Soccer in HD

Discussion in 'TV, Satellite & Radio' started by kstuart, Apr 23, 2007.

  1. Alberto

    Alberto Member+

    Feb 28, 2000
    Northern, New Jersey
    Club:
    New York Red Bulls
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    If Fox were to offer HD they would need to offer it on a pay per view basis or they would need to launch a new HD channel. I don't see that happening given their poor production values.
     
  2. wyman

    wyman Member

    Jul 23, 2006
    New York
    Poor production values are for MLS and anything that comes out of their studios. This is just paying some more money and shipping someone else's HD feed across the atlantic. I'd pay $15/month (I pay nothing extra now) for FSCHD.
     
  3. ItzaGonga

    ItzaGonga New Member

    Feb 27, 2005
    I haven't seen this mentioned yet on this thread: since it was announced that Euro 2008 will be shown on ABC/ESPN/ESPN2, will it be in HD or just plain old plain old?

    :)
     
  4. ironduke2010

    ironduke2010 Member

    Mar 18, 2005
    A2, MI USA
    Club:
    DC United
    Nat'l Team:
    United States

    good question. i think most of the hd soccer thus far on abc/espn/espn2 has been 720 based, and not widescreen (ie, has those "espn" bars on either side of the pic). i find that sub-par picture kinda annoying, and only marginally better than sd.

    however, i think the cause of the sub-par hd soccer picture from abc/espn/espn2 is their cameras. if the hd cameras at euro2008 are of the caliber of the ones they use for la-liga then the picture should be at least 1080i widescreen. ie, if abc/espn/espn2 gets the high quality european hd feed for euro2008, then the hd picture should be light years better than most of what they previously have shown.

    i don't know what kind of hd abc/espn/espn2 had for the world cup since i was in germany, but i'd imagine it was 1080, and i'd hope the euro2008 broadcast would be the same.
     
  5. bigwilly087

    bigwilly087 Member

    Jul 22, 2005
    Pittsburgh, PA
    Club:
    Swansea City AFC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    nah man, any hd espn has shown has been widescreen 720p, if its not widescreen its not hd. SD stuff on espnhd does have the espn bars on the side. As far as i know the only hd soccer espn has shown has been world cup, mls, chelsea v galaxy friendly, and the 06 champions league final.
     
  6. kstuart

    kstuart Member

    Jul 13, 1999
    Northern California
    All of this has been discussed to death IN THIS THREAD .

    Read the threads before posting.
     
  7. Rivaldinho

    Rivaldinho Member

    Jan 26, 2003
    Not all of it, but most of it.

    All HD on abc/espn/espn2 is broadcast in 720p. The World Cup was produced in HD-SDI 1080i / 50 and converted.
     
  8. ironduke2010

    ironduke2010 Member

    Mar 18, 2005
    A2, MI USA
    Club:
    DC United
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    my bad. i actually cancelled pretty much all my tv programming last year since the hd programming just wasn't up to the euro hd programming i had experienced (especially for soccer). guess things have changed.

    most of my hd games have been downloaded from the internet (not realtime of course), but if hd soccer in the us is now good, i'll consider signing up again.

    from what i can tell, the dish network has the best overall combo of hd soccer and sd soccer availability with:

    hdnet (mls )
    worldsporthd (la liga and maybe others)
    HD of abc/espn/espn2

    foxsoccer sd
    goltv sd
    setanta sd

    is this about right?
     
  9. TxTechGooner

    TxTechGooner we're having fun here, no?

    Feb 24, 2003
    no.

    directv has hdnet and all espn2/espn/abc in HD.

    dishnetwork is such an inferiour product, imo.
     
  10. bodekkc

    bodekkc New Member

    Aug 2, 2006
    San Diego, CA
    Dish does have WorldSport HD though and you'll get the best game from La Liga each week in HD. They recently added Setanta so the only thing you'll miss is some of the Spanish channels like TyC Sports (Argentina). I still have DirecTV but that's only for NFL Sunday Ticket otherwise I'd give anything to have La Liga in HD even if it's only one game per week.
     
  11. ironduke2010

    ironduke2010 Member

    Mar 18, 2005
    A2, MI USA
    Club:
    DC United
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    how so? the worldsportHD is the thing that definitely tips it towards dish network as the la liga games in HD are awesome. throw in the setanta and it's pretty much a no brainer, programming wise at least.

    what makes dishnetwork inferior? i'm already expecting any satellite interface to be far inferior to tivo, and hard drive size appears to be about the same for both. i can't imagine any technical shortcoming of dishnetwork to offset it's obvious advantage in programming.
     
  12. kstuart

    kstuart Member

    Jul 13, 1999
    Northern California
    Actually the Dish ViP622 HD-DVR is significantly better than the TiVo Series 1 DVR in many ways (I have not tried the Series 2 or 3, so I can't comment on those).

    On Wednesday, Dish adds external hard drive support, so that you can store recordings on an external hard drive, to make more space for new recordings.

    They are also adding a half dozen new HD channels on Wednesday (MTV-HD,Golf/Versus-HD,DiscoveryHD,AnimalPlanetHD,TLC-HD,ScienceHD and HistoryHD coming on Sept. 1st).
     
  13. apqjr

    apqjr Member

    Aug 30, 2003
    PB Gardens, FL
    Is this Dish Network also? I thought DirecTV was adding these channels in the next couple of months. Is Setanta in HD or SD on Dish?
     
