Was able to catch the 4K NBA HDR Bucks game the other night.
The DTV schedule press article of upcoming games showed it was supposed to be the Pistons but that was wrong.
And DTV website guide for the 4k channel 105 didn't even have a game listed.
So nobody is on top of that at DTV. Even the day of the game.
Anyway, was curious about the HDR for basketball and indeed it does help noticeably.
Especially on the hard court floor. Cut down that harsh glare that was on the NBA channel in HD.
The white uniforms were also toned down.
But the biggest difference was that floor glare.
This made it so damn more enjoyable to watch.
It has a much more natural look to the picture.
The people in the dark sections still looked dark but I imagine they were less dark in HDR.
But hard to A/B the HD and 4K channel with the delay in switching channels, to compare the dark area.
The clarity of the 1080P and high bitrate was MASSIVELY! better than the NBA channel.
The NBA channel looked like garbage. A blurry mess.
Low bitrate to the extreme. Calling the NBA channel HD is a joke.
The close up shots 1080P were very good.
That said you could still see a variety of digital artifacts.
Looking at the side line huddle the smaller faces would pixelate and clear up then pixelate again.
The picture had regular stutter and hiccups or missing frames skipping.
Nothing to do with weather on my side. Think I even saw a moment of pixelation breakup and then clearing up.
The far away shots were much less impressive.
Did not look 1080P. Much softer.
Seems some of the cameras used were lower quality than others.
But when it looked good on the close shots it looked very good.
But all these problems are the same basic thing that I've said about the upconverted 1080P for the NFL games.
Just seems like 1080P and / or the 4k conversion is causing a lot of this.
Or the cameras are just pushing it to the limit for HD and they can't process it perfectly.
Or before the low bitrate 1080i or 720p hid these imperfections.
The current 1080P upconvert while good at it's best has so many things that spoil the event as a viewer.
I would not want to see these digital artifacts on every game.
That said when the HD channel looks so bad, I guess you would pick the least worst one.
I viewed on a OLED tv and you could see the flaws easily but even a $300 4k set would show these flaws.
I was a bit surprised as the game (I think) was at the Bucks arena and they are the team with all the 4k cameras in a circle.
Maybe they didn't use the Bucks cameras?
It was very cool to see basketball with a high bitrate, progressive and HDR.
The picture even at it's worst looked MILES better than the NBA channel on directv.
Now if they would just dump 1080P and get on the Real 100% 4K HDR then we would have something great for sports.
bjf
The DTV schedule press article of upcoming games showed it was supposed to be the Pistons but that was wrong.
And DTV website guide for the 4k channel 105 didn't even have a game listed.
So nobody is on top of that at DTV. Even the day of the game.
Anyway, was curious about the HDR for basketball and indeed it does help noticeably.
Especially on the hard court floor. Cut down that harsh glare that was on the NBA channel in HD.
The white uniforms were also toned down.
But the biggest difference was that floor glare.
This made it so damn more enjoyable to watch.
It has a much more natural look to the picture.
The people in the dark sections still looked dark but I imagine they were less dark in HDR.
But hard to A/B the HD and 4K channel with the delay in switching channels, to compare the dark area.
The clarity of the 1080P and high bitrate was MASSIVELY! better than the NBA channel.
The NBA channel looked like garbage. A blurry mess.
Low bitrate to the extreme. Calling the NBA channel HD is a joke.
The close up shots 1080P were very good.
That said you could still see a variety of digital artifacts.
Looking at the side line huddle the smaller faces would pixelate and clear up then pixelate again.
The picture had regular stutter and hiccups or missing frames skipping.
Nothing to do with weather on my side. Think I even saw a moment of pixelation breakup and then clearing up.
The far away shots were much less impressive.
Did not look 1080P. Much softer.
Seems some of the cameras used were lower quality than others.
But when it looked good on the close shots it looked very good.
But all these problems are the same basic thing that I've said about the upconverted 1080P for the NFL games.
Just seems like 1080P and / or the 4k conversion is causing a lot of this.
Or the cameras are just pushing it to the limit for HD and they can't process it perfectly.
Or before the low bitrate 1080i or 720p hid these imperfections.
The current 1080P upconvert while good at it's best has so many things that spoil the event as a viewer.
I would not want to see these digital artifacts on every game.
That said when the HD channel looks so bad, I guess you would pick the least worst one.
I viewed on a OLED tv and you could see the flaws easily but even a $300 4k set would show these flaws.
I was a bit surprised as the game (I think) was at the Bucks arena and they are the team with all the 4k cameras in a circle.
Maybe they didn't use the Bucks cameras?
It was very cool to see basketball with a high bitrate, progressive and HDR.
The picture even at it's worst looked MILES better than the NBA channel on directv.
Now if they would just dump 1080P and get on the Real 100% 4K HDR then we would have something great for sports.
bjf
