Finally Some Olympic Events In Hd!!

[uplinkguy]

I do let NBC off the hook a little bit, at the moment:

In their defense:
There was a lot of uncertainty about the readiness of the venues.

The summer olympics are spread out in many places.  I don't think there are enough production trucks and fly-away setups to cover the venues in the world at the moment.

The winter olympics are of a much smaller scale with much less events and venues.  It also gets better rating.

I think there is an agreement with their local affiliates to delay the HD coverage.  This allows the locals to air their commercials on the channel paying the bills and not siphoning off viewers.


Here is a picture of how some of the signals are getting back to us.  A buddy of mine is sitting in a crate 12 hours a day beaming back to NYC.

[StarvingForHDTV]

Even so, why can't they post a decent schedule?  Why can't they vary the loop timing so we can see the third sport of the day in prime time occasionally?  Why start with just the Sony commercial, and then add variety later? Etc. etc. etc.

I think the problem is bigger.  They need to hire someone who can do more with less.  It doesn't take a genius to figure this out.

JMHO

Starving

[StarvingForHDTV]

I finally caught something besides swimming and gymnastics on NBC HD.  Track and Field looked good, and it was refreshing to see a new sport.  Diving didn't fair too well with how it was covered in 1080i.  In the future the HD crews should try not to do rapid camera movements.  Perhaps zooming out would have worked better.  Hard to watch the diving with the techniques used to capture it.

[StarvingForHDTV]

Track and field looks good at 1080i in my opinion.  I was glad to see one event in addition to running.  Hopefully we will see more field and less track.  If you watch the track events, sometimes you can catch the field events in the background.  Not the best solution, but you have to make due with what NBC HD gives us....

[uplinkguy]

This was posted today from 'Broadcast Engineering' magazine's website:



2004 Summer Olympics disappoints in HD and on the Web
Aug 23, 2004 1:07 PM, Beyond The Headlines,

This year's summer Olympics are generating a mixed bag of opinion among industry analysts and U.S. viewers.

As the first true HDTV Olympics, critics have not been kind. NBC's HDTV feed is actually a day behind. And, in some cases, it's two years behind, as the network broadcasts HD footage from the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympic Games to fill time while the NTSC channel began showing this year's opening ceremony at 8 p.m.

The HD feed started with an approximate 30-minute delay from NBC's network NTSC telecast and then slowly lagged to a 24-hour delay. The coverage, running in eight-hour loops, was taped delayed, but HD viewers weren't told in advance it would be a day behind.

The Seattle Times said that even Comcast, the only cable outlet carrying HDTV in Seattle, was surprised, thinking the delays were to be an hour.

Even with the delays, NBC Universal has limited HD coverage to swimming, diving, gymnastics, track and field, and the medal rounds of soccer and basketball.

Although the network is promoting a 24-hour channel with 399 hours of HD programming, it's actually about 135 hours of original programming from six venues shown most days on an eight-hour loop.

The Olympic Games are being used to stimulate viewers to buy HDTV sets.

"The problem is, the sets are selling but (buyers aren't) necessarily getting HD," said video industry analyst Bruce Leichtman. "Service providers have to swoop in and use this as a precipitous moment to get HD in the home."

John Mancini told Wired that he expected the Olympics HD channel to spark high-definition sales at his Mid-America Satellite DIRECTV dealership in St. Louis. But as the Olympics were starting, he hadn't even seen a blip, despite constant promotion by the local NBC affiliate and late advertising from DIRECTV.

Mancini said after reviewing the sales for HD sets two days ago — they sell about 15 to 20 new subscriptions a day — his business is averaging one out of every 100 taking an HD feed.

No one, including NBC, is satisfied with the amount of programming or the way it's being produced, Wired reported. NBC spokeswoman Cameron Blanchard said the host committee's last-minute decision to provide high definition was the main factor.

"We would like to do much more but can't this time around," she explained, adding that NBC plans to provide the main feed without delay in high definition for the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy.

NBC is also streaming video of the events on the Internet — another first this year that's been approved by the International Olympic Committee. But despite its contractual hold on Olympic footage, //www.nbcolympics.com is offering only highlights of selected events after they have been broadcast on one of the network's TV channels.

By contrast, those online in the United Kingdom can watch live simulcast coverage from BBC TV's five video streams. Other European networks are also offering live, on-demand Internet video streaming of Olympic events to broadband viewers.

The catch is that the BBC and fellow members of the European Broadcasting Union are required by their Olympic broadcast contracts to block U.S. Internet users and others from outside their home counties.

Neither network will reveal how it is restricting Internet broadcasts within specific geographic boundaries. NBC spokeswoman Cameron Blanchard also declined to confirm media reports that NBC is encrypting its video feed and scanning Internet visitors to restrict access to those connecting through a U.S. service provider.

But experts are wondering whether the restrictions will work. Once the American Internet viewing public realizes that U.K. web surfers are watching better Olympic coverage than they are allowed to see after forking over their credit card, they will look for better ways to access those images. Bandwidth has gotten a lot cheaper over the years, so it is not out of the question to think that someone will set up proxy servers in Britain that would do this.

While there are various ways to bypass restrictions, experts said, the larger question is whether the Internet community really cares enough about the Olympics to set up an alternative network for live footage.

[GS kid]

I wasn't that happy with the HD camera work during gymnastics. The cameras were panned out way too much.  Really bugged me. They kinda looked small on the screen. They were in tight with the cameras on the SD feed. No problem there.:bang:

[StarvingForHDTV]

With those NBC videos they wanted me to register with them or something.  I didn't bother.  I doubt if they would cover what I want to see anyway.  

I'm surprised nobody mentioned the photos at NBColympics.com  Why would they do such small ones?  Like I want to squint at my screen to figure out what I'm supposed to be looking at.  I guess the network is running their computer displays at 640 X 480 or something.  And here I honestly thought at least I could see photos of the sports I am interested in.  Oh well...

This whole NBC Olympics has been a horrible disappointment for me.  I don't want to hear their excuses.

Anybody know of another website where I can get video or high resolution photos of badminton, table tennis, and all the other sports which were not covered?

Starving

[oz]

During fast motion events, such as diving, my picture looked a bit pixilated during the movement. Everything else looks fine, including the slow motion replays. Anyone else see this?

[StarvingForHDTV]

Yes, I saw that.  If the young women divers weren't so beautiful, I wouldn't have watched at all.  

720p would probably work much better for covering that sport in particular.  Although I have a feeling that it could be covered better in 1080i by zooming instead of panning.  You would think with the multiple cameras they had there, they could have figured out a better solution.

[uplinkguy]

To the camera operators and director in the truck, I'm sure everything looked great.  It usually is the compression of the transmission that brings down the quality and shows the pixilation.

[StarvingForHDTV]

Thats kind of what Mark Cuban was saying too.  The network should still cover it with compression in mind.  They could watch a compressed version to get an idea of what we are seeing on this continent.  Perhaps if they did that, they could adjust their technique to produce the best possible compressed HD image.

I had no idea there are so many lovely women pole vaulters.  What a great sport to watch!