HD Schedule?

[steve267268]

No HD today? Who the heck is making these decisions?

[steve267268]

For those of you with DirecTV, most of you probably know this but every year you get a free preview of MLB Extra Innings and this year is no different. If the game is played today, and you really want the HD, Extra Innings has the San Francisco feed available. I might opt for this. San Fran's booth guys aren't too bad and it will be fun to hear them get all googly eyed over our young offensive talent.

[CrewDood]

No HD today? Who the heck is making these decisions?

Same for the home opener, as well http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/eyes.gif

[brewtown82]

Is it just me, or is the SD feed on DirecTV for FSN better this year? It was god-awful last year.

[FIPS133]

I just saw the FSN Wisconsin HD schedule yesterday in the Journal Sentinel and I was interested that starting in mid-June almost all remaining games are broadcast in HD. There must be some reason for this like the acquisition of additional equipment. Perhaps the investment in going virtually all HD didn't line up with the start of this season? Anyway while I'd love every game in HD I recognize that the penetration of HD sets into the marketplace is relatively small and sooner or later everything will be in HD.

[1992casey]

Survey results released in November, 2008, indicate 34% / 40 million households.

 

These two items are about the same survey:

• HDTV market penetration at all-time high
• HDTV penetration rises to 40 million, 34% of U.S. households

[MickeyDavis]

Along with no HD FSN production is as bad/worse than last year. No pitch speeds for the whole game, poor camera angles/late switching to the right camera on balls put in play, Brewers score a run, they subtract two from the score (this happened more than once and also to the Giants score), slow/inaccurate pitch counts. Not to mention Davey and Telly. It would be a lot easier to put up with all that crap if at least we had an HD picture.

[temke]

I just saw the FSN Wisconsin HD schedule yesterday in the Journal Sentinel and I was interested that starting in mid-June almost all remaining games are broadcast in HD. There must be some reason for this like the acquisition of additional equipment. Perhaps the investment in going virtually all HD didn't line up with the start of this season? Anyway while I'd love every game in HD I recognize that the penetration of HD sets into the marketplace is relatively small and sooner or later everything will be in HD.

if this were the case, it would have been nice for them to come out and say that. instead they offered no reason why they flipped on their claim from late last year.

[Menotti80]

mickey points out a bunch of things, but getting the pitch count and score wrong were the two big things i noticed. just awful...

[fondybrewfan]

I am hoping that the issues last night were just first game issues and that FSN will make the necessary adjustments. I think I remember the first couple broadcasts from last year also being pretty awful. All that I ask is for a correct score, correct count, correct men on base, and that plays are never missed because some stupid camera is watching a cute couple in the stands wearing Brewers gear and the camera transition guy is on the john somewhere.

[MJLiverock]

I noticed during last night's game vs. the Giants the pitch speeds were shown in the box for a split second, and I do mean a split second, if you aren't watchiing the little box instead of the game you will miss it. I only noticed it because I caught the movement as they rolled a graphic over to flash the speed a few times. I didn't notice that they showed every pitch speed but again the flash is so quick it is easy to miss.

 

I would agree with brewtown the SD feed does seem improved this year, not nearly as dark and grainy as past years. I only had this problem with the FSN Wi SD feeds, not the FSN North or the SD feed of WGN games so I am pretty sure it was a FSN WI issue. A friend in Madison who has the MLB package for Cardinal games even commented on how awful the FSN WI SD feed was last year compared to other FSN channels.

[Invader3K]

Yeah, it might be partly because I now have a new Pioneer plasma HDTV (had a Mitsubishi HD-ready rear project set before), but the FS-Wisconsin SD picture does look sharper than last year's did, if only a little bit.

 

I don't think the pitch speed "flash" is any quicker than last year's was, to be honest. Overall I thought they did a better job last night than with the first game of the series, which hopefully means they're getting more comfortable. It's not like they had a lot of spring training games to "practice."

