Jim Hall, How about turning of Multicasting During the Final Four?

[shawn123]

Jim,

I was wondering what the possibility of turning of 41's multicast during the games Saturday and Monday is?  I would like to see the games without the digitization present on close-up fast moving action that has been there in your past broadcasts.  My guess is that no one with DTV in Milwaukee would miss the 41 broadcast during this high profile event.  Anyone agree?

Thanks and keep up the good work,

Shawn

[JimHall]

 

Originally posted by shawn123:
Jim,

I was wondering what the possibility of turning of 41's multicast during the games Saturday and Monday is?  I would like to see the games without the digitization present on close-up fast moving action that has been there in your past broadcasts.  My guess is that no one with DTV in Milwaukee would miss the 41 broadcast during this high profile event.  Anyone agree?

Thanks and keep up the good work,

Shawn

Shawn,

In reply to your request, we cannot turn the multicasting off as it is in use at all times.  I am in agreement with you that the last games had more motion artifacts than the previous games.  We believe this was due more to the way the network was attempting to mix NTSC 525 cameras and analog replays 4x3 stretched to 16x9 than it had to do with our use of our bandwidth.

That said, we are making adjustments to make the best use of all of our available bandwidth for these upcoming games.

[shawn123]

Thanks Jim.  It means a lot that you recognize the problem and are doing your best to improve the broadcast.  

[MesaV]

Sorry, Jim you and CBS get an 'F' for your broadcast of the games today.  This is NOT true HDTV.  Stop multicasting when your going to show something in HD.  The Wisconsin game the other week was better than what your trying to pass off today as HD.

Ray

[Matt Heebner]

I am sorry, but I have to totally disagree. The games look amazing, with very little to no pixalization on fast moving scenes. I do not advocate multi-casting, but both games look great today. I had a house full of people watching, and they were floored by the Indiana/Oklahoma game. I am watching the Maryland/Kansas game right now, and I can see the damn scuff marks on the floor, and the beads of sweat on the players faces.

Remember that the floor cameras are standard (not HD) and they are using them quite a bit for both games. The quality of those shots looks terrible compared to the upper HD cameras showing the action.

Matt

[MesaV]

Matt, I respect your opinion, if you have HDNet then I will not challenge you, but if you don't then you are missing a lot.

[This message has been edited by MesaV (edited 03-30-2002).]

[JimHall]

Ray;

When the Wisconsin game was on, we were multicasting and even had less data bandwidth for our main HD channel on 1.1. We ramped down our side channel and allocated additional data bandwidth to our 1.1 HD broadcast tonight.  By your own statement, our broadcast looked better two weeks ago than today.  

What changed?

I will agree with you that it was not a pure HD broadcast, however.  The change was CBS's mixing of cameras and replays.  They (CBS) just got better at integrating more up converted cameras into the telecast instead of the two high pure HD cameras that were used mostly for the early games.  

As Matt correctly stated above, CBS is mixing and matching HD cameras with non-HD cameras and combining the broadcasts with the same game action and announcers for both the analog and HDTV feed.  At best, there may have been three true HD cameras on the game.  The non-HD cameras were easily spotted throughout the night as well as replays.  

Additionally, they may have had one HD hand-held on the floor, but it appeared to have a lot of noise within the camera.  HDTV hates noise.  If a scene has low light, as you could see in audience, HDTV and digital signals have a difficult time with the processing the data when there is noise in the picture from the camera pick-up CCD's.  It actually is an overload and we get pixelizations.

So what you viewed on Saturday night was just more non-HD cameras within the telecast and noise processing pixelization.

As far as HD-Net is concerned, it should be easy to spot non-HD cameras to the trained eye.  Did you?  HD-Net via satellite has the ability to use a bandwidth of 30 mhz vs. our 6 mhz.  So the encoding equipment they have does not require the same compression technique as we do to fit it into our allotted spectrum.  That's all that the FCC per televsion channel allots us, 6 mhz.  I would suspect over time our encoding equipment and compression techniques will improve.  You have to remember this is first generation equipment for the industry.

With the current encoding equipment, just image what NASCAR would look like in an HDTV broadcast?

