So, what did you think of the Olympic opening ceremony in HD?

[waltinvt]

Sorry but this needs to be put in perspective.

For those that have a problem with reality the facts are:

Dish promised mucho olympic HD coverage for all HD subs.

The only people getting a lot of olympic coverage in HD are getting it from NBC HD - period. Universal HD is very limited and mostly skating.

Dish does not provide NBC HD except in a few select cities and then only to MPEG4 receivers. Anyone else getting NBC HD is getting it OTA. By the way, that's not from Dish.

Dish is providing very little HD olympic coverage to anyone.

Dish lied. For those that don't understand objective truth and prefer a more relative, subjective answer, Dish "mis-spoke".

 

[Foxbat]

Dish lied. For those that don't understand objective truth and prefer a more relative, subjective answer, Dish "mis-spoke".

Do I need to brush the dust off of my ``You can't spell dishonest without "Dish"'' quote? Sorry you feel Dish should break the law and provide NBC-HD for the whole country.

Me, I've been happy with Dish's providing Universal HD for the Olympics. I watched most of the Women's hockey games and some of the Men's hockey. It's been nice to see live HD action, not delayed 24 hours like the Salt Lake Olympics.

 

[waltinvt]

Do I need to brush the dust off of my ``You can't spell dishonest without "Dish"'' quote? Sorry you feel Dish should break the law and provide NBC-HD for the whole country.

Me, I've been happy with Dish's providing Universal HD for the Olympics. I watched most of the Women's hockey games and some of the Men's hockey. It's been nice to see live HD action, not delayed 24 hours like the Salt Lake Olympics.

I was about to dismiss this response as typical Dish disciple rhetoric but it's such a classic case of subjective relativism it merits a reply

I posted fact:

"Dish promised mucho Olympic HD coverage for all HD subs."

Here's evidence to support what I said:
From one of the press releases:
ENGLEWOOD, Colo.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 6, 2006-- NBC Network Olympic Broadcast Available in High Definition.........

.......New to this year's mosaic is the NBC Olympics Showcase, providing viewers with access to information such as medal counts, updated television listings and select athlete biographies. DISH Network also announced today that it will broadcast the NBC Olympic coverage in high definition available to all DISH Network HD viewers.

Quotes from the Chat:

Jim DeFranco: If you are a current HD subscriber you may have an 811, 921, and 942 and you are receiving the current HD services through MPEG-2. All new HD services, except for the special HD Olympic Feed, will require a new MPEG-4 equipment - a 211 or 622 DVR. We just another 5 VOOM HD channels and this will put us over 1700 hours a week of HD programing. We will carry a special HD feed just for the Olympics.


Charlie: If you do not want to upgrade, we will keep the current HD Pak and VOOM channels. But if you want to get the additional HD services, you will need to upgrade. Winter Olympics will be broadcast in MPEG-2 in HD free of charge. Olympic Channel will available Feb 1st.

Your response to those facts:
"Sorry you feel Dish should break the law and provide NBC-HD for the whole country."

How on earth does that reply dispute in any way what I said? Did I say anywhere that I wanted Dish to break the law? What evidence do you have to suggest that I would want Dish to break the law? Whether providing NBC HD to the whole country is against the law or not was never even the point. The point is, at the very least, Dish hyped up and embellished the facts regarding their great Olympic NBC HD coverage in the context of their big HD / MPEG4 receiver promo. Even if you didn't see the chat, read the press release http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=68854&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=813105&highlight

I simply point out how once again Dish has mislead it's customers and instead of disputing what I said, you take it upon yourself to tag me with a : "You can't spell dishonest without "Dish" label and then go on to tell us how happy you are because the small fraction of Olympic HD coverage Dish DID provide happened to please you. That's great. I'm glad you got to enjoy that. I never said Dish wasn't providing "some" Olympic HD coverage, just that what they said and implied wasn't close to what they actually provided. Now if Dish was so stupid that they weren't aware of the particulars of their deal with NBC, then it's possible they didn't lie and just screwed up but if they did know what they were getting in terms of Olympic HD coverage, then they did lie.

Oh, and one more thing. If you check my posts, you'll find I don't always speak negatively of Dish. Another thing, I DON'T lie. I may not always get my information straight or even when I do, may not always articulate it very well but I say it like I see it.

If you take issue with what I say, fine, that's your right but at least do your homework and point out where I'm wrong. If you just plain don't like what I say, that's your right too, just like it's your right to debate me or pass over my posts entirely.

