HDTV False Advertising by CBS

[Voytek Wilczak]

How can CBS advertise the telecast of the PGA as being "in HD", when approximately half the shots in the telecast are from SD (standard definition) cameras?

These shots appear blurry on my 50" plasma, clearly inferior to the HD camera shots.

Come on, CBS. The consumer HD camcorder price has fallen from $5,000 to UNDER $1,000 in the last few years.

I have to believe that the hand-held professional HD camera prices have also gotten significantly cheaper.

Get all the shots with HD cameras, already.

Cheapskates.

[Greg Beaulieu]

I noticed that too. It's like there is a shortage of HD cameras this week. Maybe they took them all to the Bears game last night.

Of course, it's still better than watching baseball on Fox -- it isn't HD at all, just widescreen, unlike their football telecasts.

[ChasLawler]

looks pretty good on my 27" tube TV.

[rjsimper]

Progress takes time - HDTV or not, I'm still watching.  

[Voytek Wilczak]

Progress takes time - HDTV or not, I'm still watching.  

Today it looks like 80% of shots are in SD.

I'm only watching because of Tiger - if he weren't in it, I would turn off this poor excuse for an HD coverage.

[Dan_Callahan]

Fortunately, the trophy presentation was shot in HD. What a relief—it would have been a shame if the PGA officials looked blurry, although an SD camera might have been more forgiving on their jowels and multiple chins.

[Alfie]

See ! Bloody technology AGAIN ! It's nothing but trouble  

My 21" hickory tube seemed to work fine, although that guy in the red shirt definitely stood out from all the other golfers ?

Alfie.

[John_Conley]

Today it looks like 80% of shots are in SD.

I'm only watching because of Tiger - if he weren't in it, I would turn off this poor excuse for an HD coverage.

Voytek, your signature hits on one of my peeves.  On what kind of golf course do you expect a three-hour round to be the norm?

[Tim_Cronin]

All the tower cameras were HD and cabled to the mobile unit. The RF (handheld) camera were analog widescreen SD, because there's an extra delay for digital RF which cannot yet be compensated for. (The blimp was HD via digital RF, but I can't recall seeing live shots of the ball in play, just beauty and setup shots, and a skilled director can switch in and out without the delay being evident.)
NBC had the same setup at Winged Foot.
At The Masters, the handhelds are also cabled, and can be HD, because Augusta National had CBS bury the cables that would otherwise run alongside the fairways years ago. The cameraman goes to a connect point and goes to the middle of the fairway.

[Voytek Wilczak]

Today it looks like 80% of shots are in SD.

I'm only watching because of Tiger - if he weren't in it, I would turn off this poor excuse for an HD coverage.

Voytek, your signature hits on one of my peeves.  On what kind of golf course do you expect a three-hour round to be the norm?

John - when I played in Scotland, I really learned the concept of speed golf. These people walk briskly, don't linger at address, putt quickly and move on.

I found it very cool. Hence - a 3-hour round. Great workout.

[John_Conley]

Tell a Scot to join me this weekend and I'll treat them to a nice 4 1/2 hour round.

Anyone playing in 3:00 is playing on a course where that is possible.  There aren't many built these days.

[Dan Herrmann]

But, boy, did the HD pics look great.

Remember, CBS still won't telecast their entire NFL lineup in HD - they're obviously not committed to HD as they should be.  In fact, the entire PGA TOUR schedule was "HD Lite" a couple years ago, but CBS, in their infinite wisdom, chose to go back to the '80s and bring us beautiful 480i pics.

BTW - any idea if The Golf Channel will be telecasting in HD next year?  I really liked the TNT-HD coverage this year.

[Voytek Wilczak]

Dan - the whole thing was explained to me on avsforum.com. Apparently, in order to have all-HD golf coverage, you need wireless HD cameras because in golf, you need to cover so much ground. Otherwise you'll have to wire the entire golf course with fiberoptic cable (something that Augusta National did on their dime), but something which is prohibitively expensive. Problem is, there are no wireless HD cameras. There are wireless SD cameras however.

