Note to all Milwaukee Broadcasters: We're still waiting

[Joseph S]

:bang:
There's no money to be made in HD. There's no money to pay for the equipment. There's no reason to pass through the feed. There's no viewer for HD. There's no cheap set for HD. There's no way we can meet the 2002 deadline. There's no way we can meet the 2006 deadline. There's no way...

Sinclair, Fox, and the rest of the Milwaukee broadcasters will ever see the light because they aren't even looking.

''We had conversations on the idea back in May and finally got it together in July, working in earnest to hit a Sept. 15 target date,'' said Kevin Casey, senior vice president of Comcast's New England region. ''The folks at NESN saw it as the future of sports on TV. At Comcast, we feel movies and sports bring out the best in high definition.''

We Wish
Link may be gone in a day...

NESN, Comcast are about to redefine Sox coverage
By Bill Griffith, Globe Staff, 9/14/2003
Television is all about ''WOWs.'' Those are the unexpected plays or events that jump through the screen and grab the viewer, prompting a ''Did you see that?'' reaction.
ADVERTISEMENT
 

One of those moments is coming tomorrow night when New England Sports Network and Comcast begin broadcasting Red Sox home games in high definition.

In addition, work is under way to upgrade wiring at the FleetCenter, and NESN plans to air all Bruins home games in the HD format as well.

''There is nothing else we could have done that would have the impact this will,'' said Sean McGrail, president of NESN. ''People truly will see the Red Sox and Bruins in a way they never have before. It is a major elevation of the entertainment experience.''

Comcast took over the AT&T cable franchise last winter and has already established itself as being aggressive in rolling out new products and upgrading customer service. Cable's big competition is from satellite service providers, and Comcast recognized the value in a strategic alliance with the Red Sox, especially at this time of year, when DirecTV is wooing subscribers with its ''NFL Season Ticket'' package.

''I'd been thinking about this for a long time,'' said McGrail. ''There's been a lot of chicken-and-egg talk in the TV industry in referring to which would come first, the increase in HD TV sales or the programming that would spur those sales. Someone had to make a major jump, and we've done that.''

Since July, Fenway Park very quietly has been rewired with fiber-optic cable, one production truck was refurbished (at a cost of $4 million) and another is being built, a fiber line was run to NESN's Needham relaying facility, and all the technical equipment was retrofitted.

In addition, ''vacationing'' production staffers actually were being retrained in HD production and digital editing, and games were being simulcast at the ballpark on side-by-side (standard and HD) cameras.

''We have a unique franchise, and this is a gesture to our viewing public,'' said McGrail, who emphasized that the money was spent without any costs being passed on to subscribers.

''There's no question that the tremendous expense of making the change is keeping other broadcasters from doing it, but actually it was the difficulty in obtaining the new HD equipment -- receivers, recorders, up-converters -- that was the hardest part of the whole changeover. We knew the price of all this would drop significantly in the next five years and we could have gotten away with waiting, but we decided to swing for the fences. We're going to do all our games in HD, where other carriers are doing far fewer.''

McGrail said NESN ''will start doing road games as soon as possible from those arenas that have fiber-optic wiring and where mobile HD production trucks are available.''

This will put NESN in the vanguard of a small group of regional networks producing their own high-definition signals, including MSG Network in New York and Comcast Net in Philadelphia.

Red Sox chairman Tom Werner said, ''You can't overstate how thrilled we are both at being on HD and having this partnership with Comcast.''

Comcast is the team's biggest cable carrier, but Werner indicated that others, such as Cox, Charter, Adelphia, and Time Warner, have indicated great interest in carrying NESN's HD signal by the end of the year.

NESN HD will be available on Channel 882 on Comcast's High Definition digital tier (the analog version of the NESN broadcast remains on its present spot on the cable dial). The addition of NESN gives Comcast an HD lineup in Boston of Channel 2, Channel 5, Channel 7, ESPN HD, HBO HD, Showtime, and NESN. In addition, starting tomorrow, a pair of ''iN HD'' channels will join the tier. These are being produced by the In Demand pay-per-view people (except these aren't at extra charge) and will offer a wide variety of sports and movies.

The only extra charge for the HD channels for Comcast digital cable subscribers is the $2 monthly upgrade to an HD box ($7.25 per month, compared with $5.25 for a digital box). Comcast, with some 20,000 HD subscribers now, expects to be adding 1,000 per week through the end of the year.

Meanwhile, Comcast continues negotiating to add both Fox (Channel 25) and CBS (Channel 4) to the HD package. CBS, with 11 remaining Patriots regular-season games this season, would be a big addition, although this year the network is doing only one feature NFL game per week in HD (today's Patriots-Eagles is in HD for fans who can get HD over the air or on DirecTV). At least three Patriots games will be seen in Boston in HD: the two ESPN night games (vs. Cowboys Nov. 16 and at Jets Dec. 20) and the ABC ''Monday Night Football'' game in Denver Nov. 3.