[areacodes]

I know some were looking for some verification about what we heard last year from BA about all the games being in HD this year. This article from the Capital Times mentions that FSN said in May of '08 that they planned to be full-time HD in the first quarter of '09 and "that would mean FSN will produce its entire slate of more than 3,000 Major League Baseball, National Basketball Association, National Hockey League and college football and basketball games in HD." However, "FSN said the RSNs' HD roll-out plans will be determined by a number of factors, including team telecast rights and distribution agreements," so who knows when we'll actually get to see this happen.

 

Does anybody know if any of the other regional feeds are full-time HD? Was there a massive change due to the economy going in the crapper or are we one of a few regions to not have it set up yet?

[hurricanecrush]

http://www.jsonline.com/sports/43321937.html

The Chicago Cubs and Houston Astros this season offer all of their games on TV through their local broadcast partners. All Cubs games are in HD.

The following is a list of all the 2009 games and the ones in HD produced by the local TV partners of the teams in the National League Central. It does not include the national telecasts those teams were selected for by Fox Sports or ESPN, which offer those games in HD.

Chicago 153 games, 153 HD on Comcast SportsNet, WGN and WCIU.

Houston 156 games, 126 HD on Fox Sports Houston and KTXH.

St. Louis 151 games, 100 HD on Fox Sports Midwest and KSDK.

Cincinnati 145 games, 100 HD on Fox Sports Ohio.

Milwaukee 136 games, 95 HD on Fox Sports Wisconsin.

Pittsburgh 125 games, 75 HD on Fox Sports Pittsburgh. The number of games produced by a team's local television partner is negotiated with the team and agreed to in contract.

Other than the Cubs and to a lesser extent Houston, we are pretty much in the same boat as the rest of the division. It does make you wonder why all of the games against the Cubs aren't in HD; wouldn't it make sense to share the video feed?

[MickeyDavis]

Here is something I don't understand. Both Friday and Saturdays games were in HD, great. Todays game is not. But Houstons broadcast (also an FSN channel) IS in HD. So the equipment is there. Why would one FSN channel have it in HD and the other not in HD, it's odd.

[Invader3K]

I don't know. I've never heard an explanation for that one, either. Maybe someone should e-mail FSN and just ask. (I'm not sure how to contact them, myself).

[rm121978]

I believe each team's broadcast crew uses some of it's own cameras. They may share a few for things like the centerfield camera, but the Brewers have their own cams there which may have been needed for another event. Same goes with the HD production equipment.

[MickeyDavis]

When FSN-WI was on MySpace last year, Trenni would answer all emails sent there. Now that she's gone it looks like they use Facebook but don't really communicate with anyone.

 

It's odd that they would use Facebook and not a real website.

 

In any event FSN production is like a high school A/V club. If that.

[Invader3K]

I'm totally speculating, but do they for some reason need an extra day to transport the equipment back to Milwaukee, since there's a game on Monday?

 

Actually, nope, none of the games in the upcoming Pirates series appears to be in HD. So again, I'm at a loss.

[mtrebs]

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It's odd that they would use Facebook and not a real website.

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I hate when companies use MySpace or Facebook type sites for their official websites. Movie companies do this all of the time. It seems like a lazy way out of having to set up their own official website.

[MickeyDavis]

Monday and Tuesday vs. the Pirates are not in HD here but are in HD in Pittsburgh. Both FSN.

[Invader3K]

Another odd one. I suppose they'd need HD camers for Brian and Bill, Telly, etc. though.

[MickeyDavis]

They could leave Telly off of HD, I'd be fine with that. They could turn his mic off too while they're at it.

[temke]

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It's odd that they would use Facebook and not a real website.

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I hate when companies use MySpace or Facebook type sites for their official websites. Movie companies do this all of the time. It seems like a lazy way out of having to set up their own official website.

News Corp owns both MySpace and Fox, so that kind of make sense.

[B2k1121]

I always flip between the Brewers game and MLB Network to see the live look-ins they do. Last night whenever they showed the Brewers it was the Brewers feed and it was in HD, same with the highlights of the game. How does that work?