[Quinton]

I don't watch movies, but lots of sports. 95% of all sports are shown in 480i. This will probably be the same for the next 3-5 years except for major events. After reading many posts, maybe a digital TV isn't the answer for non-HD sports. There are motion artifacts, jagged lines, and unnatural looking players and scoreboards that are blurry in the corner of the stretched screen. I don't think an external scanner or line doubler should have to be added to any TV. Is it possible that an analog set could actually show most non-high definition sports better? Comments....

 

[ross]

I have a Runco FPTV and can tell you unequivocally that the digital picture on fox or cbs for the nfl is superior on the digtital stations when compared to either satellite or to analog OTA. It's not even close. On a smaller set, I really wonder as my screen is 60x80, but on a big set, it's

just no contest.


Rgrds-Ross

 

[tpgaffney]

IMHO, I think you may be correct. DSS has a problem with sports; the necessary detail is lost in the compaction. OTA and cable sports broadcasts on many of the new TVs are messed up by SVM and line doubling. Maybe someone out there could recommend a set that did a good job with sports.

 

[Ken H]

The problem is that display quality has outstripped NTSC image quality. You know, the old GIGO. Before, you simply couldn't see it, now it sticks out like a sore thumb.


"I don't think an external scanner or line doubler should have to be added to any TV"

Actually, this is why they were invented, to make lesser quality images look better on better displays.


Add the fact that most, if not all, current TV's use some digital processing anyway and you can see the direction things are going. This is a good thing and if you set up a system properly, better results are obtainable. One of the big improvements I experienced was to go to antenna reception for my local analog TV stations (and the same antenna is perfect for my local DTV). The difference compared to cable or satellite local stations was amazing. With my digital TV's signal processing I get much better image quality.





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"Better living thru modern, expensive electronics devices"

tm

 

[dagman]

Quote:

Originally posted by Quinton: I don't watch movies, but lots of sports. 95% of all sports are shown in 480i. This will probably be the same for the next 3-5 years except for major events . . . . [snip] . . . . Is it possible that an analog set could actually show most non-high definition sports better? Comments....

Yes, it is definitely true. When you have a nice HDTV and you watch sports, you are overcome with this nagging feeling of how much better it would look if they broadcast in HDTV instead of crappy NTSC. You think about how you could see more of the field and with a sharper picture. During a commercial, you flip the channel to see the demo loop show how great it would look in HDTV. You then flip back to watch the blurry 480i 4:3 broadcast and spew out a few swear words directed at the network broadcasting the sporting event.


Thus, I highly recommend not watching 480i sporting events on an HDTV.

 

[woowoo]

good old NTSC

No compression

Does not look that bad


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Studio Broadcast Engineer

KET

 

[John Mason]

During January's Sony Open golf broadcast there were a lot of comments contrasting NTSC and HDTV images. Last year I often griped about the line-doubled 480i golf course images I saw on my 64-in. RPTV. Spotted some welcome changes this year, especially from NBC.


For NTSC, it seems to boil down to having just the right confluence of field cameras, the right vintage of mobile TV trailer, the presence of nearly cloudless sunlight, and perhaps an engineering director that cares about what's being sent out. I'd swear NBC has switched to bigger field cameras, because a few of their golf games this year have provided remarkably detailed, richly colored, low-edge-enhancement, live NTSC pictures. (My set's Genesis-microchip deinterlacer, fed a clean signal, does an excellent job--even when movement within images is involved. I watch everything via Time Warner analog/digital cable.) While watching NBC, I switched to a live Golf Channel broadcast and saw images that looked like they originated from consumer-grade 1980's portable cameras. Resolution was so low that fairways looked like dull-green carpeting. A while back broadcast engineer Lee Wood provided an excellent summary of camera technology and edge enhancement relating to all this in his 1/11/00 post within "CBS football field vertical 'smearing'" .


Looks like it's going to be a very slow transition into HDTV. Hopefully, all networks will retire poor-fidelity NSTC cameras and other equipment so the changeover will at least be bearable on larger-screen TVs. -- John




[This message has been edited by John Mason (edited 07-25-2001).]