Bucs Preseason Games Available In High-Def

[Bschneider]

From the Tampa Tribune:

http://bucs.tbo.com/bucs/MGBAYINX5BE.html

Last year, WFLA, Channel 8, wasn't able to televise Bucs preseason games because of the Summer Olympics. That's not a problem this year and it plans to give viewers a bonus.
WFLA general manager Eric Land announced Thursday all four Bucs preseason games will be available in high-definition television. The games will be available only on Bright House Networks Channel 608 and over-the-air on Channel 7.

``We had a chance to do this last year but didn't until we reached an agreement with Bright House,'' Land said.

The games will air in 1080i, the same format WFLA uses on other HD programming.

``We've had to find more experienced people because of HD,'' said Bruce Copeland, producer and technical director for Bucs preseason telecasts. ``There are less people with this experience. We need people that know how to do this.''

The Bucs open the preseason schedule Aug. 12 at Tennessee (8 p.m.), followed by Jacksonville (Aug. 20, 7:30 p.m.), at Miami (Aug. 27, 7:30 p.m.) and Houston (Sept. 1, 7:30 p.m.)

Earlier, the NFL Network announced it would replay the Bucs' preseason games, using the feed from the home team for the first half and from the visiting team in the second half. Because of WFLA's HD announcement, the cable network will use WFLA's feed for the entire game.

``We feel the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the viewers deserve this,'' Land said.

[bdraw]

WOW!

I cannot believe what I just read!
This will certainly change my feelings about WFLA, they are really stepping up.

What's next?
Are they going to be the first local news team to go HD?

Thanks WFLA, for making it possible for me to see all the Buc's games in HD this season.

I wonder what they will do for the pre/post game show?

[bubblehd647]

Now that's cool. Here's hoping they do a good job with it.

[Dknow]

Tonight's the night! Let's see how local HD looks! I wonder if it will look better without network compression?

[teampozer]

I just found this extremely funny.... they just had a discussion and report on the HD broadcast and it WASN'T in HD. The sports guys acted as if Channel 8 just invented this technology recently. Nice.

[FTBoomerIII]

That was the absolutly worst broadcast I have seen to date. They couldn't keep it focused, the white balance on on one camera was way out. The only time the picture looked good was during the close-ups that were actually in focus.

Let's hope that the rest of the pre-season get better with some practice.

[LonghornXP]

That was the absolutly worst broadcast I have seen to date. They couldn't keep it focused, the white balance on on one camera was way out. The only time the picture looked good was during the close-ups that were actually in focus.

Let's hope that the rest of the pre-season get better with some practice.

I know what you mean and its very funny that the SportsCenter HDTV clips had way better picture quality than the live game. It seems that ESPN must have gotten a master copy or something because I believe that NBC multicasting had everything todo with the OTA broadcast last night or lack of for a better word. Because I recorded both the live game in HDTV and SportsCenter I was able to find the play which was replayed on the live feed and pretty much compare. I just couldn't believe how much worse the NBC HDTV was compared to ESPNs replay clips. After this day I will without a doubt say that multicasting just kills HDTV at least with sporting events. It seems that just basic fast movement got fuzzy while that same fast movement on the ESPN replay was just stunning to say the least.

I'm saying it now that I do like getting the games even in bad HDTV instead of analog and/or compressed digital but I still hate WFLA with all my heart. I also hate NBC because their local staff has to stop watching the games and doing their jobs. It seems that on several plays it took them until after the play and first down catch until the started to move the camera into view by which time they moved it back and played a replay of the live play that they didn't play. I'm wishing that UPN has the Bucs games right now if they did them in HDTV. I will say that everytime I see an NBC Bucs game I appreciate just how good Fox, CBS, ESPN and ABC are at what they do and I don't take this for granted anymore. Its nice being able to see your star wide receiver actually make that first down catch you know.

[FTBoomerIII]

Well said Longhorn. I only hope that the WFLA execs were watching and realize how bad it really was and do something about it.

