Soccer in High Def TV (HDTV)

Not much, but check:
http://www.soccertv.com/hdnet.cfm

 

At the moment you're sort of out of luck on this.

FSW has no HiDef programming and is unlikely to have any in the near future. The FCC mandated that American broadcasters move to the 1080i 16x9 format, and although they've missed three or four deadlines, it's headed in that direction. All US prime time shows, for example, (sitcoms amd dramas) originate in HD.

European broadcasters have generally not even started this conversion. It's expensive, complicated and in any case it doesn't do any good for you to broadcast in HiDef if nobody has a HiDef receiver, which virtually nobody does.

There is an ESPN HD channel now, but I have never seen soccer on it. ESPN generally puts their soccer on the deuce and in the case of Champions League, the programming originates as analog in Europe. Unless somebody wants to send an ESPN broadcast truck over there instead of just picking up the feed, it just can't be seen in HiDef.

The good news, of course, is that Mark Cuban's HDNet is broadcasting one or two MLS games a week, and it's terrific. Spoils you for anything else.

But I wouldn't hold my breath for much more anytime soon.

 

You shoudl just get DirecTV or Voom. DirecTV has HDNet, and Voom carries the entire 'La Liga' season in HD.

 

I don't believe its the entire La Liga season....just one or two games per weekend.

 

Dish Network also has HDNet. With Dish Network you get about 4 La Liga matches per week on GolTV which you can't get on DirecTV or Voom.

 

the la liga matches on dish network are not HD. the 2 matches per week (which usually are shown live) on voom are in HD on a channel called WorldSport HD. those games are then shown on delay on GolTV later in the week.

Voom is still too small to use as as a primary provider. Voom and Dish Network together is a good way to get tons of soccer (some in HD on HDNet and World Sport HD and tons in SD on Fox Sports World and GolTV)

 

I've had Voom for about five or six months, and I really dig the HD broadcasts of the Spanish league. In fact, I like all the HD channels. Right now, I'm watching "Mad Max" in HD on one of the movie channels. It's kind of like listening to the Sex Pistols an a really good stereo, if you know what I mean.

 

Cox Cable here in LV has HDnet, and I've been lucky enough to check out a few MLS games in HD. It's a total droolfest, such a lovely picture.

 

I have Voom serivce which has one channel for soocer only, shows laLiga games. Soon they will ad INHD and HDnet which MLS has a three year deal with them. 2005 is the last year with HDnet but hope they sign a new 3 or 5 year deal soon.
I f I were you I would get the Voom fast. Time Warner's Hd does not look good as the Voom because Voom uses a bigger bandwidth then other cable outlets. The bigger the bandwidth the better the HD picture.

 

ESPN2-HD is set to launch in January.

Question is, will MLS pay the production costs to broadcast the games in HD next season?

Someone get Garber on the bat phone and ask him.

 

I'd be concerned about getting Voom. At the end of September, Voom had only 35,000 customers and that they'd only added about 12,000 customers in the last six months. Wall Street has told Comcast that they must divest itself of Voom. Voom is loosing too much money. To me this is indication of a company in trouble. Why as customer would you want to risk a lot of money on a satellite company that could go bust? Their equipment isn't free like with DirecTV or Dish Network.

I also can't understand why they've yet been able to add HDNet? A high def service without one of the original HD channels. Makes no sense to me.

 

Yeah, I've been spoiled by Hi-Def. The worst part is that the EPL games on FSW and the PPV Package look just terrible on my set. The clock and scores in the corner are sometimes even too blurry to read.

I'm with DirecTV and get all my networks OTA...if I could get that World Sport channel on Voom for like $10/month and free equipment I'd be all over it. But otherwise, I'm not going to jump on the Voom bandwagon for strictly cost reasons.

 

For those of you with Voom, how's the Playboy Channel in HD?

 

Just a correction, Cablevision owns Voom, not Comcast. My bad.

 

Actually the mandate is for broadcasters to turn in their analog signal and broadcast a digital signal. They have not mandated 1080i 16x9. Not all sitcoms and dramas originate in HD. The deadline set has been moved back once and currently stands at 2006 or when 75% of all homes have digital signal recieving capabilities.