New Standard for Sports

[Kevin Arnold]

This cinches it. With the CBS 1080i presentations over the last 2 weeks and today ABC SB 720p superb presentation this now sets the standard for football on TV. Whatever Fos'x argument about people not knowing the difference, they ARE going to have to get with the program next season and put some or all NFL games on in true HD. Preferably the Packers every week, or course. I won't tolerate the continuance of this "widescreen" malarky. I can only hope that with the new CBS announcement and now ESPN HD on Sunday nights that Fox will wake up a smell the coffee.

[Gregg Lengling]

For the most part this was an excellent broadcast.  I recorded the whole game with the HiDTV Pro card....and it's neat to go back and look at plays.....and zip them back and forth....like the Raiders Touchdown....the one with instant replay for refs.  That said.....they/both ABC and WISN need to get better....
WISN needs to fix whatever caused the freeze seconds before the first touchdown of the game.....(seems it was localized to WISN and wasn't ABC).  ABC needs to get the picture and sound in sync.  It's bad enough having to look at John Madden, but it's maddening (pun...yuk yuk) to have to watch his jowls move out of sync with what he's saying.

The ads for the Movies coming out were fantastic....love HD ads...and the 5.1 sound rocks.

Also the ad for ESPN-HD...notice that...full HD....and I think they want you to call cable/sat operators so they get the negotiations done before they launch the network.

Do you guys believe this....and this is just "experimental"!

[Joseph S]

The lip syncing was obvious. The SD cam integration was the worst I've ever seen on HD. The two glitches, 1 local and 1 national, just can't last longer than 5 seconds.

That said, I had very little pixelation throughout.  The HD cams finally came into focus in the second half, the Halftime show in HD was a nice touch, and the HD commercials came out of nowhere to be the star of the show. I prefer the progressive 720P to what I've seen on CBS due to the loss of pixelation. Hopefully the cameramen will improve their technique throughout all of next season to improve the clarity and they'll solve the lip sync issues. It was a nice start for ABC. Build on it for next year and ....

KEEP THE SWITCH ON FOR ALIAS!!!!!!!!

[sp44again]

I thought the camera work stunk. One of the worst shot games I've seen. The picture was great though. But everybody I had over thought the camera work was shoddy. I'm sure they will improve. Should of done one of the playoff games!

[mr_yeti]

So when does the letter-writing campaign begin for ESPN-HD?

[zeke]

I already sent my email to Directv:

Hi Steven,
 
High-definition programming is definitely a priority for DIRECTV. We are constantly in discussions with different programmers regarding new programming, however no decision have been made as of yet.
 
Best Regards,
Jade Valine
-----Original Message-----
From: Steven
Sent: Tuesday, January 28, 2003 10:47 AM
To: PRDept@directv.com
Subject: ESPN HD


Since Directv was the first to launch an HDTV channel back in 1998, I am assuming I do not need to worry about being able to see ESPN HD when it is launched on March 30, 2003.
 
HDTV was built for sports & it would be a travesty to not have ESPN HD in your channel lineup.  I would hate to have to go back to cable.

[Tom Snyder]

There were some who felt they didn't need to worry aboput Discovery HD on DirecTV, especially because of that fact that their demo reel (Channel 199 before HDNet) specifically promoed Discovery HD Theatre.

The channel launched several months ago, and it still isn't on DirecTV

[David Hendrickson]

Is it just me? But after enjoying college football in HD on cbs, and a bit on HDNET, I thought the ABC HD picture was a bit lacking. Not that it wasn't yards better than sd, but it just seemed to be a bit short of that  "oh my gosh, the picture is stunning" level. I just felt the saturday SEC games on CBS, and the HDNET broadcasts were a bit better. Or, maybe I'm just getting used to HD, and I'm getting a bit spoiled.

[Matt Heebner]

I have to agree with you Dave. After literally studying the AFC Championship game, then watching very critically the Superbowl, my thoughts are the same. The close-ups of the players were indeed incredible, but the long views were just not as crisp as the CBS games. Also the shots of the crowd wasn't even close to CBS's games....CBS's shots you could make out faces. ABC's were just a hair blurrier, less resolution maybe?

Now this could all be the fact that my TV does not support the 720p format and has to convert to 1080i (or is it 540p? I cant remember). Maybe during the conversion something is lost. Any native rate 720p people out there that could chime in ? (plasma people?)

Dont take this as criticism because it most definitely is NOT! I would take what I saw on Sunday for any game any day any sport. I really enjoyed the Superbowl in HD, and I had HUGE WOW! factor from the 30 or so people who were over (which was almost worth more than the game itself.) But in my opinion, CBS had the better looking game.

Matt