NCAA Tournament Selective CBS HD

[cracka]

Ok, so I suffered through standard def, dark PQ for the Texas win over New Mexico State tonight... we were wondering if perhaps the facility in Spokane didn't have the infrastructure to support an HD production. Then I flipped back over 20 minutes later and USC-Arkansas was being shown in glorious HD from the SAME ARENA. What gives?!

Could it be a lack of uplink bandwidth for CBS, since they had so many live games going on at once?

 

[BFG]

that game was hd here.

If you visit AVS they have an explanation as to why some games people will see in sd while others see HD.

There are 4 HD flex feeds w/ matching SD flex feeds

then there are 4 SD constant feeds.

A constant feed is one where 1 game is shown in it's entirety

the flex feeds move around to different games

 

[cracka]

Interesting... thanks for the explanation.

 

[Sean Mota]

I like the way CBS keeps you updated about the interested match ups especially in the final minutes. However, whenever the switch is made from one game to another the 5.1 digital audio gets screwed and it takes a few seconds for it to be corrected. I found it uselful to be kept updated but sometimes found it to be annoying as I was watching one game from the beginning and could not watch the final moments because CBS decided to show a more interested match up. I can see how this can be very annoying for some who have a particular interest in a team.

 

[wantogetstarted]

I was mad because here in Pittsburgh all the games were in HD. Until the Pitt game came on then the whole thing was in SD (Both Thursday and Saturday). As soon as it was over then it was back to HD. I don't know what was up with that but KDKA (Pittsburgh's CBS station) blew it in my opinion.

 

[nuts4scuba]

I was mad because here in Pittsburgh all the games were in HD. Until the Pitt game came on then the whole thing was in SD (Both Thursday and Saturday). As soon as it was over then it was back to HD. I don't know what was up with that but KDKA (Pittsburgh's CBS station) blew it in my opinion.

It was explained in one of the above posts. The HD feeds would move from game to game, but there were 4 SD feeds that would just stay on that particular game. Your affiliate chose to show the SD feed so Pitt fans wouldn't bitch when they went to another game on the HD feed.

 

[Sean Mota]

While some viewers will violently disagree, it's hard not to feel sympathy for Channel 58, which has been stuck in a no-win situation thanks to CBS' NCAA basketball tournament coverage.
As TV technology advances, there are more chances to follow the initial field of 65 teams. But that technology is still developing, and last week it caused a perfect storm that led to nearly everybody barking at Milwaukee's CBS station. The barkers include:
• High-definition viewers who demand as many games as possible in the ultra-sharp format, especially games with local interest.
• College basketball fans who want as many games as possible at the same time.
• Non-basketball fans who don't want their viewing schedules disrupted at all.
Starting with high-def, Channel 58 decided last week to offer Thursday's Marquette game, and Friday and Sunday University of Wisconsin-Madison games, in high-definition. But CBS doesn't promise to stick with a game if it's not exciting enough.
As CBS' high-def broadcast moved elsewhere, Channel 58 had to switch to the standard broadcast of the Marquette and UW-Madison games - and then switch back to high-def when the network went back.
"We have absolutely no idea when the network is going to go away," says Channel 58 general manager Jim Hall. "And we don't know when they're coming back. As some viewers saw, they may come back for a second and go away again. It becomes a difficult coordination."
Then there's the broadcast of multiple games at the same time.
Channel 58 isn't technically able to broadcast a high-def game and a standard-definition "multicast" of other games simultaneously. So when it decided at the last minute last week to answer the local demand for Wisconsin and Marquette in high-def, it had to drop the multicast of three games available to viewers who can pick up digital broadcast over the air or on Time Warner digital cable.
"We felt that when we showed a local team, the vast majority would be watching that," says Hall in explaining the decision to pick, say, the high-def feed of Marquette rather than a standard definition feed of Marquette and two other games.
For the record, Channel 58 will be in multicast mode for Thursday and Friday games but will offer high-definition games over the weekend.

http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=579261