[bubblehd647]

I give them a C+ on that game. From what I understand the camera crew was local and may never have done an HD game before. Hopefully they will learn how to use the new equipment.

But nothing will help with the macroblocking and pixilation until the NBC stations stop craving up their bandwidth so much.

[Bschneider]

Well said Longhorn. I only hope that the WFLA execs were watching and realize how bad it really was and do something about it.

Ditto but I hope the Glazer's boys were watching more than anything. I am not such which on of the boys is the HD fan, but hopefully he saw it and complained to WFLA.

I think it is Brian Glazer.

[mgd2win]

First let me ask you all this....how many of you have ever worked a live TV Sports Production and at what level ?

As someone that has been in the video trans biz via sat & fiber for 22 years at almost every tech level (FYI..if you watch locals via DirecTV, your welcome, I designed and built the original 45 city system) I have seen it all (well almost) a couple olympics, superbowls and more regular events than i would like to count.

Anyways my point is this...yes the production was far from a good production from many standpoints camera, graphics, replay etc but do you really think that it was ch 8 people doing the production? If you do I would like to meet the GM of any local TV station that spent 4 to 6 million to build an HD production truck -- ok I know of 2 -- but I can gurantee you they are not in the Tampa market.

Bottom line is they hired a production company to do the production work, low bidder.... (why do you think the pre game was not HD...saved on the $$$)...Someone mentioned it was a local crew...I have not confirmed yet who did the job but the only local crew with HD is F & F Production in St Pete.

Bottom line is the Ch 8 GM coughed up the $$$ to show the pre-season games in HD and you all slam them....poor HD is better than SD or Analog right ? By the way I am not a big fan of Ch 8 but you have to give them credit were credit is due....HD Prod is not cheap.

You want to bitch about something why not slam all the stations for thier poor master control and engineering ops that continue to be a major problem on all of the networks....Tonight the entire CBS NCIS HD feed had no audio....was there before and after but not on the show for 1 Hour...and they have commericials bragging about broadcasting in HD

If some of you were only in the FCC hearings I have to attend in DC on occasion you would have alot more insight, Tampa's issue are minor, but are issues none the less for the # 13 TV market in the US

[LonghornXP]

First let me ask you all this....how many of you have ever worked a live TV Sports Production and at what level ?

As someone that has been in the video trans biz via sat & fiber for 22 years at almost every tech level (FYI..if you watch locals via DirecTV, your welcome, I designed and built the original 45 city system) I have seen it all (well almost) a couple olympics, superbowls and more regular events than i would like to count.

Anyways my point is this...yes the production was far from a good production from many standpoints camera, graphics, replay etc but do you really think that it was ch 8 people doing the production? If you do I would like to meet the GM of any local TV station that spent 4 to 6 million to build an HD production truck -- ok I know of 2 -- but I can gurantee you they are not in the Tampa market.

Bottom line is they hired a production company to do the production work, low bidder.... (why do you think the pre game was not HD...saved on the $$$)...Someone mentioned it was a local crew...I have not confirmed yet who did the job but the only local crew with HD is F & F Production in St Pete.

Bottom line is the Ch 8 GM coughed up the $$$ to show the pre-season games in HD and you all slam them....poor HD is better than SD or Analog right ? By the way I am not a big fan of Ch 8 but you have to give them credit were credit is due....HD Prod is not cheap.

You want to bitch about something why not slam all the stations for thier poor master control and engineering ops that continue to be a major problem on all of the networks....Tonight the entire CBS NCIS HD feed had no audio....was there before and after but not on the show for 1 Hour...and they have commericials bragging about broadcasting in HD

If some of you were only in the FCC hearings I have to attend in DC on occasion you would have alot more insight, Tampa's issue are minor, but are issues none the less for the # 13 TV market in the US

I must point out that during the pregame show the NBC announcers showed the fans watching about their HD trucks and such and this is what they as in the local NBC station said.