So we'll be stuck with fuzzy pics in golf until they invent wireless HD cameras.

[Mike Benham]

I'm not sure if it really is false advertising as the coverage was BROADCAST in HD (via HD frequencies).  The FCC requirement is that by 2007 (maybe 08?) over air broadcast must be HD which will free up loads of frequencies for the FCC to dole out to other industries.

There is no requirement that cable-only channels will be required to broadcast in HD.  Likewise, I highly doubt that The Golf Channel will go HD as it already takes up a slot on the cable networks bandwidth.  And as cable channels go, TGC has relatively low ratings so it is highly doubtful that the cable operators will commit to two channels (one regular and one HD) for TGC.

[Voytek Wilczak]

I'm not sure if it really is false advertising as the coverage was BROADCAST in HD (via HD frequencies).  .

"in HD" means 720p or 1080i NATIVE.

Not 480i upconverted to 1080i which still looks like 480i (SD).

We got 80% of SD.

I understand technical barriers, but to advertise that as HD is a stretch (bad pun).

[Dan Herrmann]

Mike - it was definitely HD..  I picked it up on KYW-DT over the air in Philly.  You don't need cable to pick up HDTV - a good antenna will do the trick, and it's free.

My brother calls it "wireless TV".

(granted, it's back to the 1960's, but it works great)

[Voytek Wilczak]

Mike - it was definitely HD..

No it was most definitely not.

This is way OT for this group, but if one wants to verify that claim, one should go to www.avsforum.com, click on Forums, then click on HDTV Programming, then click on the PGA Championship Sunday thread. There are a million HD geeks there bitching live about the coverage being 80% NOT HD.

I guess it's their word against Herrmann...

[John_Conley]

Voytek, that would be like someone trying to settle an argument on golf courses by directing someone to this site.

[Mike Benham]

Mike - it was definitely HD..  I picked it up on KYW-DT over the air in Philly.  You don't need cable to pick up HDTV - a good antenna will do the trick, and it's free.

My brother calls it "wireless TV".

(granted, it's back to the 1960's, but it works great)

Dan is correct, HD is broadcast over the air and can be received by an antenna.  The FCC requirement is that the program be broadcast via digitally enhanced signal on the series of frequencies set-up for HD broadcasts.

Now to Voytek's point ... a signal that is broadcast as HD doesn't mean it is recorded in HD (1080 or whatever the freaking number is ...).  

The ONLY way you can watch a HD station is with a HD tuner to properly decode the HD signal.  An event can be recorded in analog converted digitally and sent via the HD signal to your HD channel.  By no means does it mean the program is HD in its purest sense.

So if Dan watched the broadcast over the air on an HD channel, it was an HD broadcast ... .. and yes it was ...

[John_Conley]

Mike, I couldn't get over the quality of the picture last night for the Cowboys football game.  I didn't sense the same realism during the PGA.  Is it okay if we say the signal was sent the way Hi-Def is sent, but the picture quality (Voytek's point I think) was not as Hi of Def as what you'd consider Hi-Def?  Like Butthead said to Beavis, "These special effects aren't that special."  This Hi Def doesn't look so Hi to me.

[Voytek Wilczak]

Voytek, that would be like someone trying to settle an argument on golf courses by directing someone to this site.

John, only on that point there was unanimity on avsforum.com.

Huge percentage of shots at PGA was from regular Standard Definition cameras, upconverted to HD frequency and broadcast on HD digital channels.

If folks here want to call this HD, fine with me.

[Dan Herrmann]

you're right - the handheld cameras were certainly SD upconverted (poorly) to widescreen.

My point was that the entire telecast was 1080i and a bunch of it was certainly HD.

Voytek - no disagreement from me.  they could've done a much better job.