Univeral HD Olympic Coverage

[picopir8]

Does anyone know if all of the olympic coverage on univeral HD will indeed be in HD?  I would not mind picking up the HD package for the next 2 weeks if its all HD but if only some of the programing is HD then its probably not worth it (since most things are available on other channels).

[Joseph S]

http://universalhd.com

Looks like only Hockey and an Ice Skating special at the end. They've also dumped Karen Sisco before we got a chance to watch a single episode. Monk only runs once a week.

The only real benefit of this station for me will be ND reruns if NBC trys the multicast again. Even tonight people were griping about the multicasting causing pixelation with the weather channel. That was on the opening ceremonies. It will probably get much worse in those markets once events start. In the last two winter olympics we had pixelation and some is expected on high speed events. On games 2-6 for ND we didn't have any as opposed to multicast cities who constantly griped and then praised UniversalHD's reruns of the same event. First winter olympics in HD was all HDNET coverage for NBC which was why I got my first HD tuner. Second was Salt Lake City which I didn't see much of. I'm interested in the Hockey, so I'll keep it, but if Karen Sisco doesn't return and they don't have a monk marathon I think I'll dump the HD package since I apparently can get Alias (late, late Thursday night marathons) on TNTHD with the Digital Access package. Of course I could pull it altogether if the Wiz didn't butcher Alias so many times from the end of Season 2 on and if they had been on starting in Season 1 like other ABC affiliates.

[Sparkman87]

Any Olympic programming on UHD is in HD.  Here is a breakdown of the HD available programming  from AVS Forums:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=642404

Thanks to Lindsey Fitz of NBC Sports Communications for providing the following comments, from NBC senior vice president of engineering for the Olympics, Dave Mazza.

- NBC will offer all venues available in HD from the host broadcaster, in native HDTV. Most of the indoor venues, and a large percentage of the outdoor venues will broadcast in HDTV.
HD Events:
Opening and Closing Ceremonies
Ice Hockey - Both Sites
Figure Skating
Short Track Speed Skating
Speed Skating
Ski Jumping
Aerials
Moguls

- Where the host broadcaster has elected to do SD coverage, mostly for difficulty in cabling issues and lack of availability of HD trucks in Europe, they will offer 16:9 SD coverage. NBC will upconvert the 16:9 SD to HD format.
SD Events:
Alpine Skiing
Nordic Skiing
Snowboarding
Bobsled
Luge
Curling
Biathlon

- All of the venue audio will originate in 5.1 surround. Predicting the camera direction on a live broadcast is difficult, so the rear channel will be used judicially, primarily for crowd ambiance. The goal is to give the viewer the feeling of sitting in the best seat, at each Olympic venue.

- All Torino based NBC studios, SNG trucks, ENG trucks, and ENG crews will be shooting in HD. The basic HD coverage (pool feed) provided to NBC by the host broadcaster is the same as will be seen in Japan, Korea, Australia and Canada. The International Broadcast Center (IBC) will be the largest HD production facility in the world, for the 17 days it's in operation.

- Anything shot in the last two years, in preparation for Torino, will be in true HDTV. Older archive footage will be upconverted with piller box.

- Most all of the Ice Hockey games will be simulcast on Universal HD.

- Advertisers are being given the option to deliver HD spots. If they deliver SD spots, they will be upconverted to piller box. This decision is up to each individual advertiser.

[StarvingForHDTV]

- Advertisers are being given the option to deliver HD spots. If they deliver SD spots, they will be upconverted to piller box. This decision is up to each individual advertiser.

I'm so happy they decided to end the torture.  Previous Olympics were very hard to watch.  Those same commercials over and over and over.....