Firstly they said that all the production for HDTV for this game was being done by local workers. They also make a point about Fox and CBS needing about 78-80 workers covering the broadcast while the announcer said they are doing it with only about 40 people while at the sametime saying they can do it with 40 people because they have 40 great local people. Again I don't doubt you but the fact is our local NBC station said all of this so either they did do everything local with local workers or they flatout lied.

Now I don't doubt how hard doing a live game in HD is nor do I doubt how much it costs. I will also say that even thought their HD broadcast wasn't as good as what it should be I have no problem accepting their HD instead of analog. I would have never said anything if it wasn't for the fact that they would never shutup about how great their HD was when it sucked compared to how they were touting it. I also got upset when they tried to make their local 40 worker crew appear to be much better than say Fox and CBS crews that have 70+ workers that do great jobs.

Again don't think I don't want them doing HDTV because I do but they don't go around indirectly bashing CBS and Fox when they didn't even come close to even touching the quality of their broadcasts. I knew this broadcast wasn't going to be great and I accepted that but I'll be darned if I have to listen to our local NBC who never cared about us customers (the whole BHN issue) touting like they are the best. I didn't mind them touting HDTV or the fact that they are doing our Bucs preseaosn games in HDTV but they way way way way way overdid it to the point that at least 10 people I talked with today who don't have HDTV came in and said to me why couldn't they just STFU about their HDTV penis contest. That was the exact words of one of my best friends who just doesn't say things like this. Even people without an HDTV set got very annoyed at this and just imagine how ticked off actually HD customers are about this.

The botton line is that they way overdid it without delivering. I just hope that a new HDTV owner doesn't think this broadcast is as good as HDTV gets. I had one friend who just got his HDTV set a week ago just for the Bucs and has never seen an NFL game in HDTV. Well he stopped by my place to talk to me about HDTV and was accusing me of hyping HDTV saying that NBC wasn't as sharp and clear as you said HDTV is. Now I always told him about my views of Fox and CBS. Well I was lucky to have my trusty HD DVR holding an NFL game from CBS and a Bucs game from Fox. I played them back and he was able to compare the NBC Bucs broadcast (I recorded that as well) to both the CBS and Fox HD games and the minute I turned on the Fox game his first words were boy did NBC suck. I turned on CBS and his first comment was damn is CBS good. Even a brandnew HDTV viewer could tell apart on his own NBC from Fox and Fox from CBS.

Well enough of my rant now.

[FTBoomerIII]

Absolutely agree with Longhorn (again)... Bottom line, they were "professionals" PAID to do a job and they did not perform to what their resume said they could do.

I agree, good for them for trying and yes, it did look better than SD, but come on, the least you can do is keep a camera on the ball and keep the camera focused. It's not brain surgery! I'm sure this is not the first time these guys have used camera equipment but that's how it appeared.

[Bschneider]

First let me ask you all this....how many of you have ever worked a live TV Sports Production and at what level ?....


Who cares who have worked in this field? The point of the matter is that THEY DO, and since THEY DO, they should have had a better product to deliver. Granted this IS their first game with this game but I would have thought that they would have at least worked with the equipment before at some other event. I mean, any professional in that field should have dealt with at least that one camera that had the white balance problem.

I have to agree with LonghornXP on this one for once too.. :D

[mgd2win]

I did not see all of the pre-game and I don't watch NBC local so I do not know how they were hyping the show and if they were only working with 40 people that is a huge problem to begin with for a normal football game.

They could have been all local people I don't know but I will tell you that mobile production companies only have very few people on company pay-roll usually at least 1 engineer maybe 2 people that go with the truck on every shoot. Everyone else - producers, directors, chyron, tape, camera even down to the cable pullers etc. are all freelance people. Now the cool thing is once you get on a crew say MNF or the A, B, C etc crew for FOX, CBS ESPN etc it is basically a full time gig and you will work with the same peeps over and over.

