Is football on sky now shot progressively?

[ihan]

Hi all,

Is football on sky now shot with progressive scan cameras? If so, when using a Lumagen (for example) does it go into film mode and give the expected increase in quality? In other words, do you lose the jagged (or staircase) effect on the white pitch lines when movement occurs?

The main reason I sold my Lumagen was because I thought its video deinterlacing was worse than my 50PHD7 panel. However, I only thought this was really noticeable with fast camera pans e.g. sport.

However, if sport is now being 'captured' progressively, perhaps it is time I purchased a processor? Are the BBC using progressive cameras for sport as well? Everything 'i' should be eradicated and replaced with 'p'!

Regards,
Ian

[chachi]

Most of the Sky footie and BBC sporting events are now done with HD gear

Unless my understanding of mpeg encoding is well off, since neither Freeview or Sky is a "progressive digital broadcast" it is a dead issue in the context of your question unless they 'rejig' the encoders.

Or am I well off base?

[ihan]

Hi Chachi,

These are my thoughts (perhaps they are wrong, if so could someone tell me why):

If a frame is progressive (for instance from a 720p@25 frames/sec camera), then it can be split into two 50Hz fields and encoded and transmitted using normal techniques.

A video processor would hopefully detect the source was constructed of progressive frames (like it does with most movies transmitted) and go into film mode.

Someone owning a crystalio set to 'Auto' would hopefully be able to answer my question - the Film LED on the front panel should illuminate.

Regards,
Ian

[chachi]

True enough, but my understanding of UK digital terrestrial and digital satellite boxes and transmission leads me to believe that transmission (with such frame tags/etc) or such is not permitted under the spec.

Just as interested as yourself to find out 'the truth' on this one

[Liam @ Prog AV]

Hi Chachi,

it's exactly the same transmission as before (50 interlaced fields) except having been shot originally as 25 progressive ones which were cut in half and doubled, a decent processor (any display with 2:2 detection) can identify that this was how the signal started, and can combine each pair of fields to form 25 fully progressive frames again. Each frame is then showed twice to keep up the frame count.

This is how movies are broadcast on TV as they are usually shot progressively then interlaced for broadcast. But up until now football had always been shot interlaced, so the original full-frame information never existed thus your display must guess the missing information.

It's real confusing, and not helped much by my ramblings on our website but this might be worth a read:

http://progressive-av.co.uk/accessor...rogressive.htm

[chachi]

indeed it is a bit confusing (had a slight headache before which has suddenly magnified )

I did not think 2:2 detection would work on a signal which had passed through two sets of convertors (original HD encoding and then subsequently SD down-scaled)

[chachi]

the other thing ihan is SkyHD is launching soon (for 2 or 3 hundred for the new box which is a dual PVR also) and then you'll get the footie in its 'natural' hidef format and not really need a scaler ...

[welwynnick]

If footie is shot in progressive and broadcast interlaced, wouldn't successive fields be taken from different frames?

ie: not like film?

Nick

[chachi]

my headache is coming back

[Liam @ Prog AV]

Originally Posted by welwynnick

If footie is shot in progressive and broadcast interlaced, wouldn't successive fields be taken from different frames?

ie: not like film?

Nick

How do you mean? I must admit my understanding gets a bit patchy of what exactly goes on but I see no difference between taken 25 progressive film mode frames and interlacing to 50Hz for broadcast and taking 25 progressive football frames and interlacing those to 50Hz interlaced for broadcast. There might be fun and games if the signal started as 50 frames progressive which would involve either dropped frames or interpolative steps. But I would assume if you took a 50 frame progressive signal and dropped every other frame, you would have exactly the same result as if you had recorded it at only 25 frames progressive in the first place.

[chachi]

At the end of it all, I guess we need to beg someone with a decent scaler (and Sky) to check/confirm what the treatment is for football these days.

[Liam @ Prog AV]

I'm one step ahead of you. But I don't have Sky at home so am waiting for some thing to come on the box here! However according to the guide there's no current premiership footage until at least 5pm, and that's only a weekly roundup so may not be the same as a live broadcast.

[chachi]

Originally Posted by Liam @ Prog AV

I'm one step ahead of you. But I don't have Sky at home so am waiting for some thing to come on the box here! However according to the guide there's no current premiership footage until at least 5pm, and that's only a weekly roundup so may not be the same as a live broadcast.

True enough but pretty sure the Beeb is doing FA Cup this wkend ...

[Liam @ Prog AV]

Yep, and ITV are doing Champions League on Tuesday. But that still won't necessarily prove the Premiership specifically is progressive

[chachi]

True but the OP enquired about the Beeb's broadcasts as well ... Champions League is hit-n-miss with regards to camera/aspect anyway

Any idea if a Sky+ recordings of HD shot footie would / would not work if 'live' does ?