MPEG4 and PQ

[jaybertx]

Ok, so I was watching NFL ST broadcasts in HD over the weekend and got to thinking about DirecTV HD as a whole. (Why are all CBS games not in HD yet?)

I know that there are a number of sats going up to increase bandwidth and that mpeg 4 is the future of compression for DTV.

So I was thinking that compression can be used for a few things... it can either be used for quality or quantity... In other words, DTV could give us higher quality video in the same bandwidth as currently being used OR they could give us the same quality video as now but with more channels...

Is DTV going to do the right thing and find that happy medium? I've got a couple year old HDTV. I'm really impressed with some of the newer DLP TVs PQ. But is DTV going to going to give me a reason to spend more money on a newer TV? What's the point of having a "better" TV if I'm not sending a "better" signal?

 

[charper1]

Ok, so I was watching NFL ST broadcasts in HD over the weekend and got to thinking about DirecTV HD as a whole. (Why are all CBS games not in HD yet?)

Because not all games are produced in HD.

 

[Jimbo]

Originally Posted by jaybertx
Ok, so I was watching NFL ST broadcasts in HD over the weekend and got to thinking about DirecTV HD as a whole. (Why are all CBS games not in HD yet?)

charper1
Because not all games are produced in HD.


charper1,

Your response may be true, but in this day and age it sounds rediculious. This is the NFL, how can they justify not broadcasting it HD.
Although I know the Browns vs Bengals game was not

Jimbo

 

[charper1]

The sad but true fact is they can claim cost or lack HD facilities or say nothing at all because they don't have to justify it, as there is no legal requirement to produce anything in HD; any of which can be true and nothing anyone can do about it.

 

[BasicBlak]

Is DTV going to do the right thing and find that happy medium?

jaybertx, I, for one, can only hope they do. Back in those heady days of the late '90s, when DirecTV, USSB & other DBS services staged an all-out assault on the cable industry by emphasizing the virtues of noticeably improved picture quality (especially with the PPV channels, which were compressed at a bare minimum), there seemed to be a prevailing spirit within the DBS industry to preserve and indeed tout their chief advantage over cable. Switch reel to today, several years later, where D*, EchoStar, et al, are now firmly entrenched in the home entertainment landscape, and you'll see that a certain level of arrogance has taken hold. Overall customer service/customer satisfaction has declined in the prevailing years, and their chief asset--picture quality--often resembles that of many digital cable feeds (not a good thing ). Sure, we demand more and more channels--especially in HD. But IMO, that proverbial "happy medium" is solely their responsibility, and a better mechanism to preserve picture quality should have been put in place sooner. Now that MPEG4 is on the horizon, let's cross our fingers in the hope that they will err on the side of appealing to the videophile in us all.

 

[hancox]

Great answer BasicBlak - my thoughts exactly.

 

[djsmokyc]

Originally Posted by jaybertx
charper1,

Your response may be true, but in this day and age it sounds rediculious. This is the NFL, how can they justify not broadcasting it HD.
Although I know the Browns vs Bengals game was not

Jimbo

IIRC, the next NFL broadcast contract, which starts next season, requires all games to be broadcast in HD. The new set of contracts also shifts Monday Night Football to ESPN and Sunday Night Football to NBC.

 

[JustBob]

IIRC, the next NFL broadcast contract, which starts next season, requires all games to be broadcast in HD.

I haven't heard that before. It's about time. I would have hoped the NFL would have done that by now. I guess they had a contract in place and couldn't force the networks to spend the money to all out HD. But I suppose I can wait one more year.

-JustBob