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

[Steve Schaffer]

"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."

Our local affilliate is not putting any local commercials into the breaks, but is passing the HD broadcast in it's entirety. They have one subchannel that's been showing nothing but a test pattern for almost a year, but now suddenly has the SD coverage on it. On that subchannel and on their analog channel there's an intermittent bug stating the digital and HD coverage is sponsored by one of the local Native American casinos.

 

[Citizen87645]

Mine looks like they are trying to include local commercials by switching to the SD feed when they come on, but it's not pretty.

 

[Lew Crippen]

No. Our local NBC station is broadcasting exactly the same loop as can be seen on the nationally available HD broadcast on DirectTV channel 84.

The only commercial so far is the Sony one. But it does look as though there is provision for station breaks and local commercials—all of that time where you see the travelogue of Greece loop over and over.

 

[Mike Slade]

I figured most stations probably weren't putting commercials in. The engineer i talked to said he wanted to pass it as is but the general manager made the decision not to pass it without the commercials. And i don't think we have all that many people in my area that care about HD so there probably aren't many complaints if any.

 

[Jacinto]

The first day, my local HD broadcast only featured the Sony ad, but since then has added a bunch of local ads, particularly for their own HD news broadcast, etc.

 

[Andy_Hamric]

My problem with pixelation occurs on my Sony 47" HDTV monitor, 47WT510 I think is the model. Standard rear projector. NBC is particularly bad, every time the olympic rings logo flashes across between competitors, and every time the camera switches angles, I get pixelation, basically any time something is moving quickly.

Also have audio that doesn't sync well... I run analog audio from the cable box to the TV, and toslink from the box to the receiver. I'm getting different times on each audio setup and neither is quite in sync.

Thoughts?

 

[Citizen87645]

I'm getting the same. I THINK that's the nature of the 1080i signal. 720p is better for motion.

 

[Al (alweho)]

It all depends on the signal strength.

When KCET (the local PBS station) was only broadcasting one HD digital channel, the pixelation was minimal. When they started multi-casting suddenly all the water and other detailed motion shots on the HD channel began to pixelate.

My over the air KCBS HD signal is sharp and clear - the DirecTV HD version of this same feed (I understand it is compressed a bit) looks noticeably softer.

 

[WadeB]

I think the proper term would be bandwith. You are right though about multi-casting being a problem. Here in ATL they are multicasting, so part of the station's bandwith is being eaten up by the SD channel. For 1080i, you pretty much need max bandwith for good PQ, especially with high action content.

In the swimming events, esp. during the day, the colors are amazing but when the water starts getting splashed around, it becomes very pixelated.

The whole thing is really too bad, PQ problems, limited venues, the 24 hour delay. I hope this is all fixed by Winter 2006.


-WadeB

 

[Mike_J_Potter]

Here in baltimore I am getting a choppy picture and pixelation only during the underwater shots, but its barely noticeable and the shots still look awesome. I hope they get things better next time, or should I say are willing to shell out the cash for the needed equipment to have live feeds. I am sure that has allot to do with it.

 

[Lew Crippen]

So far I have not noticed breakups on the DirecTV feed (channel 84)—but I do think that it might be a bit compressed.

Then again, I get tired of the loop of yesterday’s events and switch to another channel.

 

[Jason Harbaugh]

I finally got HD hooked up via an indoor antenna and watched an hour or so of NBC's coverage. Looks beautiful but it does suck that the events are so old.

I do have one question, if there is such a delay as well as heavy editing to get it down to just ~4 hours of coverage, how does swearing make it into the broadcast? I was watching the women's gymnastics and after one of the US ladies performed a great balance beam routine but got a relatively low score I heard the commentator say off to the side "That score was bullshit wasn't it?" No biggie but I got a laugh out of it. Just figured that in this post Janet Jackson world :rolleyes, the networks would be very careful about that kind of stuff.

 

[Dan Rudolph]

The FCC has already ruled you can say shit so long as you don't mean it literally. The HD broadcast doesn't really even have advertisers to worry about.

 

[Jason Harbaugh]

Ahh ok, wasn't sure on that. Shit but no tit. Go figure.

I managed to find that spot again in the 'repeats' and this time it was cut out and they played a Sony commercial with Macy Gray.

 

[Dan Rudolph]

You've been able to say tit for years. Hell, Jimmy Carter said it on Leno.

 

[WadeB]

Was Jimmy having an adulterous thought?

Dan you can say "tit" but you can't show tit, ie Janet Jackson, which is what Jason was probably referring to.

Anyway, PQ was poor again last night in ATL. I'm sure now that it is the multicasting. Is anyone else's local affiliate doing this also?

-WadeB

 

[Bill Griffith]

Gotta say I am not impressed with the HD of these games.

1. Showing old events, not cool, as i don't like waiting a day to watch an event.

2. During several parts of the female Gymnastics the picture is highly "pixilated". Seems to be when things are high colors and moving fast. Like the womens high Bar routines. Didn't notice it on anything else, ever

And the biggest problem
3. If it is recorded and edited why do I have to sit through 5 minutes of watching nothing but an empty bench, or zooming in on people, or watching teams doing nothing, while they wait 5 minutes for the judges to judge something. The editing of this really sucks they could push in a bunch more footage if they would stop showing crap and wasting time, just keep showing events one after the other, no breaks. (But this editing problem isn't just on the HD, it happens on the regular channel albeit to a lesser degree.)

I'm glad I only pay $1 a month for this kind of crap.

Some of the Pictures are very nice though.

 

[Citizen87645]

I am curious if the HD commentating is happening on live events or if they are commentating on the tapes. For instance, Miller's reaction to Hamm's vault was quite subdued. If this is the case then it certainly takes away even more of the immediacy. And I feel sorry for the commentators to have to fake surprise for something they already saw or were aware of.

 

[Dan Rudolph]

I watched the HD feed after it han been repeated several times and hte announcer seemed to be talking to someone and forgot to switch his mike off. So they aren't editing these much.

 

[Jacinto]

The commentators are definitely doing it live. During the regular gymnastics coverage they cut to a camera showing Shannon Miller and her HD cohort doing their commentary at the exact same time. I agree that she was rather subdued in her reaction to Hamm's vault, but maybe it's just because she's not in-your-face-annoyingly-excitable about anything.