CBS - HD

[Patrick425]

I purchased my HD TV in Feb 2008. One of the first sporting events I got to watch on it was the NCAA tourney. I was not pleased with the picture and wondered if something was wrong with my connection or TV. However, after having it for a year, I realize that there is no picture quality issues when watching sports or anything else on other channels.

 

Also, golf and other sports on CBS come in good, but I'm watching the UCLA/Villanova game right now and the picture is terrible. Especially when there is lots of motion. If they do a close up of the coach or one of the players, the picture is good, but the camera angle from above the court (the one used most of the game) is terrible. This is true for just about every game I have watched so far in the tourney.

 

Anyone else experience this?

[Roscoe Chill]

I thought the same thing. I turned it to the Non HD CBS channel, and the HD channel is better, but you're right, it's really bad for HD.

[whizkid]

Good it's not my TV. I'm on charter but thursday night I switched to OTA and it was the same, grainy with motion, on replays etc. Last night when they were switching between UW, Ohio St and Cleve St it seemed the UW broadcast was the best and Cleve St. the worst. Haven't had any problems with football or previous bb telecasts.

[giffted1]

Yeah, I've seen this on my TV too, both digital cable and OTA digital. I had the same issues with the Olympics this summer.

[Invader3K]

It could possibly be because CBS broadcasts in 1080i (I think), which is generally thought to be worse for sports and fast motion than 720p is.

[BrewCrewForever]

Yeah it does not look as good as my other HD channels.

[mtrebs]

It could possibly be because CBS broadcasts in 1080i (I think), which is generally thought to be worse for sports and fast motion than 720p is.

I've discussed this before with a bunch of my friends that have HDTV's and HD-service. CBS and NBC HD broadcasts aren't very good for fast-motions like sporting events. ABC, FOX, and ESPN are much better. I've heard that CBS and NBC record the events in 1080i and the other stations are in 720p but I don't have any proof of this.

[1992casey]

It's mentioned somewhere in other threads around here that CBS and FOX use 720p. MLB Network is also 720p; they say is was chosen after careful consideration because they felt it would work better with baseball.

[mtrebs]

I found a site that lists the resolutions for each network, but it's from 2007 so I don't know if it is accurate anymore.

 

http://www.cnet.com/1990-7874_1-5119938-1.html

 

I also checked out Wikipedia and found this:

 

In North America, FOX, MyNetworkTV (both owned by the News Corporation), ABC, and ESPN (ABC and ESPN are both owned by Disney) currently broadcast 720p content. NBC, Universal HD (both owned by the NBC Universal subsidiary of General Electric and Vivendi), CBS, The CW (co-owned by CBS and Time Warner), HBO (owned by Time Warner), Showtime (owned by CBS), Starz! (owned by Liberty Media), MOJO HD, HDNet,MTV2 (owned by Viacom) ,TNT (owned by Time Warner), CNN (also owned by Time Warner), Discovery HD Theater(owned by Discovery Communications) and the Public Broadcasting Service currently broadcast 1080i content. In Canada, virtually all over-the-air HD stations broadcast 1080i, as do most cable specialty channels. For list of local over the air HD channels visit a web site like antennaweb.org

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_television_in_the_United_States

[MarquesJohnson2000]

I have DISH network and they don't even pick up Channel 58's HD signal for some reason (get Ch. 4,6,12 HD with no problem)

[Patrick425]

I found this article, but I'm pretty sure that CBS does not do multi-casting in the Milwaukee area.

 

http://www.tvpredictions.com/cbs020207.htm

 

Edit: Actually maybe they do multicast. I was not aware of this. http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendId=321797255&blogId=370873869

Maybe this is what causes the poor picture quality during the NCAA tourney.

[Godspeed]

I found this article, but I'm pretty sure that CBS does not do multi-casting in the Milwaukee area.

 

http://www.tvpredictions.com/cbs020207.htm

That would be incorrect. They have the 58-2 and 58-3 subchannels. During non-tournament times, 58-2 is the feed for WMLW, and 58-3 airs meTV (old-timey television). During the tournament, 58-3 was showing SD versions of the game.

 

Nice find, Patrick. This completely makes sense to me. CBS in La Crosse wasn't multi-casting at all last year I believe and the picture was 1000x better. Then I move to Milwaukee and get stuck with this muck.

[whizkid]

Minor point but 58.3 is ThisTV not MeTV. Here's the 58 press release. I've noticed 58.3 is also pretty crappy even for SD so there may be something to this. There have been a few times where I've started out watching the alternate game but then they switch 58.3 to the same game as 58.1 for extended periods or the rest of the way which sucks.

[fondybrewfan]

My HD feed was generally good from CBS over the weekend, the picture seemed pretty clear to me.

 

My problem was about every 20-30 minutes the darn thing would freeze up in the middle of game play resulting in me missing about 30 seconds each time. I am assuming it was a Dish Network and/or CBS problem because it never happened on any other channel. It was extremely annoying as it seemed to freeze at the most inopportune time.

[Marc Newfield of Dreams]

CBS looks like crap on my TV, which is fairly new and 1080p.

 

I don't think it's a 1080i issue, hockey and football on NBC look great, as well as TNT's NBA coverage.

 

It might be their feed, or it might be a bandwidth issue with WDJT, since they have so many subchannels.