HD Olympic Games Opening Ceremony/Ongoing Coverage: What's Going On??? (1 Viewer)

[Lew Crippen]

It is a little hard to tell what is going on everywhere, but:

DirecTV has the NBC HD feed on channel 84. In my area our local NBC affiliate is showing the exacdt same thing on their HD channel. The regular SD channel is showing the events delayed for prime time and the NBC owned, cable stations (Bravo USA, CNBC, etc) are showing some of the events in more or less real time. But they don’t show anything that NBC considers important—you have wait until the evening to see that.

On HD, every day is a new (about) 4-hour loop of a few high-profile events from the day before. As already mentioned, the first day was a 30-minute delay of the opening ceremonies. This just looped for the next 24 hours and we got a new HD program of what had happened the day before.

So far it looks as though the HD loop consists of swimming and gymnastics—and some diving.

 

[Jacinto]

I am also terribly upset with the 24 hr. delay for the HD. During the women's gymnastics qualifying round last night, they even switched to footage of Shannon Miller working in the booth, and the announcer informed us that Shannon was there providing commentary for the HD feed, which I will have to watch again TOMORROW night if I want to hear what she has to say. What the hell is the point of delaying the HD? The excitement of the olympics is watching it unfold as it happens (even if tape-delayed), not watching the pretty picture of what you already know will happen.

 

[ThomasC]

I don't know about South Korea, but I'd imagine that they're on a similar level to Japan. If that's the case, then I believe both countries have more experience in HDTV broadcasting than the U.S. does.

 

[Brad_Harper]

You poor Americans always get screwed when it comes to Olympic coverage. I can't stand watching NBC's coverge. Way to many commercials and non existant coverage of events that don't have Americans in them. We Canadians are pretty lucky most times with our CBC coverage. Yeah we overly hype our athletes just like NBC but at least we get to watch the best of the best in most events and not just the ones Canadians are in.
I find the American coverage misses a lot of what is great about the Olympics in the first place. Perhaps one day after enough complaints they'll get the hint. At least NBC is offering some HD content. The CBC up here has some type of HD phobia. Way way behind on the HD offerings.

 

[Mike Slade]

For those of you whose local affiliates are showing the HD, are they putting local commercials into the breaks? Or are they just passing it as is? I was told by my local station that they have chosen not to pass the HD signal because of the difference in the SD and HD broadcasts. They said they were not setup to handle the differences that would occur in the break times during the SD and HD broadcasts.

Luckily, I also have Dish HD so I am getting to see the coverage on there. Although there isn't much to it except the pretty pictures.

Slightly off topic, during that loop of aerial footage, does anyone know what that one mansion looking place is that's on top of that mountain? Is that some well-known place or just someone's ridculously large house? That is one spectacular looking sight.

 

[Chuck Mullen]

My wife and I noticed that place! Imagine looking out your bedroom window and seeing that drop, which must be thousands of feet strait down, right outside!

 

[John_Lee]

It's a monastery.

 

[kumar]

NBC Coverage Sucks!

First of all, they need to understand that there are other countries that participate in olympics.
Second of all, they need to provide preferential coverage to the winners and not just the american swimmer who gets bronze medal, or anlayze why he / she is placed in the 7th track instead of 4th or 5th.

You Canadian's are lucky bums to watch a less biased coverage. But hey, we see it in HD.

 

[David Judah]

It looks like it's not live because of the limited coverage. Delaying it lets them take all of the HD programming that is spread out throughout the day and assemble it to be broadcast as a continuous program the next day.

That makes sense although I would have thought, considering HD has been available in the US for 6-7 years, that they'd be farther along in providing full coverage for special events like this.


Full article here

DJ

 

[Patrick Sun]

In Atlanta, the NBC affiliate is broadcasting on 11-1 and 11-2. 11-1 is pretty much SD with normal programming (Olympic and local/NBC shows), while 11-2 is the pre-packaged loop of HDTV Olympic coverage that's time-delayed and shown 24 hours/day it seems.

 

[Citizen87645]

I called my local affiliate and was told the HD feed would be up this evening. However I tuned in at the lunch hour and the HD loop was on. Not sure what the issue was. Ironically, now that I know I have it I'm not all that excited anymore. Maybe if there was HD women's beach volleyball

 

[Dan Rudolph]

In the HD gymnastics and swimming, I could see every little detail of athlete's bodies through their suits. THis is the first thing in HD I've wanted to see ssince getting an HDTV and I'm not disapointed.

 

[Citizen87645]

Yes, but the women in beach volleyball are mid-20s and higher as opposed to teenagers in gymnastics. I guess I just need to feel better about myself

 

[Al (alweho)]

I still can't get over even being able to read what their tattoos say.

 

[Dan Rudolph]

The woman I was admiring in gymnastics is 25.

 

[Andy_Hamric]

I recently got a cable box from my cable company to take advantage of the HD local channels. I find that whenever I'm watching the olympics on the HD NBC feed, I find that anything moving quickly across the screen pixelates quite badly. What is the cause of this?

I also find sound imbalances on NBC and dropouts, overall seems to be worse than other HD feeds like PBS. Is this my local affiliate, Cable Company, or what?

Thanks

 

[Dan:L]

Hey Andy,

It could be your HDTV. What type do you have: dlp, lcd, plasma, or lcos?
Some HDTVs have that problem. I'm not sure which type that has that problem, but that's probably it.



Daniel

 

[John Lloyd]

It is not a question of experience, they are using the exact same cameras to provide the feed. My point was that Japan is being given live coverage in HDTV.

 

[ThomasC]

Point taken.

 

[Micheal]

So do we.

We get the NBC HD feed as well as the CBC SD feed. The best of both worlds...

I watch the SD CBC feed during the Day and the NBC HD feed in the evening. Luckily (Except for some of the MAJOR events) they tend to show a lot of different events.

Looking forward to the World Cup of Hockey in HD on CBC this year...