U.S. Open will be telecast in wide-screen, high-resolution format

[Gregg Lengling]

High Definition Simulcast Will Once Again Include All Six Days of Coverage



NEW YORK, Aug. 27, 2003 -- CBS Sports and Thomson's RCA brand will team up to present CBS's entire coverage of the 2003 U.S. Open Tennis Championships in High Definition Television. This marks the second consecutive year CBS Sports' more than 40 hours of live broadcasts of the U.S. Open Tennis Championships -- Saturday, Aug. 30 through Sunday, September 7 -- will be simulcast in HDTV, the network announced today.

This also marks the fifth consecutive year that CBS has offered the U.S. Open in HDTV. In addition, this is the second year that the action on the Louis Armstrong Stadium's Court 2 will be added to the traditional coverage of Center Court in Arthur Ashe Stadium. Once again, a highlight of the broadcast will be the prime time women's final on Saturday evening, September 6. And for the first time this year, viewers of HD broadcasts also will be able to enjoy the action with the enhancement of Dolby Digital 5.1 channel surround sound.


CBS's more than 40 hours of U.S. Open coverage will be a single production so that viewers at home, whether watching in High or Standard Definition, will see the same camera angles and hear the same action. The coverage will be produced using the highest form of Digital Television (DTV), featuring 1,080 lines of resolution (or 2.0 million picture elements). This is the same format CBS presently uses for all its primetime, daytime and sports High Definition programming. To also further enhance the viewing experience, CBS will use the Boeing wireless HD camera for the first time to cover an HD event on the Network.

This fall, CBS will begin its fifth year of presenting the majority of its primetime lineup in high definition. In June 2001, CBS became the first to broadcast HD in Daytime when it commenced daily weekday HD broadcasts of television's leading daytime drama THE YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS. CBS is also the leader in HD sports broadcasts. For the last four years, CBS also has aired HD productions of the NCAA Men's Basketball Final Four and Championship Games, as well as The Masters(R) Golf tournament. CBS also broadcast the 2001 Super Bowl and all of the 2003 AFC Playoffs in HDTV. CBS broadcasts, on average, 25 hours per week of High Definition programming, more than any other broadcast network, and more original HD programming per week than any other network, broadcast or cable or satellite. One hundred and fifty-one of CBS's owned and affiliated stations are currently broadcasting in digital, covering approximately 91.5 percent of the nation and by the end of the year will reach 95 percent.


Source: CBS Sports

[Snard]

This is a serious question, not a flame... I haven't watched a tennis match yet in HDTV (although I will this afternoon), but I was wondering if the camera angles will take advantage of the wide aspect ratio. Tennis has always seemed to be a "vertical" game to me, at least the way I usually see it on TV. Are we just going to end up seeing more of the people in the stands?