ESPN Monday Night Football is Not so good

[Mtnmike]

Reception was claimed to be excellent by alot of Joe Six Pack donkeys like yourself..

You calling him clueless is pretty much hysterical though..Thanks for the entertainment anyways

It is obvious you and him are cut from the same mold, and discussing this with either of you will always receive a childish, uneducated and immature emotional response. So do us all a favor by picking up your toys and leaving the playground. :

 

[guffy1]

It is obvious you and him are cut from the same mold, and discussing this with either of you will always receive a childish, uneducated and immature emotional response. So do us all a favor by picking up your toys and leaving the playground. :

OK Eeyore..

 

[FlyingJ]

Guff, everytime I think I am going to give you the benefit of the doubt because at times your messages seem to have some information in them you go ahead and pop off again. You back nothing up with any information ever (like Vurbano does) and always, and I mean always resort to your same name calling stupidity. I am certain that Vurbano doesn't need you to fight his battles and I suspect he might be embarrassed having others associate him with you as some kind of tag team. You add nothing, ever, no questions, no insight, nothing. Just your an *#(@$ and so on. I thought they told you to knock that stuff off on this site.

 

[Madtown HD Junkie]

OK Eeyore..

see i told you it was juvenile.....if it was adult, it would have been Mr Ed.

 

[guffy1]

Guff, everytime I think I am going to give you the benefit of the doubt because at times your messages seem to have some information in them you go ahead and pop off again. You back nothing up with any information ever (like Vurbano does) and always, and I mean always resort to your same name calling stupidity. I am certain that Vurbano doesn't need you to fight his battles and I suspect he might be embarrassed having others associate him with you as some kind of tag team. You add nothing, ever, no questions, no insight, nothing. Just your an *#(@$ and so on. I thought they told you to knock that stuff off on this site.

Oh darn, FlyingJ(oe) has revoked his benefit of the doubt he was giving me

Im heart broken over here

 

[FlyingJ]

see i told you it was juvenile.....if it was adult, it would have been Mr Ed.

Now that was funny!

 

[vurbano]

There were some better moments but I felt they were washed out.

 

[vurbano]

And 2 more, certainly not as saturated or crisp as last year, IMO:





but then there was more awful:

 

[vurbano]

Guff, everytime I think I am going to give you the benefit of the doubt because at times your messages seem to have some information in them you go ahead and pop off again. You back nothing up with any information ever (like Vurbano does) and always, and I mean always resort to your same name calling stupidity. I am certain that Vurbano doesn't need you to fight his battles and I suspect he might be embarrassed having others associate him with you as some kind of tag team. You add nothing, ever, no questions, no insight, nothing. Just your an *#(@$ and so on. I thought they told you to knock that stuff off on this site.

You'd better edit that, it almost sounds like a compliment

 

[VIPERS-PIT]

V, I guess this makes me a Joe six pack, but that pic of farve looked muck clearer on my set. I'm 1000% serious.

 

[vurbano]

V, I guess this makes me a Joe six pack, but that pic of farve looked muck clearer on my set. I'm 1000% serious.

Its possible your set isnt properly calibrated. But basically mpeg2 is mpeg2, there is no difference in the video and mpeg2 decoder technology is older than dirt. There is only one transpoder sending out ESPNHD, its the same for everyone. This macroblocking is new for 720p Ive never seen it before. It is common on 1080i though. In any case we really need frame grab to take TV's out of the equation and understand what is going on. The frame grabs have nothing to do with the TV's.

Again many are seeing the same thing I am, i.e typical 1080i problems in 720p video. This guy has over a thousand posts at AVS:

I was going to post something a few weeks back about ESPN looking like crap but I knew I'd get flamed for it so I decided not to. The picture is so compressed now and the macroblocking never happened before - it's almost like the signal is a 1080i instead of 720p. I never remembered espn hd having that 1080i macroblocking during fast motion scenes. It is all too common on HDNET etc but not espn hd.
I was going to buy a 50inch plasma but got a 42" because D* picture looks so bad. I hope the mpeg4 stuff looks better because I am very unhappy with the pq right now.
D* has been good to me or I would have gone to cable already.