Next time I am EIC on a shoot in Tampa I will see about getting the board peeps in for a behind the scene look during dry run. I think it would give everyone a little different picture of what it takes for a live show..Believe it or not the 2 hardest sports for a live show is Golf the Motoracing

Now I am not saying they shouldn't have done a better job and they probable should have especially camera because they are basically the same even being HD units

[LonghornXP]

First let me ask you all this....how many of you have ever worked a live TV Sports Production and at what level ?....


Who cares who have worked in this field? The point of the matter is that THEY DO, and since THEY DO, they should have had a better product to deliver. Granted this IS their first game with this game but I would have thought that they would have at least worked with the equipment before at some other event. I mean, any professional in that field should have dealt with at least that one camera that had the white balance problem.

I have to agree with LonghornXP on this one for once too.. :D

Oh no hell just froze over didn't it. I now have a 125 degree fever and I'm freezing my behind off. Thank you very much bud. :o

[teampozer]

Just wanted to chime in as well since I had posted before the game. I too agree that the multicasting had to be one of the culprits and I totally agree with Longhorn, Schneider, and Boomer concerning production. Above all, the hype was what ticked me off the most. Get over it WFLA. I know I know... you're local and whoop dee doo... you "produced" an NFL game (oh wait, THE ONLY NFL preseason game) in HDTV... but your rah rah look at us, "oh you look so much better in HD Chris" attitude was TOO MUCH.

Just another reason PRESEASON is a joke. I for one can't wait for the REGULAR season. :lol:

[LonghornXP]

Just wanted to chime in as well since I had posted before the game. I too agree that the multicasting had to be one of the culprits and I totally agree with Longhorn, Schneider, and Boomer concerning production. Above all, the hype was what ticked me off the most. Get over it WFLA. I know I know... you're local and whoop dee doo... you "produced" an NFL game (oh wait, THE ONLY NFL preseason game) in HDTV... but your rah rah look at us, "oh you look so much better in HD Chris" attitude was TOO MUCH.

Just another reason PRESEASON is a joke. I for one can't wait for the REGULAR season. :lol:

I agree and for once in my life I never thought I'd ever say that a Fox Widescreen EDTV game looked better than an NBC HDTV game. In no way should that ever occur but I can't deny this now. How in the hell can an HDTV game look worse than an EDTV game is beyond me but than again NBC has the record for doing things as bad as you can. I swear if they could get cash awards for being the worse they would be worth millions more.

[FTBoomerIII]

Watching the game on ESPNHD tonite and WOW what a difference.

THAT IS HOW YOU COVER A FOOTBALL GAME IN HD!

Beautiful.

[djkilla]

The Bucs are playing this Saturday (Aug. 20). I think I already know the answer to this but will the game be in HD? Also, will it be in 5.1 sound? By the way, the game will be on NBC and *NOT* ESPNHD.

-D j K i l l a-

P.S. I just want to be sure. I'm thinking about having some friends over for some beer and good times.

[Bschneider]

The Bucs are playing this Saturday (Aug. 20). I think I already know the answer to this but will the game be in HD? ...

Did you not read the first post? Or better yet what is the title of this thread? Did you read that?

[djkilla]

The Bucs are playing this Saturday (Aug. 20). I think I already know the answer to this but will the game be in HD? ...

Did you not read the first post? Or better yet what is the title of this thread? Did you read that?

I just wanted to make sure. I had a friend tell me that there were some problems with the game last Friday but he didn't say if it was the HD video or something else. Supposedly, many callers called in to either the tv station or some radio station (he didn't elaborate) and complained, thus, my question.

-D j K i l l a-

[LonghornXP]

The Bucs are playing this Saturday (Aug. 20). I think I already know the answer to this but will the game be in HD? ...

Did you not read the first post? Or better yet what is the title of this thread? Did you read that?

I just wanted to make sure. I had a friend tell me that there were some problems with the game last Friday but he didn't say if it was the HD video or something else. Supposedly, many callers called in to either the tv station or some radio station (he didn't elaborate) and complained, thus, my question.

