Sevens Tournament - Wellington

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cshwone

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Topic # 30383 6-Feb-2009 07:56

Having checked the listings - no sign of the Sevens coverage being HD. Such a pity as this could have been a great showcase for TV1

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Mad Scientist
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Reply # 194688 7-Feb-2009 22:35

can you tell me how one can find out which tv1/tv2 shows are in HD (720p)? browsed tvnz.co.nz's listings ('tv guide') and NO shows are stated as HD. surely after all that there is one show? just one?

kind of a chicken and egg story. not much HD content (<5%) so one one buys hdtv sets so there are few products (set top boxes, integrated tuner tvs, pvrs), so not much hd content recorded or bought, so no one buys ...

but most kiwi i have known are just content with 21" crt tvs with bunny ears. serious! show them my 1080p blu ray and they go mmm is this the new batman show? mmm that's the joker, who plays the joker?

ALTRON

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Reply # 194696 8-Feb-2009 00:14

Anyone notice how the picture quality of the 7s was a lot more crisp on tv one compared to sky sport?

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Reply # 194701 8-Feb-2009 04:35

couple of reasons i can think of - lower bit rate on sky. upconversion to 720p on tv1 (whereas issit 576i on sky?). likely to be a + b.

or it just could actually be delivered in 720p on tv1 but how would you know? i can't find any listings on tvnz that stated as being broadcast hd so maybe they don't let you know.

it's so human to believe what you read - if they told you it's 720p on the website and it looks crap you wouldnt know. because it doesnt say it's 720p we all think it's not the best picture! :)

old3eyes

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Reply # 194703 8-Feb-2009 08:27

ALTRON: Anyone notice how the picture quality of the 7s was a lot more crisp on tv one compared to sky sport?

The PQ looks the same on TVNZ1 HD as it did on Sky, crap. I suspect that TVNZ was getting the Sky mpeg2 feed and looking at Sky Watch the 7s were not in HD on Sky which is a pity that it wasn't in HD on either channel..

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Reply # 194708 8-Feb-2009 09:17

I actually found the coverage to be a little disappointing from a couch potato's perspective.

The use of the boom camera to pan across the crowd got extremely boring after the first few shots when all they could do for 2 days was show the same people in the crowd every 5 mins and other cameras seemed focusses on the exact same groups of people as well. Very boring.

RustyGonad

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Reply # 194715 8-Feb-2009 10:27

So why wasn't it in HD???

All of Sky's domestic coverage of major events (incl Rugby, Cricket - incl State Shield) lately has been in HD, incl events from the same ground - so it wasn't equipment related.

Commerially who was the host broadcaster?

It smells like one party actually prevented the other party from broadcasting the event in HD - but thats only idle speculation... I really hope this isn't the case...

As for the picture difference between Sky and Freeview - I watch both HD sources from the same HTPC - which removes any other variables (decoders, cables etc). The picture on both was a close to identical as you would want without analysis of pixel detail etc.

A bit of info for those who constantly tout Freeview bitrates - Sky Sport HD is usually around 18-21 MBits - quite a bit above Freeview (12-13MBits) - or so DVBViewer tells me... The picture quality via a HTPC from Sky Sport HD beats anything I've seen from Freeview outside of the Olympics on One - you are certainly never left wondering if its in HD...

In relation to sport the current situation with Freeview HD is a farce... All we get is a flood of advertising bestowing the virtues of Freeview HD, the tennis, beach volleyball, A1 GP, and now Sevens have not been in HD... the reality is that after the Olympics that its all been downhill and nothing has.

If your a V8 Supercar fan its even worse - we used to be able to watch every race live on Sport Extra. When TV3 picked up the rights, they touted the extra channel which would soon be available to provide the same services (Shaun Sommerfield of TV3), which has now migrated into the joke called plus one...

IMHO - given the amount of taxpayer funded dollars that have been wasted on this (advertising Freeview HD), this is a joke. Freeview simply wasn't ready for HD, still isn't, and we keep wondering when it will be. It has simply been a badly implemented ploy to try and match Sky...

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Reply # 194723 8-Feb-2009 11:30

RustyGonad:IMHO - given the amount of taxpayer funded dollars that have been wasted on this (advertising Freeview HD), this is a joke. Freeview simply wasn't ready for HD, still isn't, and we keep wondering when it will be. It has simply been a badly implemented ploy to try and match Sky...

I think the only mistake Freeview made was making a big deal about the HD aspect when this should have only ever been a minor selling point of the service.

The marketing people at Freeview really who decided that HD would be the big selling point and even went down the branding path calling the terrestrial service "Freeview|HD" really have no idea about anything.

Having said that I don't agree about other aspects - Freeview is nothing other than a replacement for the analogue network, something Freeview themselves seem to completely forget when they now start trying to compare themselves with Sky all the time.