 

[VIPERS-PIT]

Its possible your set isnt properly calibrated. But basically mpeg2 is mpeg2, there is no difference in the video and mpeg2 decoder technology is older than dirt. There is only one transpoder sending out ESPNHD, its the same for everyone. This macroblocking is new for 720p Ive never seen it before. It is common on 1080i though. In any case we really need frame grab to take TV's out of the equation and understand what is going on. The frame grabs have nothing to do with the TV's.

Again many are seeing the same thing I am, i.e typical 1080i problems in 720p video. This guy has over a thousand posts at AVS:

My set was calibrated by a pro. I watched the game in 1080i. RP CRT is a better format, that I am guessing is the difference. I can see a noticeably clearer picture on a CRT set over DLP (I have only watched one DLP that I did not see rainbows on), while LCD looks like crap at 65 inches and PLASMA, well we all know plasma is crap.

 

[vurbano]

My set was calibrated by a pro. I watched the game in 1080i. RP CRT is a better format, that I am guessing is the difference.

I have one too. Its not the difference. The pics I posted have nothing to do with the TV. The problems are there in D*'s incoming signal whether or not you chose to admit it. The pics are taken from the recordings stored on the HDtivo. If I had taken camera shots of the screen then what you say would may sense. BTW, you really shouldnt make such broad sweeping statements about 1080i RPTV being better. Everyone thinks theres is better. Plasma owners say the same nonsense. Charper will say his projector is the best. etc.

 

[Satmeister]

The pics I posted have nothing to do with the TV. The problems are there in D*'s incoming signal whether or not you chose to admit it.

You knew sooner or later the blame was going full circle back to D* (obsession).

Let's see, many posters here (as well as national media folks) all saw much better PQ, didn't have the macroblocking, and viewed the exact same images without the fuzzy image issues reported by vur---, but we all have the problem....

hmmmmm....Glad we have that straight...

 

[FlyingJ]

Hey V, maybe a better way to put it is instead of D*s incoming signal, it would be ESPN's outgoing signal. Would this still be correct?

 

[vurbano]

Now this is interesting. All of the file sizes for the frames on ESPNHD MNF gave were 2701 KB 1280x720p so thats 869,760 pixels per frame

this shot of BSG from D* UHD is 1280x1080i (never mind the bogus 1934x1088 header info that D* slaps on the file, we all know thats a lie) This should give 1,382,400 pixels and its file size is 6167 KB. This is 2.28 times bigger than the MNF file size when it should only be 1,382,400/869,760 = 1.59 times bigger?????



So is D* now sending out ESPNHD at 1,382,400/2.28 = 606,316 pixels per frame??? and not the full 869,760 pixels per frame? Maybe Guffy is right and they are dropping a frame and reencoding it. The resultant new frames are 720p HDlite frames?. Anyone know for sure how big a 720p frame should be ????

I checked the bitrate by playing it through nero Showtime and it displays about 13.5 Mbps which is typical for ESPNHD, I was hoping too see something a lot less. That would explain a few things. ALthough there is strange foggy areas on one of the cameras' lenses.

In any case, when UHD blows away ESPNHD something is wrong, very wrong, considering its been blasted for so long about its lack of PQ and D* downrezzing.

 

[vurbano]

You knew sooner or later the blame was going full circle back to D* (obsession).

Let's see, many posters here (as well as national media folks) all saw much better PQ, didn't have the macroblocking, and viewed the exact same images without the fuzzy image issues reported by vur---, but we all have the problem....

hmmmmm....Glad we have that straight...

Careful when you take your head out of the sand to speak not to get any in your mouth.

Boy, I have had D* HD for only a little bit, but 2nites Cubs/Cardinals game on ESPN HD looks like the back side of my arse!! Ugg....so much grain and noise in the picture, it looks worse than DVD...
Please make this better (soon)....one can only hope MPEG4 and 2007 make this better....damn the NFL and its power over me
Okay, I have vented...