 

[Weezknight]

Walt,

I don't think anyone is disputing what you are saying about what E* said. Dish obviously made a mistake about what they expected to be given in terms of HD content that they could rebroadcast. If Charlie apologized for that would that make you happy? I'm not sure what you're upset about. Everyone makes mistakes, especially when you are down the list in terms of having to broadcast what is provided to you.

I am certain that E*'s intentions were to have a High-Def highlight channel, but if the content is not available to them what do you want them to do? Like I said, if E* admitted the error would you be happy?

 

[KeithInDallas]

I am certain that E*'s intentions were to have a High-Def highlight channel, but if the content is not available to them what do you want them to do? Like I said, if E* admitted the error would you be happy?

I am curious how you know that was E*'s intention? We are not talking about something Charley said two years ago, we are talking a month before the Olympics started. I find it hard to believe, with all the issues about waivers, FCC rulings on who could get what, etc., that E* was just merrily skipping down the path and wanted to provide HD Olympics for everyone, and then suddenly the big bad NBC, IOC, or whoever jumped out of the words and ate up their plans!

I would hope a multi-million dollar (or more?) company would have all that figured out BEFORE they make an announcement, and would have it figured out a month before the Olympics started. It's not like the Olympics are a spur of the moment thing.

To me it appears they purposely mislead their customers about their intentions. When companies do this, it is usually for financial gain or for a competitive advantage. They were heavily promoting the Olympics, at least in part, it seems to me, to take some of sting out of the whole MPEG4 fiasco.

There are those of us who feel like this is not the first time E* has made "misleading" statements in the past year. I believe it is in our best interest to call them on every one of them. I would love it if they would apologize, because they would be admitting a flawed and unethical business practice, and that would be to the advantage of all subscribers in the future.

While they are at it, I would like them to admit that they promised all the Voom channels to us in 2005 and didn't deliver, that they said that the use of MPEG4 receivers was a long way off, then rolled them out less than two months later, and that then they were being deceptive about the use of MPEG4 and that the "new" content was only MPEG2 with fake headers. Anything else I should add to my wish list?

 

[Foxbat]

Sorry, Walt, I thought you were complaining about Dish not providing NBC-HD to all the Dish HD customers. Face it, if NBC provides two Olympic HD feeds (NBC Broadcast and Universal HD) and Dish turned on Universal HD to all HD subs, that's the best they can do since the local NBC affiliates have final say as to who can receive NBC programming, SD & HD. Dish isn't about to pay megabucks to get HD cameras to Torino and provide HD Olympic coverage above and beyond what NBC is doing just because Charlie and Jim sat there in a Chat and said they would have Olympic coverage in HD for all subs.

You can't pass on what doesn't exist.

 

[waltinvt]

Sorry, Walt, I thought you were complaining about Dish not providing NBC-HD to all the Dish HD customers. Face it, if NBC provides two Olympic HD feeds (NBC Broadcast and Universal HD) and Dish turned on Universal HD to all HD subs, that's the best they can do since the local NBC affiliates have final say as to who can receive NBC programming, SD & HD. Dish isn't about to pay megabucks to get HD cameras to Torino and provide HD Olympic coverage above and beyond what NBC is doing just because Charlie and Jim sat there in a Chat and said they would have Olympic coverage in HD for all subs.

You can't pass on what doesn't exist.

Roland, I'm really not trying to be a hard ass to you but it seems like you're just not getting it. Of course Dish can't pass on what doesn't exist and of course they can make mistakes - that's not the issue here. The point is (and Keith articulated it quite well) Dish has made a habit of making miss-statements for years and they always seem to involve making themselves look better or leading subs to think something will happen that never does.

It's pretty easy to jump in here now with 20-20 hindsight and say Dish couldn't provide what they didn't have but at the time of Dish's announcements it was pretty clear that Dish had something in the works to get all their HD subs the full HD coverage.

There was no way for us to know that Dish hadn't struck some deal with NBC to get a one-time special HD Olympic feed (beyond what Universal HD was carrying). In fact, right up until hours before the opening ceremonies, Scott and other staff members here were talking about a "special HD feed" in MPEG2 and that UNHD was NOT going to be in MPEG2. There are certainly feasible ways it could have been implemented that could've bypassed SH VERA.

Other that Dish's past track record, there was no reason to doubt what they had announced (and I bet more than a few 211s were bought / leased because of it) and now no reason not to be ticked off they didn't deliver. To jump in now and defend Dish by saying it was NBC's or SHVERS's fault doesn't have a whole lot of credibility I'm afraid.

 

[tawhite]

Wow, this thread has really got out of hand. I was just asking what people thought of the opening ceremony and the quality of the broadcast in HD. I noticed some problems and wondered if it was my setup of if it was the same for others. Yes, I guess it would have to be directed to those who receive NBC HD OTA. Sorry to those who do not receive it.

