HD shows/movies on TV.

[Kam]

So this may be better suited for one of the other forums, but i know everybody here so i'll ask it here.

Watching Fringe last night I noticed something that was very visible to me. The quality of the video itself. The differences between watching sports in HD, films broadcast on HD, and TV shows on HD is all different, both within networks and across networks.

Fox sports was FAR sharper than Fringe was. Now, this could have been an aesthetic choice as well, but it didn't feel like one. It wasn't grainy enough to be a factor in the overall "look" of the show, and i would have thought added detail would have added to the ambiance better than the ever-so-soft muddyness.

I haven't really been keeping up-to-snuff on all the HD talk and all that, so maybe this is an already discussed issue, but this was the first time i really noticed it. Also watching the episode of the simpsons that precursored the show, it looked horrible in HD. Yet some family guy episodes i saw looked terrific. Is this just a factor of Fox's HD programming?

-k2

[ForeverAutumn]

I recorded Fringe in HD but haven't watched it yet, I'll comment on my impressions of the quality for you after I've watched it.

I hated watching Lost last season in HD on ABC. The film was jerky and cut off suddenly before commercials. I found that the Canadian HD channel had a much better picture. It meant missing some of the special features, like the Hanso commercials and trailers for next week. But it was well worth it for the superior picture and all the extra stuff was on You Tube the next day anyway.

With regards to the Simpsons, was the episode actually filmed in HD? I don't like to watch older shows that weren't filmed in HD on the HD channels.

[bobsticks]

With regards to the Simpsons, was the episode actually filmed in HD? I don't like to watch older shows that weren't filmed in HD on the HD channels.

Hey Kam,

Fall Girl kinda touched on it right there. There are a lot of variables in the chain including how the picture shot. Another significant factor is going to be the native resolution and processing capabilities of your set. Fox Sports films in 720p because, at the time, most sets were 720p/1080i and the processing of interlaced signal often resulted in glitches and motion blurs.

Of course, many of the more "artsy" affairs are filmed on a grainier stock and then tranferrred. Kinda like music, you can never escape the characteristics of the original source material.

---sticks

[Kam]

i think as far as the simpsons goes, that was a very old repeat episode so i'm pretty sure it was never in hd resolution to begin with, good call on that one. and for Fringe, it might have been a choice to have it look that way, but i know i've seen much 'seemingly' better resolutions on other programs, even the news!

[kexodusc]

For sports the consensus, as Bobby Styxx alluded to, is to record in the 720p format to keep the motion scenes from getting blurry/and distorted. I think most other networks broadcast for 1080i though.

The biggest factor I can think of is the use of compression by cable/satellite companies. It's a huge issue for my bro right now with Comcast. There's only so much bandwidth to go around and infrastructure can't keep up. So they compress the video like they do to music on mp3's...the lower the bitrate, the crappier the quality.

I can only speculate that's a possibility for Kam's case.

[Kam]

For sports the consensus, as Bobby Styxx alluded to, is to record in the 720p format to keep the motion scenes from getting blurry/and distorted. I think most other networks broadcast for 1080i though.

The biggest factor I can think of is the use of compression by cable/satellite companies. It's a huge issue for my bro right now with Comcast. There's only so much bandwidth to go around and infrastructure can't keep up. So they compress the video like they do to music on mp3's...the lower the bitrate, the crappier the quality.

I can only speculate that's a possibility for Kam's case.

i think that is probably it (the compression issue). i have time warner cable, and generally, abc/nbc/cbs has had some great HD programming. even CNN when i was watching bits of the demo/repub conventions, their HD programming was amazingly crisp. this was the first time i saw a program (Fringe) that i noticed was visibly lower in quality than other broadcast HD programs so it definitely rang a visual chord. also i generally don't watch Fox for anything other than sports/simpsons/family guy so i thought maybe Fox's HD programming is just not up to snuff with the others.

[kelsci]

For a week and half after we received our high def comcast box, we were getting a bunch of subscribtion stations in high-def. I was very impressed with HBO-EAST in high def. Just about any movie I saw looked great to me. I would say it was limited to the transfer or to the way the original film was shot. MAX-EAST was 2nd and nearly as good. STARZ was VG but not as good as HBO and MAX. I hardly viewed SHOWTIME, or other HD stations so I cannot give an opinion on those.