Commonwealth Games in HD ?

[RecordablDVDfan]

I wonder if any HD channel will be showing the Commonwealth Games from Melbourne ? Be nice to get some HD feeds direct but very unlikely I suspect via Ku band anyway maybe C band ?

 

[add46.88]

if it was in HD then it would be :arty: time......


it will hurt to watch though,cos i should of been there myself in the Athletics team

 

[Stephen Neal]

I don't know if the Melbourne coverage is being originated in HD. I doubt it is - as Canada is the only HD broadcasting nation in the Commonwealth apart from Aus, and the Aussies only took the Athens and Turin Olympics HD coverage in 16:9 SD... (576/50i upconverted to 576/50p domestically)

 

[RecordablDVDfan]

I don't know if the Melbourne coverage is being originated in HD. I doubt it is - as Canada is the only HD broadcasting nation in the Commonwealth apart from Aus, and the Aussies only took the Athens and Turin Olympics HD coverage in 16:9 SD... (576/50i upconverted to 576/50p domestically)

Really ? I am surprised at this, I thought Oz would have shown at least the opening / closing cermonies in HD ?

So you mean even if Oz could broadcast HD they are prevented from doing so ?!

 

[Stephen Neal]

It depends on a few things :

1. Who has the rights to show the commonwealth games in Aus. If it is a 576p "HD" broadcaster, then they are likely to originate in 576i. If it is a 1080i "HD" broadcaster then they may well shoot the ceremonies in HD.

2. Who would fund it? The Olympics in HD is funded mainly by NBC in the US and NHK in Japan. Neither of these countries are participants in the Commonwealth games - with Canada the only HD broadcasting nation apart from Aus.

I don't think they'd be prevented from doing so by anything other than economics and outlets. (In other words, they'd need the money to do it, and an HD outlet)

Don't forget - Aussie HD includes 576/50p as a broadcast format. As this isn't really a production format, you either shoot 1080/50i/1080/25p or 720/50p and downconvert, or 576/50i and de-interlace (albeit with a broadcast quality de-interlacer). The latter is much cheaper... Guess which is the common one for 576/50p broadcasters.

(Home and Away, whilst shot on 1080/25p cameras, is post-produced as 576/25psf in 576/50i SD DigiBeta edit suites, and then frame-doubled to 576/50p for TX. This is described as "HD" - but in reality it is only a little better than SD - the only difference being the lack of interlace pre-filtering vertically)

 

[Stephen Neal]

Just done a quick search :

Commonwealth Games host broadcaster is TWI Australia (TWI is a big sports production and rights organisation. In the UK they provide some independent production for BBC Sport). Host broadcast format is 576/50i 16:9 SDI. Widescreen SD not HD.

Channel Nine is the domestic terrestrial broadcast rights holder in Aus. They have a 1080i HD service - but they are not promoting the Commonwealth Games as HD, just widescreen.

I guess the only HD production would be if Nine ran a duplicate operation alongside TWI's host operation - which is unlikely to be financiall viable if Nine have already paid a lot for rights?

 

[RecordablDVDfan]

That's interesting, thanks for the info. I can find out from a few I know in Oz I guess if it is billed as HD. I think knowing how much money the networks have always poured into TV down under Nine will show at least the opening / closing ceromnies in HD...