 

[Tom Bombadil]

Despite a number of occasions where NBC's cameras appeared to be unable to capture motion without blocking effects, there were many times that I was amazed by the quality of the picture. On my CRT RP the image quality was stunning at times.

Watching the Olympics in HD was a thrill. Right now I'm watching the closing ceremonies and the PQ is great. The PQ on Universal was pretty good too. After watching these two, it was difficult to watch the SD coverage on USA & MSNBC.

 

[gdarwin]

I'll second that. Looks great!

 

[waltinvt]

Despite a number of occasions where NBC's cameras appeared to be unable to capture motion without blocking effects, there were many times that I was amazed by the quality of the picture. On my CRT RP the image quality was stunning at times.

Watching the Olympics in HD was a thrill. Right now I'm watching the closing ceremonies and the PQ is great. The PQ on Universal was pretty good too. After watching these two, it was difficult to watch the SD coverage on USA & MSNBC.

OK Tom, let me get this straight. You're watching (watched - since it's now Monday) the closing cermonies, in HD, on a special HD feed provided by Dish Network on your MPEG2 receiver?

 

[waltinvt]

I'll second that. Looks great!

In HD? On a MPEG2 receiver? Dish feed or OTA ?

 

[gdarwin]

In HD? On a MPEG2 receiver? Dish feed or OTA ?

OTA. 942 and 211.

 

[Tom Bombadil]

I stated in message #40 that I was watching NBC HD Olympics coverage via OTA. And acknowledged that I didn't find the other Olympic coverage very compelling.

In message #48, the original thread starter stated that this thread was intended to discuss the quality of the NBC HD broadcast, which would be OTA for most.

My last message on the quality of the picture from NBC HD was message #49, immediately following the reference to OTA quality.

I never stated that Dish provided NBC HD and I assumed that by last night, that no one would have taken my comments in any other way. Since it was universal knowledge by long before last night that Dish was not nationally broadcasting NBC HD.

I did use my 942 as my HD OTA tuner and it served very well in that capacity. I recorded some content and never lost my signal lock once in about 30 some hours of viewing. And having DVR functionality for pausing, slo-mo, and skipping commercials was wonderful. For example, I replayed Ohno's start in the 500m short track at 1/15th speed and could see how he started his momentum forward before the other skaters and got off to such a good start. I would not have enjoyed the Olympics as much if I had had only a built-in HDTV tuner.

 

[Foxbat]

For example, I replayed Ohno's start in the 500m short track at 1/15th speed and could see how he started his momentum forward before the other skaters and got off to such a good start.

After all the false-starts and all, I thought he was going to get called for another one there since (I thought) he was moving before the gun went off. I don't think it made much difference in the outcome, though. Ohno was on a mission.

I didn't record that as programming OTA on the 942 without local channel information is rather VCR-ish. I did record the closing ceremonies (it was nice to skip all the NBC "let's look back at xxxxx's medal event"). And, would it kill NBC's announcers to stfu and let the event unfold in silence? All of the speeches were in English at some point, so all we had to do was wait if your French or Italian wasn't good enough.

The air riders were pretty impressive, especially when they did the snowboarding. I missed out on most of the opening ceremonies (like a dummy I didn't get the 942 set up in time), so the closing ceremonies were my first chance to see the fireworks and the show. I have to say the Europeans have quite the imagination when it comes to these events. I think the Barcelona games were my all-time favorite for opening/closing ceremonies.

 

[LosingPatience]

I've asked their engineer that frequents the boards why they waste bandwidth simulcasting NBC in 480p on 16.2 and he says it's for all those 4:3 HDTV owners... All seven of them.

So that's it!

I have always wondered what the deal was with 16.2. How totally stupid. If they want to do a public service, leave HD cranked up, drop 16.2 to 480i and show reruns of "Beyond Our Control."

 

[Tom Bombadil]

Boy, that is a bad reason to burn bandwidth.

Let the 4:3 HDTV owners watch in letterboxed widescreen. Just like they do on widescreen DVDs. They can zoom and stretch if they wish, just like I have to do on 4:3 material.

 

[Foxbat]

I like the idea of a "Beyond our Control" channel When I was in high school I had a couple of friends in BoC at WNDU. I was at the Explorer Post at WSBT in the mid-70s, which we always considered "much more serious" than "BoC". But we all wanted to be the cool kids at "BoC".

I wonder if WNDU has any tapes of "Beyond" in their archives?

Yes, 16.2 is back and draining bits from 16.1 It was nice while it lasted...