-D j K i l l a-

I think those problems are directly related to what this thread is talking about. Just so you know I think the problems that people called in about were the horrid picture quality NBC provided. Yes the game was in HDTV but the quality was very horrid. It was still better than the analog and digital satellite feeds but just badly executed. Just be warned if your bring friends over to entice them to buy an HDTV set don't have them over until they can see a Bucs game on Fox.

[Dknow]

It's funny that you say that because a guy that works for me has been trying to entice his wife to buy an HDTV and they both love the Bucs so I had them over last Friday night. Needless to say, she wasn't impressed until I switched over to Discovery HD. For all their hype, NBC really dropped the ball (no offense big Mike).

[mgd2win]

I have not been able to see the quality of the last 2 Bucs games in HD but I assume from the lack of griping and complaing on the board they were better.

I have found out that in fact F & F Production is in fact the company WFLA (not NBC) hired to do the pre-season games. Now onto WFLA bragging the people doing the shoot were local this is only partial true. Yes, they were using WFLA Producer, Director, Tech Director (news not sports experience big difference) but the rest of the crew - camera, tape etc are freelancers from the local area of the game and in this case Nashville.

A little more info - F & F is building 2 new HD trucks 1) one is in the process of having the wiring finished 2) construction will begin as soon as the other one is completed. These trucks are going to be used for Fox Sports and is part of 5 new trucks being built by F & F, NMT and NEP to support Fox NFL. These companies also will be building 6 new trucks with in the next year.

[LonghornXP]

I have not been able to see the quality of the last 2 Bucs games in HD but I assume from the lack of griping and complaing on the board they were better.

I have found out that in fact F & F Production is in fact the company WFLA (not NBC) hired to do the pre-season games. Now onto WFLA bragging the people doing the shoot were local this is only partial true. Yes, they were using WFLA Producer, Director, Tech Director (news not sports experience big difference) but the rest of the crew - camera, tape etc are freelancers from the local area of the game and in this case Nashville.

A little more info - F & F is building 2 new HD trucks 1) one is in the process of having the wiring finished 2) construction will begin as soon as the other one is completed. These trucks are going to be used for Fox Sports and is part of 5 new trucks being built by F & F, NMT and NEP to support Fox NFL. These companies also will be building 6 new trucks with in the next year.

Sorry to burst your bubble but all the Bucs games so far on NBC have been very bad. The problem is that we users can't say much more without saying the samething over and over again. Just keep in mind that NBC in the last game had the worst camera work all all the games before combined. I recalled at least 4 plays in the first half that there good old camera never followed the play but was just sitting on the QB for at least 3 seconds. One of these plays was on a running play for crying out load. Also the third game was the worst of them all because the image would flick and go in and out like crazy all game long. At least in the first two games it didn't do this nearly as much but was just image quality.

The botton line is that the third game alone was worse than the first two games combined and I would rather not find out if they can do worse for the final game.

[Bschneider]

I must agree with Longhorn on this once again.. (Is it freezing in here?)

Forget the HD production for a moment.. These camera people (male / female) need to lose their jobs or go back to training school. Perhaps they should use some high schoolers, they might do a better job. I mean, how can you not follow the F*ing ball when the QB throws it 30 yards down field? The F*ing camera stays with the QB the whole damn time!!

Rant off.

[LonghornXP]

I must agree with Longhorn on this once again.. (Is it freezing in here?)

Forget the HD production for a moment.. These camera people (male / female) need to lose their jobs or go back to training school. Perhaps they should use some high schoolers, they might do a better job. I mean, how can you not follow the F*ing ball when the QB throws it 30 yards down field? The F*ing camera stays with the QB the whole damn time!!

Rant off.

Oh crap you can't be Bschneider. Or maybe I'm not LonghornXP. Come on we can't both agree now can we. Its just so not natural like a cat getting along with a dog. People think that some dogs get along with cats but wait until the leave and see how well they get along.

