CBS HDTV for College football

[Gregg Lengling]

Next Saturday will be a landmark day in the history of HDTV: CBS Sports will transmit and produce broadcasts of both U.S. Open tennis and a college football game between the University of Miami and the University of Florida in high definition.

Last year, CBS gave the U.S. Open three days of HD coverage. This year, it's six days, because Core Digital's HD/SD truck is allowing the network to do a unified production instead of the dual production of last year.

"Last year, we had two separate trucks and two separate announce teams," says Ken Aagaard, CBS Sports vice president of technology. "The big difference is that it's all together: one crew, one announce team, one set of cameras and one set of tape machines."

With cameras and tape machines capable of dual-format operation, he says, the missing ingredient last year was a production switcher. But Sony introduced a production switcher that can switch the HD cameras and tape machines and output two feeds: one SD and the other 1080i.

"We need to do this [unified production] for a whole lot of reasons, besides financial," he says. The cost saving is roughly 50%, which has allowed the network to double the amount of HD coverage while keeping costs flat.

Graphics has always been a tricky area in HD/SD production, but graphics on both Pinnacle Deko and SGI platforms will be handled by a single operator.

In Florida, the HD production will be handled by a second truck that will do "shadow cuts" of the SD production. The technical director in the truck will listen to the producer and director and make switches that parallel the SD production. But the remainder of college games produced in HD this season will use the Core Digital truck being used at the U.S. Open.

The cost of HD productions has been a sticking point with the transition to digital, but, for CBS, there is a return on investment. "HDTV puts us in a strong strategic position," says Aagaard. "As we go through this transition, we have a dual revenue stream."


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Gregg R. Lengling
RCA P61310 61" 16x9
glengling@ameritech.net

[Matt Heebner]

As I stated in another post..I am having a bunch of guys over to watch this incredible event. I know for a fact that HD football will push some of these guys to getting a HDTV!
CBS ROCKS!!!

Matt

[Tom Snyder]

Unless 58 is also trying to broadcast 41 and 63 while they're also showing a high-motion sporting event on 58-1.

I was getting pretty frustrated the other night trying to watch CSI, and getting the same old drop outs and lock-ups I had been getting before I got my new antenna. That's when I noticed 41 and 63 trying to come down the same pipe on 1-2 and 1-3.

Have they been doing that for very long?

[TSBruce]

I started watching in April, and I as far as I know they have been multicasting since then.  At the data rates they broadcast the HD stream you may see detail loss in more demanding programming. Freeze ups or picture loss still sound like a reception issue.  If not at your home then satelite reception at 58.

[tenth_t2]

Yes, last night was not one of their better nights either.  King of Queens was SD, and I had numerous freezes and minor breakups last night-- normally I have not.

So if they were fiddlin' last night, hopefully they undo that for this game.

BTW, thanks for the update Gregg-- time to get some spectators for this one....

Greg O.

[Tom Snyder]

Thought I'd bump this up to the top to remind everyone about the game this afternoon!