NFL Network HD Live Action quality is poor

[brg606]

it looked pretty good on my panasonic dlp. the best part was when my buddy called me all pissed off that he didn't even have that channel as an option. he also has to pay extra for espnhd and STILL doesn't have espn2hd. he has time warner cable. haha

 

[leo250]

I agree with the stated problems. They need to be addressed. However, I live St. Louis, and I was the only family member who had the ability to see this game, all be it in really poor HD-Lites are almost out. I was surprised that the NFL network that advertised this as football telecasts by those who know football could not get any better. I am hoping that these broadcasts will get better.

 

[sobonefnet]

5.1?

And the fact that is was only in DD 2.0. Booooooooo!

 

[FunkyBoss]

So were these PQ problems on E*'s end, or the NFL Network broadcast? I also noticed more pixellization then most CBS or Fox games.

 

[Tom Bombadil]

I haven't been paying as much attention lately as to what E* is doing to each channel. If this channel is a true MPEG4 channel, then that likely degraded the PQ, for Starz HD continues to have problems with intense colors and fast motion and it is a MPEG4 channel.

I had expected E* to go all out to make this a top notch presentation, given their national advertising campaign around having NFL Network in HD. I was quite surprised that the PQ was a couple of notches down from the standard ESPN Monday Night game. Motion artifacting was significantly worse than ESPN.

I should note that when watching portions of two NFL games last weekend via OTA, that I saw a fair amount of motion artifacts. Nothing approaching where the NFL Net was last night, but they were present.

I've had the chance to watch full-rez, 19.2 mb/s HD football a few times at A/V shows. It is phenomenal. If the real deal is like a perfectly prepared filet mignon, last night's show was more like getting the sirloin tips at Ponderosa. It is still steak and decent to eat, but not nearly as satisfying.

 

[nlk10010]

My signal strength off of 61.5 for this channel is 100.

As the game proceeds, the motion artifacts become more and more obvious. Pretty darn annoying.

The picture is very good on still and low motion shots. But this is a FOOTBALL GAME!!! It is kinda important to have high quality fast motion images!

I agree, on still and slow motion the picture is extremely good (as I was watching on my Samsung LCD my wife came up to the Loft, looked at the TV, looked at me and said" "NOW I know why you like to spend so much time up here").

Can you give me an idea how I would determine what transponder NFL Network is on? I never know where I am with signal strength because I'm not sure which of the gazillion transponders to look for.

Thanks.

=NLK=

 

[Jim5506]

Tune to the channel in question and press Menu 6,1,1. Mine shows Sat 129 T30 for NFLHD.

 

[Tom Bombadil]

Yep. If you are tuned into a channel, then by going to the Point Satellite option, as described above, you will be pointing at the appropriate transponder & satellite.

It's handy when you are seeing some dropouts or pixelation.

 

[rdinkel]

Guys, for some reason, it looked great most of the game at our place--coming off of 129. When the game first started, lip-synch was way off, but then it corrected. There were only a couple of brief break-ups during the game. Did notice smudge on one of their camera lenses. Watched on Loewe Aconda that does internal digital progressive processing. So perhaps some of the artifacts you mention were processed out.

 

[vurbano]

In comparison to NFL games I've watched this year from OTA networks and off of ESPN, the Broncos-Chiefs game on NFL Network is suffering from over compression. I'm seeing significantly more macro pixelation and motion blurring than other NFL HD games. Particularly on the Chiefs' red uniforms. The detail from the field's grass surface is not as sharp either.

It isn't bad, but sure isn't an HD feast for the eyes.

PS In looking back at my thread's title, I should have said it was mediocre or middlin', not poor.

PPS Yikes, I just saw two fast action camera pans where the resolution fell apart badly. So perhaps "poor" was the correct term.

The PQ was beyond bad IMO.

 

[vurbano]

So were these PQ problems on E*'s end, or the NFL Network broadcast? I also noticed more pixellization then most CBS or Fox games.

The problems were on D* E* and some if not all cable systems. The only system I have seen consistent reports of good quality for this game was FIOS. This is really strange too, because HDTVfanatic reported that on E* or D* (cant remember which one) the channel occupied an entire transponder all to itself. Makes no sense.

 

[nlk10010]

Tune to the channel in question and press Menu 6,1,1. Mine shows Sat 129 T30 for NFLHD.

Thanks Jim (and Tom). Using your "technique" the transponder showed up as 02 on my 61.5 dish, SS 95. So not as good as Tom's but it CERTAINLY should have been good enough to rule out dish alignment as a cause of that cr*p.

I don't doubt that D* suffers from the same problems as E* does, as MPEG4 channels get slammed on both services regularly (although not always).

=NLK=

 

[Tom Bombadil]

Guys, for some reason, it looked great most of the game at our place--coming off of 129. When the game first started, lip-symch was way off, but then it corrected. There were only a couple of brief break-ups during the game. Did notice smudge on one of their camera lenses. Watched on Loewe Aconda that does internal digital progressive processing. So perhaps some of the artifacts you mention were processed out.

It is indeed possible that the picture off of 129 was better. I know in the past that some of the channels were using MPEG4 on 61.5, but were still MPEG2 off of 129. Whenever this is the case, then 129 is definitely better.

However a TV cannot process out the types of compression artifacts that I was seeing. When 100% of the screen is macro-blocked on a fast action pan, the TV cannot possibly know how to reconstruct the picture. The digital information to do so simply isn't there.

 

[thomas_d92]

I watched the NFL network game on the TSN HD channel on Starchoice and the quality was very good. I did not even try the Dish NFL-HD channel. The only problem TSN had was audio sync at the beginning of the game