View Full Version : MNF - Massive compressive artifacting?
LowFuel
09-08-2003, 09:02 PM
Anyone else getting an unacceptable amount of compression artifacts on Monday Night Football tonight? Its by far the most compression I've seen on any HD broadcast...
ESPN's game last night looked fantastic, as did CBS's game.
I have to admit I havent watched much stuff on ABC until now, so Im not sure if it always this bad... anyone having a similar experience? :(
kevinw
09-08-2003, 09:43 PM
No problems OTA in Atlanta..
It looked fine on Rogers Cable Toronto - the ABC signal came from Detroit in DD5.1. I watched about 10 minutes of the game (probably a half hour of TV time...). I saw no artifacts. The "skycam" (not sure if that's the right name - over the field) was just awful. Obviously an SD camera.
51gator50
09-08-2003, 11:59 PM
something was not right tonight! i only watched a little of the game but i could not see how much time was left in game,time was cut off. as well stats at bottom of screen were also cut off. watched game on thursday and it looked great. wish i could say same about tonight. watching thru time warner hd.
LowFuel
09-09-2003, 12:22 AM
Sounds like OTA was good, Cable was not. I assume this is the cable companies trying to cram too much stuff in thier digital channels?
Oh wait, I see one of you was on Rogers in Toronto. Is that a digital cable channel or do they put the HD through on the analog side?
leadvocal
09-09-2003, 04:51 AM
Looked fine on Comcast (although I didn't see the whole game).
Is that a digital cable channel or do they put the HD through on the analog side?
All HD broadcasts are digital.
leadvocal
09-09-2003, 04:53 AM
Looked fine on Comcast (although I didn't see the whole game).
Is that a digital cable channel or do they put the HD through on the analog side?
All HD broadcasts are digital.
Originally posted by LowFuel Sounds like OTA was good, Cable was not. I assume this is the cable companies trying to cram too much stuff in thier digital channels?
Oh wait, I see one of you was on Rogers in Toronto. Is that a digital cable channel or do they put the HD through on the analog side? 1. The cable companies do not "cram" anything. They provide the information in the same 19.4 Mb/s stream that OTA does. If there are differences it may be the STB or some other factor.
2. HD in analog form would be over 1Gb/s, which would take up the entire bandwidth of the cable system plus. All HD is digital, whether it's OTA or Cable. Satellite (and perhaps a small cable company that puts 3 HD channels into 6 MHz stream) sometimes compresses HD a bit more since they're short on bandwidth in some areas.
spaceman_spiff
09-09-2003, 08:32 AM
These are my observations.
Last night picture quality was not the best I have seen on MNF. The SD skycam camera was terrible. I would sometimes see fine pixellation of the grass in HD.
The graphics of MNF didnt look good either, they looked like they were upconverted SD. I have seen clear smooth graphics before on MNF.
LowFuel
09-09-2003, 10:46 AM
Thanks for the information everyone, and sorry for my ignorance in the nature of these broadcasts. :)
LowFuel
09-09-2003, 05:04 PM
Originally posted by 57U
1. The cable companies do not "cram" anything. They provide the information in the same 19.4 Mb/s stream that OTA does. If there are differences it may be the STB or some other factor.
For what its worth, I sent an email to Cox and asked them a few questions about how they handle this stuff.
Here is the relevant part of their reply:
(note, KGTV is the local ABC affiliate):
We do not alter the bandwidth of the signal we get, we just pass it on. Our engineers talked to KGTV, and they are reporting that they are at a constant 13mbps.
So, ABC is actually using less bandwidth. This may be because they are a 720P signal which requires less bandwidth (13 vs 19 Mbps = 720 vs 1080).
As noted "Cox do not alter the bandwidth of the signal we get, we just pass it on..."
LowFuel
09-10-2003, 10:45 AM
Good point. So it seems likely now that I might have a problem with my own connection or setup.
I'll explore that a bit more and see if the picture quality improves next week.