  14. TxTechGooner

    TxTechGooner we're having fun here, no?

    Feb 24, 2003
    \
    oh.... thought it was obvious.

    the NFL Sunday Ticket. :rolleyes:
    unless you are some footie geek that doesnt watch the NFL.
     
  15. apqjr

    apqjr Member

    Aug 30, 2003
    PB Gardens, FL
    That would be me!:D
     
  16. kstuart

    kstuart Member

    Jul 13, 1999
    Northern California
    the NFL Sunday Ticket is only worthwhile if you want to watch games that don't involve your local team.

    And it costs $200 a year (if you want the HD matches).

    For some people it is worth it.... but this is BigSoccer.com ...

    So, saying that Dish is an inferior product because they don't have NFL Sunday Ticket makes no sense - just as saying DirecTV is an "inferior product" because they don't have WorldSportHD...
     
  17. kstuart

    kstuart Member

    Jul 13, 1999
    Northern California
    Yes, those channels are being added to Dish on Wednesday... Setanta is only in SD everywhere in the world, they have not yet gone to HD.
     
  18. dah_sab

    dah_sab New Member

    Mar 8, 2001
    Austin, TX
    Indeed. Disney's HD offerings are all 720p, as are FOX's. The other American networks broadcast HD in 1080i. This holds regardless of the source video's original format.

    And may I also add that the non-HD soccer (champions league, for instance) shown on the ESPN2 HD channel is still of a far superior picture quality (when stretched out to remove the bars) than the ESPN2 SD channel.
     
  19. ironduke2010

    ironduke2010 Member

    Mar 18, 2005
    A2, MI USA
    Club:
    DC United
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    you mean the hardware or the sofware? i'd expect the dish hd-dvr to be better hardware-wise as the series 1 tivo is ancient at this point (though mine has a 250gb drive hacked in there for over 300 hours.).

    after using cable boxes of various types, the tivo interface looked like sheer genious. if the dish software is better than the tivo's, then it's even more of a no brainer.
     
  20. Rivaldinho

    Rivaldinho Member

    Jan 26, 2003
    This thread is about soccer in HD. If you want to compare other aspects of DirecTV and Dish, go to another thread!

    [thread]503944[/thread]

    And if you want to write about NFL Sunday Ticket, GO TO ANOTHER FORUM!
     
  21. ironduke2010

    ironduke2010 Member

    Mar 18, 2005
    A2, MI USA
    Club:
    DC United
    Nat'l Team:
    United States

    geeze, you guys are real sticklers over here in Business and Media, aren't you? i thought the conversation was simply developing in a natural manner, but if you want to keep the conversation rigidly focused then fine.

    has anyone had success pulling down HD games from any of the usenet groups? i've heard of people pulling down games from other sports in full progressive HD with very fast download speeds on the day of the game. seems that would be nearly as good as an HD DVR recording. and if the game in question is not being broadcast on your source of choice, it's infinitely better.
     
  22. kstuart

    kstuart Member

    Jul 13, 1999
    Northern California
    In my case, I have 1.2 mbps which is the maximum in my area, so it would still take several hours to download the match in HD. Usually, HD matches are uploaded in x264, which then requires that I sit in front of my PC, instead of my living room HD screen.

    If a match is in HD on my satellite system, I can DVR it, and watch it when I am ready, I don't have to find the download, participate, upload it for days to get a good ratio and all that weird bull.

    The big problem is that the likelihood of a good download with lots of participation is exactly the same as the likelihood of the match being on TV here.

    Over the past year, every time the match I want to see is not on TV, it is also not a download and not streaming...
     
  23. ironduke2010

    ironduke2010 Member

    Mar 18, 2005
    A2, MI USA
    Club:
    DC United
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    yeah, it's a pain. but the payoff can be nice, which is why i'm askin about these usenet groups i've heard about. supposedly they are not p2p, so no ratio, no swarms, etc., just downloads as fast as your pipe is fat, from some supposedly giant servers somewhere. sounds too good to be true, but still, can't hurt to ask...
     
  24. kstuart

    kstuart Member

    Jul 13, 1999
    Northern California
    To download binaries from Usenet, you need to subscribe to a service which costs roughly the same as Setanta Sports.

    Again, you have the same problem, which is that you are dependant on someone else uploading the game. So, again, there is the same situation where the games that are easy to download are also the ones that are easy to find on TV.

    Also, with any download situation, regardless of method, there is the factor that someone has to capture the match, and then encode it, and then upload it - and almost everyone has a much slower upload than download. It always takes hours after the match is done, and the better the quality, the longer it takes.

    I'm happy to pay channels like Setanta to take care of everything, I really don't want all that work of finding the game online, doing all that technical PC work, and so forth - just to watch a sports event.

    PS MLS in HD is really easy, both ESPN2-HD and HD-Net are included on Dish Network and DirecTV's HD packages. Both have very good cameras and production...
     
  25. ironduke2010

    ironduke2010 Member

    Mar 18, 2005
    A2, MI USA
    Club:
    DC United
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    ok, good 'nuff. i've heard people talk about downloading sports in HD when they don't have HD packages otherwise, and saying it worked as well or better than a DVR. i'm kinda skeptical.

    for my money, it seems like the dish package has the most HD soccer content, and with setanta, the most SD soccer too. i suppose i could always fall back on P2P streams or torrents to try to target the oddball game i couldn't get otherwise.
     

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