related to season 3 powerhouse Monique Coleman?

ALY RAISMAN - MARK BALLAS

ANDY DICK - SHARNA BURGESS

D.L. HUGHLEY - CHERYL BURKE

DOROTHY HAMILL - TRISTAN MACMANUS

INGO RADEMACHER - KYM JOHNSON

JACOBY JONES - KARINA SMIRNOFF

KELLIE PICKLER - DEREK HOUGH

LISA VANDERPUMP - GLEB SAVCHENKO

VICTOR ORTIZ - LINDSAY ARNOLD

WYNONNA JUDD - TONY DOVOLANI

ZENDAYA COLEMAN - Val Chmerkovskiy


Actually three new pros: Gleb, Lindsay and Sharna. So my guess was wrong and the dissed Kiki and went with Gleb instead. Lindsay was one of the ballroom girls from SYTYCD last season and Sharna is another Aussie from Burn The Floor like Kym.

Dorothy Hamill was one of my first childhood crushes, so I guess I have to back her, but she must be pushing close to 60 yo if not older since she's a few years older than me and the combo of Aly and Mark is going to be hard to beat.

Some interesting people on this season's list. And the detestable Andy Dick.

When I read he is gone, I will tune in.

Poor Tony D. What did he do to the producers to keep getting the ladies of greater 'stature'?

That's exactly how I feel. When I saw Jacoby Jones, I thought "I guess I'll schedule this season." Then I read Andy Dick's name and said, " well...I guess I won't."

You can always record it and then fast-forward through the appearances of contestants you don't like (let's call them "detestants").

As for me, if Anna Trebunskaya is taking the season off, so are my eyes.

I'm hoping Andy stays around just long enough for Jon Lovitz to show up and beat the crap out of him again.

AFA the contestants that Tony D. gets paired with, I think they do it because he's the most calm tempered and least flappable of the pros. I think this is at least partly due to Tony having less of his ego dependent on his success on DWTS since when the show started, he was still competing and winning American Rhythm championships. Plus Mark and Derek are so small that it's look ridiculous to pair one of them with partners like Wynonna or Kirstie.

Kym is in a similar position on the women's side. Her fame as a ballroom dancer was already assured before she started doing the show and she's naturally cool and calm. Karina also has the championships, but she's just too tightly wound.

+1 to basically everything you said, and it was nice Tony finally got his DWTS mirror ball last year, well deserved for sure!
AFA what someone said about the duds and not watching, seems a shame to miss all the rest of the great dancing for just a few bad apples, just FF or take a bathroom break, simple as that
I will really miss Anna, she wasn't my favorite her first season as I thought she was a bit bitchy or aloof but later seasons she really opened up(aka warmed up) and became one of my favorites. Lacy is also gone, not a favorite but I did enjoy some of her numbers.
My biggest departed favorites would have to be Julianne and Edyta, if Kym and Karina were to leave I don't know what I'd do, hope they stick around!

We lost Peta this season too which is a bit of a bummer since she inherited the slinky costume crown when Edyta quit.

Huh, that's weird. So does that mean he's going to have less training time than the other competitors before the season starts or was this all just a cheap ploy to try to milk publicity from The Bachelor Finale?

Or was there some some sort of last minute dropout like the one that gave us Melissa Rycroft?

I've seen some ads with Pickler in them. She actually looked like she can dance in the clips. Ali is still probably the favorite, but Pickler might be a darkhorse.