It isn't just D*. ESPNHD normally is one of the better looking channels for me (formerly of Comcast, now TWC), but this isn't up to their usual level. I don't even know if you can call this grainyness a product of compression either; it almost looks like it is high ISO noise like you would get from a digital camera.

Well, thats a bit of a relief...thought D* was downrezzing to 800x800

This may sound wierd but I think the fact it was VERY VERY humid in out area "STL" tonight effects the quality of the PQ.

ESPNHD has been bad on both D*, and Comcast for me. Last year the games, (football, and Baseball) looked stunning, but this year they have been pretty bad.

Noise and grain can be from the cameras rather than transmission. Camera noise will also reduce the quality of the MPEG encoding.

I think I was watching the Vikings pre-season opener on ESPN, and it was horribly grainy. Sometimes crazily blurry when the camera swiveled to keep up with the football thrown downfield.
Was so sh!tty, it reminded me of some of the NBA games I saw last season on my INHD. It was like somebody forgot to flip the switch or something.
I think what is going to suck about more and more people adapting is cable/sat companies will tell the new customers that this is what HD is all about, and earl adopters will be amazed the quality keeps getting worse and worse.

This is no new phenemonon to me, Ive been seeing ESPNHD look consistently like crap for months now.. Dont know why its taken people so long to catch on (Hint: Its football season, hmmmmm?), but ESPNHD has had these issues for awhile now..
Check out this post for a complaint form: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=8290491&&#post8290491
There are other threads around that have a few random posts regarding the shoddy PQ on ESPNHD lately.
I think the OP should request that the topic be modified..Take out the D*, and take out the 2Nite, so that the topic reads: My God - ESPNHD stinks!!..

Do you think last night's game has anything to do with this:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=715225
All of their top-tier production equipment being used for football with the "second string" being used for baseball?

I was going to post something a few weeks back about ESPN looking like crap but I knew I'd get flamed for it so I decided not to. The picture is so compressed now and the macroblocking never happened before - it's almost like the signal is a 1080i instead of 720p. I never remembered espn hd having that 1080i macroblocking during fast motion scenes. It is all too common on HDNET etc but not espn hd.
I was going to buy a 50inch plasma but got a 42" because D* picture looks so bad. I hope the mpeg4 stuff looks better because I am very unhappy with the pq right now.
D* has been good to me or I would have gone to cable already.

I would have just went with the 50"er and changed providers.

I guess all of these people have "bad" equipment too huh???

Now on ignore you go. You have NOTHING of any intelligence to say for as long as I have seen you post and certainly are not worth the effort of reading any longer.

 

[dnyce]

Time Out

This tickles me. For 2 years I've been hearing people go back and forth about HD PQ. Here is the bottom line, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I've had people come over to my house and say Wow is that HD?! It looks great!! No actually that is just SD MTV it looks horrible!

If you are one of those people that just expect HD to look better than SD than you can look at D* HD PQ and be satisfied.
BUT if your one of the few that expect High Definition to look like it has the ability to look, a picture so clean from afar it seems as if you're looking out of a window. Then you'll be disappointed at what we have to watch today.
I expect a window so myself and others will make noise until somebody lives up to the hype of HIGH Definition.

But I am realistic, I'm sure the first color TV didn't look that good. We've come leaps and bounds from the days of rabbit ears on a TV set the size of a small car. HD is still a baby it will improve in time, BUT lets not pretend it is as good as it should be today.

Just a couple of my pennies.

 

[net17]

Verbano-

You are one of the few people doing actual research on the issue. Thank you for your hard work, comparing the file sizes and what not. Macro blocking really frustrates me, and I really wonder, is it D* that is sending out this over compressed signal, or ESPN? Thank you for your hard work.

 

[ryanm86]

That is true, I am very picky about video quality. I just think if you are going to go through the trouble of broadcasting in HD you should do it to the best of your ability and not try to just get by with as little as possible. I look at some HD and say it looks like crap meanwhile my friend who has had SDTV his whole life thinks he can jump through my TV and land on the football field.
Although my favorite is the old man standing 2 inches from the screen in best buy wondering what all the hype is about.