Well enough of my joke and Bschneider I don't dislike you nor have I ever. I think your a good guy but we do and always will have a very small set of things we don't agree about but we agree on much more than we think that is for sure.

Now we surely won't agree if the Bucs will make the playoffs or not because the Gods can't even predict that can they. Now we will have to wait and see if the refs will try and play god because they have just gotten worse and worse with all the teams these last few years. They can't even get the call right with instant replay for crying out load. I'm not just talking about bad calls against the Bucs but I've seen bad calls in nearly everygame with nearly every team in the NFL. Also I'm not talking about just a bad call but more like a bbbbaaaaaaaadddddddd call that is just so obvious you know. For example a wide receiver 15 yards down the field could get kicked in the balls and shoved to the ground at the sametime and the refs would call offensive pass interference.

[Bschneider]

I didn't watch the Texans v Bucs on the "glorious" HD channel but I read that Chris Moyers appoligized on tv regarding the past telecasts. Did anyone see that and what was actually said?

[LonghornXP]

I didn't watch the Texans v Bucs on the "glorious" HD channel but I read that Chris Moyers appoligized on tv regarding the past telecasts. Did anyone see that and what was actually said?

Yes Chris did say he was sorry just for a very short amount of time. Also this last game was very very good compared to the last three. They had some HD issues for the first 5 minutes that forced them to kill the HD feed and switch to the SD feed. After that five minutes picture quality was about 100 times better than the last three games. Very little flicker type issues and cutouts. The only bad side was that the far away shots weren't very good like say a CBS game is. Pretty much most of the PQ issues they did have were from multicasting but overall it was very watchable and much better. Also camera work was just an amazing improvement and I don't remember seeing anything that they didn't keep up the camera with.

I'm sitting here and saying today right now that I have kudos to WFLA for this last game because they just did a great job fixing their errors and issues.

Compared to how the first three games were done I must give this broadcast an A- and that A is mainly for great effort. Its a very good start and I wonder what they did to fix things. Did they have more than 40 people.

[Bschneider]

Thanks for the summary LonghornXP.

You gotta wonder what happened to make them appologize and then go and improve the telecast. It would be interesting to know if someone from the production crew read any of the comments here and made those adjustments based on our comments.

This is the only placed that I haved read where we were commenting on the HD telecasts. There was nothing said in the two major newpapers that I could find.

Ohh well.. Can't wait till next year.. :?

[LonghornXP]

Thanks for the summary LonghornXP.

You gotta wonder what happened to make them appologize and then go and improve the telecast. It would be interesting to know if someone from the production crew read any of the comments here and made those adjustments based on our comments.

This is the only placed that I haved read where we were commenting on the HD telecasts. There was nothing said in the two major newpapers that I could find.

Ohh well.. Can't wait till next year.. :?

Well to put things simply I myself called an exec at NBC corporate and said who I was and who I wanted to speak with. Well about a week later I got the call and spoke with someone in charge who I can't name. I told this person the entire story of what was going on and this person said I would get a call in about one to two weeks. I did get this call at which time they just wanted to verify everything they were told by the local NBC station as being true. Lets just say that nearly everything the local NBC station told them was either misleading or just not true. Next thing I heard was they this person wanted to know the easiest way to get to the local WFLA station from TIA so I gave him directions.

I can't get into details but this person directly told me that he wanted to fly into Tampa and see the copy of the first 15 minutes of the first game to see what they did say. Trust me when I say that heads got rolled and NBC Corp got very upset about this. You must remember that this could hurt NBC Corp in the long run with their brand image, customer satisfaction and future sponsers with HDTV sports broadcasts. Also newspapers won't be printing this because nobody knows that an exec came into Tampa for anything besides a regular meeting and WFLA isn't going to tell the ST. Pete Times are they.

[FTBoomerIII]

DAMN!!! That's some real cloak & Dagger $hi%. Good job Longhorn.