51gator50
09-13-2003, 10:23 PM
did you see both games(the jets/redskins and eagles/bucs games)? i saw them both and picture was different monday night in negative way. nothing about my setup was any different and hope game monday between giants and that other team is better. as you can tell i'm a big giants fan
trainop2003
09-18-2003, 12:57 PM
I also have noticed in the San Diego area that the picture quality in the center of the screen is horrible. Lot's of blockiness and scan lines. What I could concure is that my DTV receiver is a Hughes e86 and it is upconverting the signal to 1080i and then the DLP is downconverting it again to 720p.
I hooked up the old Hitachi 43fbxo1b and noticed that the image was not improved due to its limited 1000 lines of horizontal interlaced resolution however the problems that we have been discussing went away. Could be a conversion issue? Not sure... I was concerned that it was the new tv. Just a note that the DLP proved to show an outstanding image quality with the satellite reception for ESPN-HD. I also noticed the Sky-Cam image was better. (Almost a 480p FOX widescreen quality). Anybody else noticed ESPN's sky-cam image being somewhat better?
LowFuel
10-27-2003, 11:04 AM
Well it's still the same quality for me. Maybe I'm just more sensitive to it.
Heres my experience with the various NFL broadcasters:
CBS: Looks AMAZING when the camera isnt moving. A fair amount of compression artifacts though during pans and other shots where the camera is in motion.
ESPN: Looks the best all-around, they seem to have found a good balance between still and motion shots. Very little noticable artifacts, except for a general "noise" when you can see the crowd.
ABC: In my opinion utterly pathetic for still shots, and not much better when the camera is moving. Worst of the three by far.
I can only say that I rarely see compression artifacts on HDTV. There has to be a lot of motion over an extended period for this to happen, although it does happen.
Perhaps part of the reason you're seeing it more is because the artifacts are being exacerbated by SVM or sharpness settings on the TV. Please ensure the TV is properly set up - see the FAQ "What you need to do to your new HDTV".
You're also more likely to see this on Satellite HD signals since they send information at roughly 13 Mb/sec instead of 19.4 on Cable & OTA.
LowFuel
11-18-2003, 12:23 PM
Well, I dont think it's my TV as most other HD channels look just fine, and I have in fact calibrated my set to Avia's specifications.
And again, Cox says the stream they are passing on for ABC is 13mbps because it's a 720p channel. 1080i channels are at 19.4mbps.
I will finally have a friend with HDTV before next monday's game, so I will be able to see how it looks for someone else. :)
HD Guru
12-06-2003, 02:44 PM
While there are occasional problems on the origination end of programming, especially the "backhaul" signal from a remote location to network master control, most of the problems you're experiencing are almost certainly due to some problem in the cable system.
As I noted, there are some problems that occur at the source, and ABC was having a lot of trouble with the MNF signal either last Monday or the week before. It got so bad a couple of times that they had to switch to the backup feed and "upconvert" the standard definition broadcast for several seconds...once or twice while I was watching.
I have also seen some compression artifacts caused by similar problems in their getting the signal from the game site to master control. CBS had some of that during last years' NCAA Final Four, and these problems come and go. There is still a learning curve for HD broadcasting and the satellite providers (the ones the networks use to transmit from remote sites) and/or fiber carriers don't always give them all the bandwidth they're paying for. Hence, you get compression artifacts.
All that said, MOST broadcasts are OK, but the clarity of our sets immediately alerts us to any problems. Ever watched a cameraman try to "rack focus" one of those very long zoom shots across the football field? It's pretty obvious on HD, because we see and expect perfection.
I get my HD via Time Warner Cable in Houston and they have occasional problems, more with ABC's 720p than the others, at this point.
There are also problems at the stations with Dolby 5.1, especially maintaining lip-sync. Some stations have solved this...others keep fighting it. There is some new equipment available to permanently solve this problem, but few have it yet.