[Joseph S]

   

They (CBS) just got better at integrating more up converted cameras into the telecast

I can't agree with this at all.

The intermixed SD cameras were obvious the second they were used especially on switch. I've seen webcams that could produce better results than I got each time they did a head on view of the head coach.  They might as well have hired an artist to do a rendition of the coaches.

The colors of all the SD cameras were way off those of the HD cams and it  was blatantly obvious. Those instances where a ball was inbounded with one view and received with another view were the best examples of this. (especially from the baseline)

As soon as a player hit  midcourt their face and the entire court became blurred on the long side view HD cams.

All replays and all use of SD cams resulted in severe pixelation apparent to anyone watching.

The HD broadcast cams also suffered motion artifacts especially around the players themselves.

No, the HD plus simulcast was not nearly as atrocious as the three multicasts plus the "All Court and Cheaters" channel done on the opening Thursday. Those games were unwatchable and the broadcasts better resembled slow-motion video. However, today the audio dropouts and stutters were frequent and the sharpness is not nearly the quality of the NBC Dallas v. LA NBA game on SuperBowl Sunday.

There's more constructive criticism of the CBS broadcast over at AVS.
 http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=129364

and

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=119916&perpage=20&pagenumber  =6



[This message has been edited by Joseph S (edited 03-31-2002).]

[JimHall]

Joe;

Let me clarify my statement about CBS doing a better job and integrating the HD with SD.  I did not mean the video quality was better, just that they had the technical ability to take more shot selection between the cameras.  My guess is that the technical department wired up more SD cameras to allow the director more shot selection and thus had the ability to integrate or switch the SD cameras into the show.   I agree that the SD & HD mixing was over used.  The beauty of HD cameras for sports is that with increase in the field of view (16x9) you should be able to capture more action on the court or field with fewer cameras.

Also, I believe you have posted a number of times that our multi-cast games were in slow motion.  What is your set-up for DTV?  The games were in 480i SDTV and the slow motion you speak was not present on any viewing monitors, STB's, and other HDTV sets we had at our disposal.   The SDTV telecasts in the opening rounds was about the same quality of DirecTv/ EchoStar when they compress certain channels to fit more channels into the allotted space.

We are also aware of the audio dropouts and we are looking into whether or not they were caused by something in our plant or came via the feed from the network.




[This message has been edited by JimHall (edited 03-31-2002).]

[MesaV]

Thank you Jim, for explaining the constraints that your working under compared to HDNet.  Your openness about, and expertise in the field, will help us viewers better understand the processes involved in providing HD content to the consumer.
Yes, it was very easy to tell when the HD cameras were not being used.  In fact my guest were actually poking fun at it after awhile.
During breaks in the basketball game, we switch to HDNet to view some of the MLB All Star game from last year.
My grade of 'F' was on the harsh side, the HD content should get a 'B' and your interaction with us gets an 'A+'.
Again thank you,

Ray

[johnmark]

I have to add my two cents.  I have seen a lot of HD sports etc over the last year.  The games on Saturday were by far the worst broadcast I have ever seen.  I would be embarrased to show that as "HD" to someone considering buying a digital TV.  The NBC showing of NBA in HD was much better.  I do not know the technical reasons for the low quality.  The true HD parts were unfocused, with a great deal of pixelization and the color was washed out.  

I intend this as constructive critism.  Jim and the people at 58 should be commended for their support of HD and their openess with us.  I am sure this is the usual growing pains that we get with any new technology.

[Matt Heebner]

As I read some of these posts, I almost have to wonder if we saw the same broadcast at all?? I agree that any camera that was used on the floor (or atleast not the one used up high at half court), looked horrid. But the main half court camera doing most of the action looked great. Again, I will also say that I saw less pixalization with these games than I have seen yet to date with CBS sports (or NBC's OTA Olympic coverage).

Remember also with the bandwidth limitation on the OTA stations, the NBC/HDNet BB game SuperBowl Sunday was HDNet...the best HD crew in the industry (cause that's what they do!)...all NBC had to do was plug into their feed. I saw pixalization on the OTA  broadcast of that as well.