''We had conversations on the idea back in May and finally got it together in July, working in earnest to hit a Sept. 15 target date,'' said Kevin Casey, senior vice president of Comcast's New England region. ''The folks at NESN saw it as the future of sports on TV. At Comcast, we feel movies and sports bring out the best in high definition.''

Casey can see the HD TV movement finally gaining serious momentum. ''We've spent millions upgrading our network, and now it looks as though we're finishing just in time,'' he said. ''We're starting to see affordable HD-ready TV sets, and the projections are that this will be an HD TV Christmas in the electronic stores.''

The technocrats tell us that an HD picture is six times sharper than today's analog pictures, the color resolution is twice as good, and the accompanying audio feed is CD-quality surround sound.

Those who see Fenway in HD tomorrow evening likely will say the park never looked so good . . . and WOW.

[StarvingForHDTV]

I'm not sure if I understand the meaning of your post.  Do you want the Brewers in HD?  Nobody watches them in SD or at the brand new stadium (total waste of money IMHO), I doubt if anyone would watch them in HD either.

Starving :confused:

[jlegge]

HEY! I watch the Brewers. Am actually excited about upcoming prospects! Anyone who follows the Brewers is excited as well....

[Joseph S]

I'm not sure if I understand the meaning of your post.

In 4.5 months they took an idea to a reality. They did it for free, yet will still profit for many years to come from this move. Whereas we can't even get a passthru feeds on FCC mandated stations that currently run on two double AAs.

Sinclair, Fox, and CBS58 are doing nothing but spew excuses now. They don't care if the HD market exists or where it will be in 3, 5 or 10 years. All they care is that they get paid for the latest "Good Feet" or "Ronco" ad on their HD, reg, or array of multicast channels. Their heads are in the sand and instead of giving us quality service and original programming they refuse to do anything but 5 steps below the bare minimum.

The same goes for TWC, where's the fiber optic feed for the CBS stations? I didn't know the blackout rule in the NFL applied to every other 15 secs and not whether or not the game was sold out. Where's ESPN HD? HDNET? INHD? INHD2?

The only initiative I've seen lately is for WISN not to put the hideous Green and Yellow "brand" on all Sunday HD broadcasts.

[StarvingForHDTV]

Originally posted by jlegge
HEY! I watch the Brewers. Am actually excited about upcoming prospects! Anyone who follows the Brewers is excited as well....

All right, at least there is one fan.  I certainly hope they can get something going for you one of these years.  Maybe that would help fill the stadium.

Starving

[StarvingForHDTV]

Originally posted by Joseph S
In 4.5 months they took an idea to a reality. They did it for free, yet will still profit for many years to come from this move. Whereas we can't even get a passthru feeds on FCC mandated stations that currently run on two double AAs.

Sinclair, Fox, and CBS58 are doing nothing but spew excuses now. They don't care if the HD market exists or where it will be in 3, 5 or 10 years. All they care is that they get paid for the latest "Good Feet" or "Ronco" ad on their HD, reg, or array of multicast channels. Their heads are in the sand and instead of giving us quality service and original programming they refuse to do anything but 5 steps below the bare minimum.

The same goes for TWC, where's the fiber optic feed for the CBS stations? I didn't know the blackout rule in the NFL applied to every other 15 secs and not whether or not the game was sold out. Where's ESPN HD? HDNET? INHD? INHD2?

The only initiative I've seen lately is for WISN not to put the hideous Green and Yellow "brand" on all Sunday HD broadcasts.

Have you ever considered moving away from Milwaukee?  Maybe that's the best solution.

Good luck,

Starving

[Joel S]

Originally posted by jlegge
HEY! I watch the Brewers. Am actually excited about upcoming prospects! Anyone who follows the Brewers is excited as well....

Count me in as well.  I would love to see the Brewers in HD.  I might not feel as crazy for watching the Brewers all the time if they were at least in HD.

Does anyone know if the past announement by Fox Sports Net about doing HD for some cities (including Milwaukee) has anything to do with the INHD2 channel?  It seems that local HD sports would be broadcast on this INHD2 channel since this channel is meant to be flexible on a local level.  This is assuming TWC prvovides this channel anytime soon.

[Gregg Lengling]

Brewers games in HD are wonderful.  I watched a number of them last year including a couple home games on HDNET.

[Joseph S]

Have you ever considered moving away from Milwaukee?  Maybe that's the best solution.

Considering Sinclair and Fox have a pretty big stranglehold on affiliates everywhere, that wouldn't solve much.