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Comparison of HD Football Broadcasts

1099 Views 20 Replies 18 Participants Last post by videoholic, Oct 26, 2004

rmaestas

Discussion Starter · Oct 24, 2004

Currently there are three football HD games being broadcast. CBS is New England / New York at 1080i. Fox is Dallas / Green Bay at 720p. HDNet is Rice / Navy at 1080i.

For those of you that have the equipment and can access these stations how would you compare the HD broadcasts of these football games? For our household we have a set that displays 1080i native resolution. Here is how we rate these broadcasts

1. Rice / Navy on HDNet. This is the standard all HD football broadcasts should look like. Amazing PQ and Audio. We have always stated HDNet does it right. This is what true HD should always look like.

2. New England / New York on CBS

3. Green Bay / Dallas on FOX

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1 - 20 of 21 Posts

jdspencer

· #2 · Oct 24, 2004

I don't have access to Fox HD.

I would say that the other two games on HDNet and CBS are on par with each other when you consider that the NE/NYJ game is being played in a drizzle and the Rice/Navy game is in bright sunlight. Both look great to me.

My HDTV is also native 1080i. Using HTL-HD receiver on DirecTV.

Man E

· #3 · Oct 24, 2004

I flipped to the FOX game from CBS when I read this thread. There's no comparison on my setup (1080i). CBS is better by a very good margin. Especially on any wider shots (like wider than the interior line zooms). Closeups are about equal.

Ken H

· #4 · Oct 24, 2004

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...hreadid=445366

djdickerson

· #5 · Oct 25, 2004

CBS & HDNET are superior to the Fox HD broadcasts. Part of the time Fox is not using HD but their old digital widescreen process. I would rate them overall as follows:

1. HDNET & CBS

2. ESPN

3. FOX

4. ABC

dresf

· #6 · Oct 25, 2004

It's funny how our preceptions differ. I have a native 720p DWIN PJ, and the consensus of the people who watch football at my place are of the opinion:

1. ABC/ESPN (although the colors can be pretty hot sometimes, the PQ is outstanding

2. Fox

3. CBS, which isn't even close to 2nd place. Sometimes I attribute this to the particular venue and the time of day, the sun being out...

I am able to view abc, fox, and cbs OTA; abc, espnhd via cox cable. On the channels that I can see both OTA and cable I see no difference in PQ.

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chief17

· #7 · Oct 25, 2004

1. ABC/ESPN

2. Fox

3. CBS

4. HDNet

ssampath

· #8 · Oct 25, 2004

I have a rear projection Panasonic and a Panasonic Directv STB. On my

system nothing looks as good as anything on CBS - not even the local PBS

station - KQED.

1. CBS

2. HDNet

3. ABC/ESPN

4. Fox

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John Mason

· #9 · Oct 25, 2004

Quote:

Originally posted by dresf
It's funny how our preceptions differ. I have a native 720p DWIN PJ, and the consensus of the people who watch football at my place are of the opinion:

1. ABC/ESPN (although the colors can be pretty hot sometimes, the PQ is outstanding

2. Fox

3. CBS, which isn't even close to 2nd place. Sometimes I attribute this to the particular venue and the time of day, the sun being out...

I am able to view abc, fox, and cbs OTA; abc, espnhd via cox cable. On the channels that I can see both OTA and cable I see no difference in PQ.

I'd attribute the CBS results to the fact it's broadcasting at 1920X1080i, compared to ABC/ESPN/Fox broadcasts of 1280X720. And a fixed-pixel native 720p projector (only, not switchable as with CRT FPs) wouldn't be able to display picture details between 1280 and 1920 samples/lines/pixels. Actually, assuming CBS is broadcasting at 1080's maximum resolvable detail of about 1700 horizontal pixels, and the 720p sources at their limiting resolution of ~1138 samples/lines/pixels (see horizontal resolution table ), you'd be missing a big slice of broadcast detail from CBS, HDNet, etc. Those limiting resolutions both get further trimmed by station gear, and other signal processing such as decoding by set top boxes. Oversampling and downconversion can extend the limiting resolution. Test pattern comparisons of the two formats showed these results during mid-'90s approval testing. -- John

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R11

· #10 · Oct 26, 2004

Can't argue with your logic John

. It always makes me chuckle when people with lower resolution TV's (ie, 720p or EP sets), say 1080i broadcasts don't look better (or even as good). Why would they when the set they are being viewed on is limited to the lessor resolution? Throw in the down-conversion from 1080i and there's no way it would look better. Even so, it should still be at least pretty close for them. When someone says their CBS feed looks considerably lower in quality I have to wonder about the local affiliate's set up...

ron

MikeKlim

· #11 · Oct 26, 2004

I have a native 720p LCD and here's how I would rate them:

1) HDNet

2) ESPN

3) CBS

4) ABC

5) FOX

Even on my 720p, HDNet still looks superior though it broadcasts at 1080i.

Ultimately though, these threads always entertain me, because most of the time (on my TV anyway) it's hard to really tell a difference in quality between those shows broadcast in 720p vs. 1080i, not to mention that so many variables go into what makes a show look better than another, as the other poster alluded to.

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Karyk

· #12 · Oct 26, 2004

I can't comment on the specific games mentioned, but the Fox HD broadcast of the Seahawk/Phoenix game was one of the worst HD football games I've ever seen. In the past I've suspected inferior broadcasts were largely lighting related, but the lighting should have been good for that game.

In the past the quality of the Fox games has always been much better, but the best game so far was one of the CBS college games early in the season. I don't think any network necessarily has an advantage in this area. They all do good work and bad work.

Shark73

· #13 · Oct 26, 2004

Quote:

Originally posted by Karyk
I can't comment on the specific games mentioned, but the Fox HD broadcast of the Seahawk/Phoenix game was one of the worst HD football games I've ever seen.

Seattle/Arizona was not one of the HD games. It was Fox WS.

Karyk

· #14 · Oct 26, 2004

Quote:

Originally posted by Shark73
Seattle/Arizona was not one of the HD games. It was Fox WS.

Well, that would certainly explain it, but I could have swore they said in HD at the beginning of the game. Maybe I'm remembering the beginning of game before that.

scowl

· #15 · Oct 26, 2004

RIght before the game they listed three games (including the Seahawks game) that were about to be broadcast. The misleading "FOX HD" logo was right below the list making it seem like they were all going to be in HD. You have to be cynical about these things!

chris523

· #16 · Oct 26, 2004

I have a 720p DLP/Cablevision and I rate them as follows:

1) ABC/ESPN

2) CBS

.

.

.

.

.

.

10) FOX

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dishbacker

· #17 · Oct 26, 2004

Venue does play into it. Dallas Cowboys at home look terrible no matter the network (seen them on ABC, ESPN, CBS and FOX)... That being said, ABC MNF really looks great, but what little I've seen on HDNET (don't care much for Navy) really makes the network shine.

As stated above, not necessarily the TV Set, but its the production that counts, and HDNet wins hands down, with the ABC MNF and ESPN SNF well above the CBS and FOX.

videoholic

· #18 · Oct 26, 2004

Wow this scientifically amounts to about nothing.

ppctx

· #19 · Oct 26, 2004

videoholic, its empirical data.

Karyk

· #20 · Oct 26, 2004

Quote:

Originally posted by scowl
RIght before the game they listed three games (including the Seahawks game) that were about to be broadcast. The misleading "FOX HD" logo was right below the list making it seem like they were all going to be in HD. You have to be cynical about these things!

Being sober would probably help also.

1 - 20 of 21 Posts

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