The 2007 NFL Playoffs - AFC Wild Card Weekend in HDTV on NBC - Chiefs @ Colts! - Page 2

Sums up exactly what I'm seeing here in Cleveland. WKYC-DT (w/WeatherPlus sub) via WOW cable. Viewing on Panny 50" 1080p plasma connected to SA8300HD.

I wonder if NBC will *ever* fix the yellow line down the left side?

That was on the air?

Watching on WTHR-13 in Indianapolis(one weather sub-channel). The blurring for a few seconds when coming out of a replay is quite bad. Kind of fits both teams performance in the first half.

I think writing it off to the subchannel is too easy. Watch the high-action commercials (watch the NFL logo on the NFL Network commercials when it pumps). That same type of graphic breaks up on the NBC live football feed but it is clean on the commercial.

Other than some episodes of Friday Night Lights, I have seen nothing but clean on NBC except for live football even with quick screen changes and graphics and action.

Something is wrong with the NBC feed that is not because of the subchannels.

It's all looking pretty good here in Houston, OTA KPRC 2. Much improved over a few weeks ago. We still have weather plus, but this week the radar sweep is gone and the main programming is being mirrored instead.

Agree 100%. Our local affiliate in Indy posted the following as the reason for the blurring effect:

"Comments from Al Grossniklaus, Director of Engineering and Operations at WTHR.........................

There was a nationwide problem with NBC affiliates using Harris encoders (60% of stations use Harris encoders). Certain video during NBC HD SNF (for instance, a certain HD switcher wipe effect going to/from replays) generated artifacts in the NBC HD feed to affiliates which were interpreted as noise by the Harris encoder. The encoder would briefly automatically switch in heavy noise filtering, causing the video to go soft for a few seconds. Prior to the 8/20 game NBC and Harris sent a Technical Bulletin advising NBC affiliates to reconfigure Harris encoders to change the noise filter from an automatic to a fixed setting. This eliminated the momentary soft video during SNF."

This was posted prior to the Colts-Giants game which was the first regular season game. IMHO it was OK for the first 10 games or so but has seemed to crop up the last few weeks. Looks like they may need to re-read their technical bulletin.

You sure?

WMC, Memphis, OTA, runs 2 subs. Be thankful you dont live in Memphis. Expect the next game to be just as bad.

Bitrate:

No, we are not sure. We all agree that football on NBC whether Notre Dame or the NFL has not been up to par. The question is why don't the sub-channels affect all of NBC's HD programming when it only seems to affect football. I have not seen the blurring on any NBC programming but football.

BTW agree the next game will be as bad.

I've seen blocking, face and clothes smearing, and a lack of depth from ALL HD programming. Not only on sports. The NFL is probably the best we get here.

I was talking to the engineer at WMC on the phone one afternoon when he turned the mux off and had all the bandwidth on the main feed. It was during Action Sports and the difference was amazing. He left if off for a minute or 2 and the blocking and things mentioned above went away. Once he turned it back on the HD PQ went to crap.

How? I mean, I know it is more demanding, but supposedly the guys in the trucks do a good job and what comes out is pristine 99% of the time. Do you mean even with a full 19Mbps bandwidth they can't keep up on live sports? Cause CBS appears to do just fine.

I will say, today's game is the best I've seen from NBC. Even the graphics almost never broke up, and they ALWAYS did before, as explained a few posts up. I did see some OOF/blurry stuff, even on the scoreboard, which is a little weird. But I actually see that far more on studio shows, presumably a cameraman's fault.

Oh: KARE, OTA, HD Tivo. And the subchannel is on, as usual. Just better from NBC today, more like their filmed shows. Hope they keep this up.

One reason is that though it's sent to every affiliate at the same time, all affiliates are not equal (including some having more sub-channels than others), as Ken pretty much already said.

WDIV in Detroit had some sort of problem showing local spots.

D* feed from the Philadelphia area, WCAU. The macroblocking is pretty bad for the 2 games I've watched today. Really annoying.

That's an odd setup your affiliate has there. Shouldn't the total bitrate top out in the 18's or 19's? You're not even getting over 16Mbps. Looks like they have some artificial cap on the overall bandwidth.

The Tube must be an unwatchable joke at 1Mbps and the weather channel not much better.

We get relatively decent PQ here on WKYC Cleveland because they've stat muxed WeatherPlus so it goes down to about 2Mbps during live action on the main HD channel.

The 3 channels are:
5.1: 14.77 mbps/386 kbps A/V = 15.15 mbps
5.2 (Tube): 1.37 mbps/192 kbps A/V = 1.56 mpbs
5.3 (W+): 1.07 mbps/192 kbps A/V = 1.26 mpbs

Those added together come to 17.97. The usually send around 450 - 750 kbps null packets. I'm guessing they are sending nearly 1 mbps of error correction bits.

Of course that's for NFL games. The send less for the main feed for other HD programming (including other sporting events) and add more to the subs and null. Why, I have no freakin idea. They usually take about 1 mbps from the main feed.

And yes, the Tube is truely a joke PQ wise. And so is Weather +. They each have these huge blocks on them all over the place, much bigger than 5.1. They are so bad they'd be better just sending out audio instead or video because the video is humorous. Kinda like the HD they send out.

It's been so bad, I've sen blocking on this station on SD commercials during SD programming!

Divisional Playoffs

Saturday, January 13
4:30 p.m. on CBS -- Indianapolis Colts (13-4) at Baltimore Ravens (13-3)

It actually doesn't even effect football when someone other than NBC is doing the game, like the NFL Network game carried by our local NBC affiliate. That game looked nearly perfect here with the same bitrate they always have and Weather+ running.