PenultimateHop

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Reply # 194724 8-Feb-2009 11:49

I saw Sky cameramen filming with HD equipment at the stadium on both days; so I'm surprised they weren't broadcasting HD.

pjamieson

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Reply # 194726 8-Feb-2009 12:18

sbiddle: Having said that I don't agree about other aspects - Freeview is nothing other than a replacement for the analogue network, something Freeview themselves seem to completely forget when they now start trying to compare themselves with Sky all the time.

As much as I would love to agree with you and have often said the same thing and been quite frustrated by it, we need to accept that Freeview is actually a FTA Marketing consortium. The Digital rollout is being run by Kordia like everything else. Freeview was set up to market FTA broadcasting and take on Sky so they can get more viewers and therefore fight back against Sky to get more ad revenue. DTV was just a mechanism to rebrand themselves with better features and do the above.

lchiu7

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Reply # 194825 8-Feb-2009 23:06

RustyGonad: ..

A bit of info for those who constantly tout Freeview bitrates - Sky Sport HD is usually around 18-21Mb - quite a bit above Freeview (12-13Mb) - or so DVBViewer tells me... The picture quality via a HTPC from Sky Sport HD beats anything I've seen from Freeview outside of the Olympics on One - you are certainly never left wondering if its in HD...

..

I could be wrong but I thought Sky's HD over satellite was MPEG2 whereas FreeviewHD is H.264. That would account for the difference in bit rates. Can't make a comment on the quality of Sky's HD but would agree, the Olympics was outstanding, even more so given how much compression and transmission processing had to occur to get the picture to us.

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RustyGonad

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Reply # 194837 9-Feb-2009 08:04

lchiu7:
RustyGonad: ..

A bit of info for those who constantly tout Freeview bitrates - Sky Sport HD is usually around 18-21Mb - quite a bit above Freeview (12-13Mb) - or so DVBViewer tells me... The picture quality via a HTPC from Sky Sport HD beats anything I've seen from Freeview outside of the Olympics on One - you are certainly never left wondering if its in HD...

..

I could be wrong but I thought Sky's HD over satellite was MPEG2 whereas FreeviewHD is H.264. That would account for the difference in bit rates. Can't make a comment on the quality of Sky's HD but would agree, the Olympics was outstanding, even more so given how much compression and transmission processing had to occur to get the picture to us.

Its DVB-S2, 1080i using h.264, so its an apples with apples comparison.

Sound is DD5.1, most HD content is 5.1, with some sources stereo within the 5.1 container.

Most domestic content is 5.1 correct, ie cricket commentary comes from the centre channel.

Quality is fantastic, domestic content ie cricket etc looks stunning for broadcast TV.

Is it better than Freeview?, thats a whole seperate discussion, but its certainly no worse, despite what others on here have said. There's certainly a whole lot more content in HD than on Freeview...

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Reply # 194839 9-Feb-2009 08:24

I said I could be wrong! 21Mbs seems excessive for a H.264 channel unless you are measuring the entire bandwidth of the transponder which might be carrying multiple channels. Others with more technical knowledge feel free to jump in here.

I thought I had read that when FreeviewHD was going live they were planning on about 18-21Mbs/mux which might be shared across 2-3 channels. That makes more sense.

Also my understanding is in the US a single channel of HD (MPEG2) is supposed to be about 19Mbs (but some stations steal bandwidth for secondary channels etc.) so Sky's allocation for a single channel is very generous.

Can't argue with the fact that SkyHD has more HD content than Freeview. Freeview has so little HD content it's laughable

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old3eyes

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Reply # 194840 9-Feb-2009 08:29

lchiu7:
Can't argue with the fact that SkyHD has more HD content than Freeview. Freeview has so little HD content it's laughable

Especially what TVNZs offering are. Nearly zero..

Regards,

Old3eyes

RustyGonad

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Reply # 194841 9-Feb-2009 08:40

As I mentioned the bandwidth numbers were as reported by DVBViewer, all numbers quoted are as such.

This varies per channel ie Movies is lower, around 8-9 for an SD Movie, and around 12-16 for a HD movies (average). Sport is much higher averaging 18ish, but during the domestic cricket it often reached 21.

I can't comment how accurate these numbers are out of DVBViewer ie I don't know whether it reports the entire TS or not etc. It does vary per channel within the same Transport Stream so I'm assuming its a baseline number (once again not sure of its accurate) per channel.

The same program reports Freeview HD at around 12-13, so to the best of my knowledge they should provide a baseline comparison, even if not entirely accurate.

RustyGonad

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Reply # 194842 9-Feb-2009 08:44

old3eyes:
lchiu7:
Can't argue with the fact that SkyHD has more HD content than Freeview. Freeview has so little HD content it's laughable
Especially what TVNZs offering are. Nearly zero..

They could run a campaign to spot the HD logo...

Thing is the content is available - they're either choosing not to buy it, or not to display it in HD not sure which.

No one has chimed in with an answer about why the sevens weren't in HD yet... Did TVNZ block Sky, or did Sky block TVNZ...

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