Two production crews for Superbowl XXXVII: One for SD, One for HD??

[VacuumTubes]

ABC must have had two separate production crews at the bowl... here's why....

Did anyone else notice that the anolog broadcast at times did not match up with the HD broadcast? John Madden's use of the 'digital chalkboard' on the analog broadcast was not shown on the HD broadcast. In fact I never remember seeing it throughout the entire game. Also, when viewing PIP on my TV, different cameras were being used at different times. The analog broadcast had a camera at the 50 yard line, the HD broadcast did not. The HD broadcast had two cameras - one at about the 30 yard line at each end.

Also, during the coin toss, the HD camera got the shaft. This guy was trying to fight around the analog camera guy to get a good shot. You could see the analog camera in the referee's face at all times.

During half time, there were many cameras on booms. These cameras were analog. The HD broadcast got a few shots from these cameras as the screen switched from 16:9 to 4:3 during the shot.

That brings up another thing that was annoying. Why jump from a HD camera to a non-HD camera? That's lame! Its the super bowl, bring enough cameras!

The way ABC shot this game in HD is quite different from the way CBS shot the SEC College Staurday games in HD. CBS used HD cameras for their HD broadcast and analog broadcast. They simply down converted the HD to analog 4:3. Seems a lot simpler to do it that way.

Ok, I'm done rambling...

Overall... good broadcast. HD is the shiznit!

[feverish]

HD cameras are quite expensive, so with only 1 mil HD viewers, the return on investment probably didn't justify setting up more.

I really enjoyed the show. I put up my antenna yesterday, and had a ton of friends over to watch the game. Everyone was amazed at the clarity.

Overall, I was happy with the broadcast, understanding that we are really on the bleeding edge of another telecom revolution...

[VacuumTubes]

why go all to that trouble and almost half-ass it? Shit, whats a few more cams to a multi-billion dollar broadcast company. All it would take is for one less 'reality TV' show that pays a million bux, and there's your extra HD cams. :)

[tvplease]

Ya right !! 2.2 Million every 30 seconds !!!!!!!!!Abc sucks !!!!!

[kevinw]

I have to go with " It could gave been better"
PQ was very good for the HD shots and ok for 4:3.
Audio was not synced to the HD feed. I can live with out the graphics but more HD cameras would have been better.

What I really wanted is the PQ to be as good as the ESPNHD commercials was.

[live4ten]

The PQ on the Matrix and other film previews was also very refreshing, first time I've seen them in hi def. The camera that showed Madden and Michaels in the booth also seemed to be different for HD, we'd see past the end of the curtain and some of the people in the skyboxes, thought that was pretty cool. Overall I was satisfied, there was some 4:3 camera switching during the CBS AFC Divisional Games and Championship game, and that was also sponsored by RCA, so I figured this would be about the same. Too bad the game was a letdown.

[GsxrTony]

I thought they did a decent job with it. But they really should have just shot the whole thing in HD and down converted for the normal masses. My set looked awesome and all my friends who were over and had never seen HD before were going nuts. Thankfuly they didnt even noticed some of the hicups that we all did.

[kevinw]

I think one of the reasons for not doing it all in HD was for graphics-the magic chalkboard..1st down
markers and the such

[Jester]

A quick note about the picture quality of MPEG-2 (which forms the basis for DVDs, digital tv and hdtv) .

It's important to remember that picture quality for live broadcasts cannot matchup to film transfers (or prerecorded programming)because of the time factor.

In order for the compression to happen in real time, the broadcaster typically selects a Constant Bit Rate (CBR) and runs the analog data (from the camera lens) through a hardware compressor (codec) in the HD camera to create the digital data feed.

This is in direct contrast to a film transfer which starts with the high resolution film. The very sophisticated software and production personnel can take their time to look at each frame of the source material and increase or decrease the variable data rate (VBR) to accomodate the complexity of the scene change. It is not uncommon for some scenes to be mastered at several data rates to A/B compare for the best mix of quality/compression.

As the technology wears in and the cameras get better algorithms to handle flexible data rates, the quality of live events will improve. Just don't expect the programming on ESPNHD to approach the amazing clarity of the ESPNHD teaser commercial.

[VacuumTubes]

speaking of the alpha-chromatic First down markers.... I don't think they were used on the HD broadcast...?? i was freakin most of the time because the picture looked so good.