NCAA on 58

[David Hendrickson]

I got home from work and thought I would turn on ch. 58 to see if they had a NCAA game on in HD. UConn vs Hampton - WOW. I have been watching a replay of a woman's Ivy League game on hdnet for quite some time, and wondering what an NCAA game would look like. There is no other way to watch sports. The only negative is the non-hd games are really going to look bad. And this with a $20 RS double bow tie antenna I thought I would try. Some serious antenna shopping will now commence. If I can get this good of a picture in the Town of Waukesha, with that antenna on top of my set - I can't imagine how much better it will be with a bigger antenna on my roof.
Thanks cbs 58!!

[Steve Mann]

Great to hear your enjoying the NCAA in HD! It really is unbelievable to watch. http://www.milwaukeehdtv.org/ubb/smile.gif

One note... A bigger and higher antenna will not get you any better picture. With DTV (Digital TV) you either have a picture or you don't. If you receive the channel, you're getting the best picture. I bigger or higher antenna will only help you receive stations farther away or possibly help with stations with weaker signals or are exhibiting drop outs. If any of these situations exist, you might want to try a different antenna. Otherwise, if you're receiving all the channels that are transmitting in the area, you should relax and enjoy. http://www.milwaukeehdtv.org/ubb/biggrin.gif

[Kevin Arnold]

Whats with the sound during the Wisconsin game. It seems to fade in and out. Anyone else notice this. PQ is great though.

[Greg Oman]

I noticed that as well, so during a break I switched to the CBS afilliate in Madison, and it was about the same, so maybe it was in their feed?

From what I've noticed, sound seems to start breaking up (actually changing modes from DD 5.1, then to ProLogic, then just stereo) just before I see picture imperfections. My Sony receiver seems to delay sound channel switching, so you hear a 1-2 second interruption of the sound. I suppose if I left the TV speakers on....

Greg O.

[sp44]

I was watching Duke vs ND on ch 1.1 and it cut out completely. I changed to 1.3 and it was on but not in 1080. I have the bars on the sides. Any thoughts?

[JimHall]

Originally posted by sp44:
I was watching Duke vs ND on ch 1.1 and it cut out completely. I changed to 1.3 and it was on but not in 1080. I have the bars on the sides. Any thoughts?

From CBS-58...We are setting up for the aftenoons multi-cast of the NCAA games. The games will be similar until the rest of the regional sites start playing. You will find games on 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 when the sites are playing. If they are not the channels may be black. 1.1 will be black today during the games.

The game you were watching/Duke & ND was not a true HD broadcast. While its was on our HD channel 1.1, was an upconverted format.

True HD games will be on Sunday.

The District will be in HD tonight on 1.1
CBS-58



[This message has been edited by JimHall (edited 03-16-2002).]

[Joseph S]

From CBS-58...We are setting up for the aftenoons multi-cast of the NCAA games. The games will be similar until the rest of the regional sites start playing. You will find games on 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 when the sites are playing. If they are not the channels may be black. 1.1 will be black today during the games.

The game you were watching/Duke & ND was not a true HD broadcast. While its was on our HD channel 1.1, was an upconverted format.


Please, do yourself a favor. If you decide to do this, drive into Milwaukee and see how atrocious the upconverted multicast looks. The Thursday games were in slow motion and pixelation was terrible. It is unwatchable.

[Tom Snyder]

I was popping back and forth yesterday, and I honestly couldn't see a difference between the multicast games and the main game being broadcast on 58 on DirecTV. That either says something good about the multicast, or something bad about DirecTV. http://www.milwaukeehdtv.org/ubb/wink.gif

[sp44]

I'm still not getting 1080 today, I have the black bars on 1.1. Is their a certain time it clicks into 1080?

[sp44]

Nevermind, I saw Tom's post.

[Greg Oman]

If I missed this somewhere else, sorry. Only selected games are in HD, and it's based on the arena having the equipment. I read on the avsforum which arenas had it. Washington DC was one, don't remember the other.

But the Badger game was great Friday night, looking forward to an encore later this afternoon!

Greg O.

[sp44]

This sucks, the Illinois/Creighton game is not in HD either.

[Matt Heebner]

I sure HOPE that the Badgers game is HD as I am having a few brothers-in-law over for it, As much as I hype Hd programming, it would be a damn shame not to have it in HD for this game!!

Matt

[MesaV]

To me, and maybe that's why I like HDNet, HD should be 1080i 16x9. Todays games so far have been 1080i 4x3, not what I would call HD. Any comments.

[Tom Snyder]

I missed the early game, but got home in time to see most of the UW/Maryland blow out in glorious 16:9 1080i...

Even now that that game is over, and they've gone to the Southern ILL/UGA game which is not in HD, I'm watching an SD game with graphics in the side bars to fill the 16:9 space.

[This message has been edited by Tom Snyder (edited 03-17-2002).]

[Pat]

MesaV, the HD broadcasts you're talking about are "upconverted" NTSC -- not even SD. (SD is better than NTSC but still 4:3. SD is what 10 shows most of the time on their 4 channels.) They are upconverted because there isn't enough HD remote equipment to go around. I believe they are also using some older non-HD equipment at the HD games. Once in a while you'll see oval basketballs and crappy resolution. On replays, mostly.

There was a time, however, during the game before the Wisconsin/Maryland game, from Washington, that was on but was not HD. I have no explanation other than perhaps CBS failed to switch over because it would screw-up stations which do not have HD yet.

The Lexington, KY site has the truck next weekend. So we should get the Duke/Indiana bracket, but not Illinois and that bracket from Madison.

[GS kid]

I guess this is a shout out to Jim Hall since he doesn't have an E-mail address to reach him. I noticed that Max Bickford was not in HD except the last 15 seconds of the show. I also noticed that Days Of Our Lives was not in HD today. Does channel 58 have to enter the HD shows into a computer so that it will turn on HD itself or is somebody who's supposed to turn it on by hand just asleep on the job? What the broadcasting industry should do is have the main direct feed send out a electronic code like they do now with program ratings for V-Chip enabled TVs that allow us to block out certain shows. The NEW code should tell the station's broadcasting equipment to automaticly switch over to HD when there's an HD program on and to switch back to SD when there isn't one. I notice the equipment seems to switch okay automaticly between them during commercial breaks. By using this code, there would be no need to program ahead of time when to trip over to HD.

I also wish they didn't have those sidebars during the NCAA HD feed whenever they drop to a SD feed. They're pretty, but they could cause screen burn-in. I too also noticed the replay stretching you talk about. It's like they are taking an analog camera's picture and doing a Horz. stretch to fill the screen. Thus the nasty looking replays.

---- GS kid


[This message has been edited by GS kid (edited 03-18-2002).]

[This message has been edited by GS kid (edited 03-18-2002).]

[MesaV]

********* and he replies to his email.

(Moderator: Please don't post Mr. Hall's e-mail per his request. He will visit the forum as possible and answer questions here. Thanks. Todd.)

[This message has been edited by Todd Wiedemann (edited 03-18-2002).]

[GS kid]

Well I got answer to my own question after talking to the station engineer. There is no code sent from the Sat. feed to tell the station to automaticly pop-over to HD. He thinks it would be a great idea if CBS would go that direction. It would make his job easier. At this point, they have to enter the HD times into a computer there to do the HD switch-over. Only problem with that is, when shows (like sports games) run long, the entered times are useless and somebody must pop in HD manually. Let's hope CBS and others use an HD pop-over code in the future!!

---- GS kid