A little insight into FOX HD philosophy

[Tom Snyder]

Pretty good article in the NY Times about Hidef offerings. The entire article is http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/11/arts/television/11EVER.html?todaysheadlines">HERE

But what's particulary relevant is a quote from Andrew Setos, Fox's president of engineering that gives us a glimpse of the future of HD Sports on Fox (AKA Packer Football), with his defense of their standard defintion, edge-enhanced, widescreen substitute.

He argues that "this less ambitious technology can generate more exciting sports broadcasts. 'Other networks producing in high def,' he said, 'have fewer cameras, virtually no special effects, very limited graphics. So you end up with very sharp images but the production is quite dated — let's call it 1960's television.'"

[Matt Heebner]

Wow, talk about clueless. Basically he is saying the average Joe Public would rather have a way lower resolution, frilly sports broadcast than a high definition, less graphic intensive one. YEAH RIGHT.
How 'bout this FOX....do half this year in your faux 480p frilly-style, and half in 1080i super detailed high def style and let the people decide. I mean come-on, where do they get their marketing info ?? I know which one will win out, and so does FOX. What....does the equipment cost too much? Is it too expensive to produce a standard and digital broadcast?
Ya know it's really pretty sad...I used to think that Rupert Murdoch would shake up things for all the major broadcast stations, force them to adapt to the modern age. Kinda ironic how things have come full circle.

Matt

[RickNeff]

So, he's saying that NBC's or HDNet's HD coverage of the Olympics was subpar to the non-HD content?  Was it "1960's television" in terms of production?

Of course, I think we all know the answer.

Just a very weak excuse for simply not spending the time and money to create HD content.  It's really a shame that Fox has a NFL contract to broadcast games (and that CBS lost the NFC broadcasts in the first place.)

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Richard Neff
Proud Toshiba 56x81 owner!

[Steve_Miller]

"very limited graphics" reads: Less Ads we can put up on the screen.

[Pat]

Unfortunately, he's right about the "production values" being reduced by cost.  Remember all the griping we heard when the Final Four had a mixture of HD and SD cameras?

I'm sure the prodcution equipment costs big bucks, but delaying the expenditure doesn't make it go away.  It would be especially bad if they're spending "small bucks" to do 480P -- they'll have to recover those costs before spending the big bucks later.

[borghe]

You guys are fighting a losing argument.. Do you really think Fox believes or disbelieves the reasons they are giving for their 480p broadcasts??? Absolutely not. They are just towing the company line on why they do 480p. As easy as it is to get all worked up over it, we can't do anything. Fox does what Fox does, and as many of us HD proponents that are out there, there are and always will be 10000x more viewers who could care less about HD and just want their American Idol and When Dumb TV Executives Attack.

[gparris]

 

Originally posted by borghe:
You guys are fighting a losing argument.. Do you really think Fox believes or disbelieves the reasons they are giving for their 480p broadcasts??? Absolutely not. They are just towing the company line on why they do 480p. As easy as it is to get all worked up over it, we can't do anything. Fox does what Fox does, and as many of us HD proponents that are out there, there are and always will be 10000x more viewers who could care less about HD and just want their American Idol and When Dumb TV Executives Attack.

As for the Fox Network, be afraid, be VERY AFRAID if you have DIRECTV and the merger does not go thru. Fox is owned by a Murdoch and he could care less about HD or anything that does not fill his bottom line fast enough. If the merger does not go thru this dude will try again to by DIRECTV and up the prices, dump HD and limit the programming choices. TWC will be in heaven.(Except for one thing-DISH Network). I mention this because Charlie Ergan, who runs DISH Network hates Murdoch so much he wanted DIRECTV. What a combo we'll have then: cable, OTA with low power and no analog, DIRECTV ( or whatever Murdoch will call it) and DISH Network struggling along or having higher rates and making it for the upper class to make it work. Channel 6 is pretty much at the mercy of Fox, unless it plans to change network affliations again like it has in the past.

[borghe]

I am not worried about the merger not happening. Charlie and Hughes both want this to happen so bad that they will pretty much offer as many concessions as necessary. Not to mention while the rural people really do believe they are DirecTV's number one subscriber, they're not. Heck, I think it's metro San Fran or LA alone accounts for 1.2 million of DirecTV's 10 million subscribers. I can understand rural America's fear of a monopoly, but I still say the new company is looking for better competition against cable, not to have their way with the small change of rural America. Would Rupert turn DirecTV into a 24 hour Celebrity Boxxxing system? Probably. Luckily it will most likely never come to that.

[gparris]

Glad you think that way. I know Charlie Ergan is tough and will most probably get his way. If there is one massive satellite system (still will be named DIRECTV) doing all the locals,all HD availables, then cable has a new competitor. There can be a new satellite system for the rurals, but you are right, they are "pocket change" to the larger,urban areas. Charlie isn't a nice guy and he has some problems, but I have read how he started and it is a tough business so I can sort of understand him. If I was allowed to, I would do what some of my neighbors do: BOTH dishes (DIRECTV & DISH) in their backyards to get all available HD. But now I await for the merger so MY backyard doesn't look like a cable company's backlot, if you know what I mean. The only problem I see in the future is the satellite ability to carry all the HD locals to compete with "possibly" scared cable consortium in the future. The carry one, carry all,is a problem for sat but should be the rule for cable. Maybe the FCC is going to let an HD rather than standard signal as these could come available be replaced as an incentive to get new sets. Cable could kill satellite, even with more sats in orbit with the merger, if HD is a must-carry for locals, as cable must do this to make DTV a reality. Powell needs to recite this in his head - DAILY!! TWC and all others would have to have free std interconnects and all HD locals be on cable as available. I do NOT see this NOT happening. FCC wants its analog back and this in future Federal budgets already. But this must-carry would apply to the sat compan(y). Maybe as they get new set boxes with the merger,maybe  a new compression algorithm will occur and allow the same cable must be doing.

[borghe]

New modulation and compression methods over the same delivery path arrive all the time. Hence how we can go from 300bps to 1.5Mbps+ all over the same copper phones wires. Look at dish, even though the amount is debatable, with 8PSK modulation they are gaining increased bandwidth, and for the longest time I have been saying how much MPEG-4 could decrease effective data sizes for similar picture quality. Not saying that's what's going to happen, but the effective bandwidth on satellite (or cable) today is relatively meaningless in regards to tomorrow's effective bandwidth.