I am sure that CBS will work through these minor things, and that they will get better at presenting sports in all HD.

Matt

[Joseph S]

 

What is your set-up for DTV? The games were in 480i SDTV and the slow motion you speak was not present on any viewing monitors, STB's, and other HDTV sets we had at our disposal. The SDTV telecasts in the opening rounds was about the same quality of DirecTv/ EchoStar when they compress certain channels to fit more channels into the allotted space.

Jim:

I have a HiPix HDTV Tuner Card and the Monitor is a Toshiba 50H81 RPTV via component. (AudioAuthority VGA/Component Adapter)

Basically, in the multicast SD games whenever there was action toward or around the basket the video would resemble an overloaded webcast. To my eye, it appeared that several frames were missing and as a result and the players seem to move without fluidity like bad animation. When there were only 2 games it wasn't as bad, but I found the quality of the video to be overyly darkened and blurred/smudged compared to the analog broadcast. For general multicast, such as the case with PBS, I don't seem to have this issue. I'm guessing it was a combination of 1)the quality of the CBS SD production at each site, 2)not enough signal, 3) and/or not enough of a stable signal to maintain proper buffering. By  the last item I mean that my other HD stations don't budge but 1 or 2 points a minute, whereas CBS is going +/- 15 every minute.

I'm trying to obtain a Zenith SilverSensor antenna that has a more horizontal plane which is supposed to help multipath better than the roof antenna or my Radio Shack double bowtie. Thanks for working with we the nitpicking and seemingly ungrateful consumers to help  alleviate our concerns.  

[This message has been edited by Joseph S (edited 03-31-2002).]

[JimHall]

Joe;
With your HiPix card in your PC feeding your Toshiba set, I would assume that your are switching format output controls (software based) on the card between 1920 x 1080 interlace for our HD broadcasts and then to 720 x 480 interlace for our SDTV broadcasts.  If you do not, could this be the cause for the picture appearing to be in Slo-Motion as you have described?

Also, I think you have multi-path issues that probably show up as freeze frames or picture stutter. This is over-the-air interference that I am afraid you have to work out with antenna positioning.  Easy for me to say, and sometimes difficult for the viewer to workout.  We have all gotten use to cable.

I have to admit; your set-up is one we do not have at our disposal to review how it works in the real world.

Do you experience the same motion artifacts when viewing our programming on our PC monitor?

As far as whether we are doing 2, 3, or 4 games, the allotted data bandwidth to each telecast is fixed.

Our set-up for data bandwidth is as follows:

1st Week when in HDTV Mode
1.1 = 14.2 HDTV
1.2 =  5.0 SDTV

1st Week Multi-casts
1.1 = dark
1.2 = 4.5 SDTV
1.3 = 4.5 SDTV
1.4 = 4.5 SDTV
1.5 = 4.5 SDTV

This week
1.1 = 16.2 HDTV
1.2 =  3.0 SDTV
1.3 = dark
1.4 = off
1.5 = off

We currently are in a static state for data bandwidth allocation, but we are exploring our options for using a method of dynamic allocation scene dependent.

We will continue to utilize this same transmission scheme for Monday's Championship. As to what CBS plans for the telecast Monday, I can only hope that they see that SD & HD mixing is awkard.  We are passing our comments along with our viewers, as feedback for the network.

Enjoy the Championship!

[This message has been edited by JimHall (edited 03-31-2002).]

[mcq]

I agree with most of the previous posts... For whatever reason the broadcast was not as "crisp" as other HD sport broadcasts. As a matter of fact, as we switched between Maryland/Kansas and the re-broadcast of the All-Star game on HD-Net (tuned in just in time to see Ben Sheets enter the game) , my brother-in-law noticed that the HD-Net game was "crisper."

With that said, the NCAA that I have seen on HD has been considerably better than the non-HD NCAA games. And as Mr Hall stated, things will only get better.

TV 58 - Thanx for getting your stuff together, so that we may see this year's NCAA in HD. While it hurt deeply to watch the Badgers get torched by Maryland, the HD aspect of the game made things more bearable.



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