I forgot how much better CBS's HD looks

[bdraw]

After watching the bucs play at home on Fox for so long I forgot how much better CBS's HD broadcasts look. Sure, there is more macroblocking because of WTSP's weather channel, but aside from that, there is no contest.

[Kendo]

I hear you! Wasn’t always like that – in previous years I dreaded watching them on CBS because most games were a poor quality SD. The more HD I watch the more discerning I’ve become. Advertisers take note: It’s gotten to a point were I actually turn off a game I want to see because of picture quality. My viewing habits are based more and more on picture quality.

As far as football goes, I heard that CBS didn’t have the control room capacity to broadcast the amount of HD Fox offered up. Do you know if they have finally upgraded and corrected this? I’d still rather have Fox’ lower 720p than none at all.

[bdraw]

CBS has always done the best job, but like you've stated they've only recently upgraded their facilities to support more than 3 HD games a week. But it will still takes years for Fox to catch up to the number of games produced, as most of us here remember the early days when Fox was still "widescreen" when CBS was producing real HD. In fact, Fox was the last major network to go HD, which is why their network is now the most advanced. Too bad they can't figure out how to make their signal look like CBS's -- and no it doesn't have anything to do with 1080i vs 720p.

[Palmateer]

CBS looked good.

They also didn't stretch (Phony HD) the 4:3 commercials.

Too bad TBS hasn't figured that out.

[pilotbob]

I’d still rather have Fox’ lower 720p than none at all.

What do you mean "lower" 720p? Lower than what? You don't mean that you think 1081i is a higher quality format? Actually, 720p is the better of the two, espesially for video with alot of motion in it. 1080i should actually be called 540i if you want to compare it by number to 720p.

See this site for an explaination: http://www.alvyray.com/DigitalTV/Naming_Proposal.htm

BOb

[chupacabra]

Did anyone else notice that the picture was out of focus for about 1 -3 seconds right after returning from commercial breaks?

I know I wasn't imagining it.

[bdraw]

What do you mean "lower" 720p? Lower than what? You don't mean that you think 1081i is a higher quality format? Actually, 720p is the better of the two, espesially for video with alot of motion in it. 1080i should actually be called 540i if you want to compare it by number to 720p.


I disagree, but there is no way I'm going down the old 720p vs 1080i debate again. (it's so 1994)

But the bottom line is that the quality difference between Fox and CBS has nothing to do with the difference between 720p and 1080i.

Besides, I watch 1080p anyways.

[bdraw]

Did anyone else notice that the picture was out of focus for about 1 -3 seconds right after returning from commercial breaks?

I know I wasn't imagining it.

That's CBS encoder going crazy from the entire screen changing at once. I read on AVS once that there is a setting to resolve this, but I guess WTSP hasn't read the same post.

I started a post about this sometime ago, but I guess no one else noticed.
http://www.tampahdtv.com/tpahd-vb/showthread.php?t=26876

[Bschneider]

CBS vs NBC

This thread is about CBS.. the other one is NBC.

They both experience the same issue.. They both have a sub channel... blah blah blah.

[pilotbob]

Besides, I watch 1080p anyways.

Not broadcast TV you don't. ;)

As far as I know the only true 1080p sources would be HD-DVD, BlueRayDVD and perhaps Playstation 3.

1080p will never be broadcast, it takes up to much bandwith, even compressed.

BOb

[bdraw]

Not broadcast TV you don't. ;)

As far as I know the only true 1080p sources would be HD-DVD, BlueRayDVD and perhaps Playstation 3.

1080p will never be broadcast, it takes up to much bandwith, even compressed.


1080p TVs can only display one resolution, which is 1080p. All other signals have to be converted to 1080, so it takes the two 540 line fields and combines them into one frame to make it 1080p, in a technique known as weave. So even when I'm watching 720p or 1080i, it's converting it to 1080p.

But either way, I have Blu-ray also, so I can watch sourced 1080p as well. The interesting thing to note is that while 720p is usually 60 fps, 1080 (i or p) is usually 30 fps, but most HD DVD and Blu-ray movies are 24 frames per seconds -- just like the movie theater.

Macroblocking is much more apparent than frame rate, thats why Blu-ray and HD DVD movies still look much better than anything you'll see on TV. Cause even though they are usually only 24fps, their bit rate can be double what broadcast TV is and the codec they usually use is almost twice as efficient.

Even though I said I didn't want to get into 720p vs 1080i, I will point out one very obvious difference. Each frame of 720p is only .921 Megapixels while 1080i is 2 megapixels. So the real reason Fox, ESPN, ABC use it, is to save bandwidth. As you can see from ABC used to do Monday Night football (you do remember when they did the games in HD right?) even with the sub channel on 28, it didn't macro block like NBC's version does. This is the same reason why WEDU recently decided to covert all the programs from the PBS national feed from 1080i to 720p.