I was finally able to catch a soccer game in high definiton since HDNET has began to bradcast HD mls games again. It was an MLS game between DC united and the houston Dynamo. Anyway, if any of you have been wanting to know how soccer would look like in high def, i have uploaded two clips. They are both in RAW mpg2 format, so make sure you have a codec that can handle it. Any DVD playing software should be able do the job though. The format is native widescreen so you have to put them in full screen for best view. They looks absolutely awesome in my 20' widescreen LCD monitor, they actually fills the whole screen. here is clip1 about 34mb Here is clip two about 90mb Man, can't wait for the word cup
Ive been watching soccer in HD for a while now. DISH has WorldSport, RUSH and HDNET all of which show soccer in HD...plus the World Cup on ESPN HD , ESPN2 HD and ABC HD. So Im looking forward to all 64 games in HD. Unfortunetly ESPNs HD doesnt seem as GREAT as the HD on HDNet.
The UEFA Champions League Final is going to be in HD next month. Maybe this will be a regular occurence or is it just because of the world cup?
Is ESPN or ESPN2 going to be broadcasting it? Because a lot of us with cable providers don't get ESPN2HD, but get ESPNHD.
Given that ESPN2HD is only available in the US and not in either Argentina and Brazil, one can safely assume that ESPN made the decision to spend some money on the UEFA CL in the unprofitable US market as a teaser for World Cup 2006. My guess (and this is only a guess) is that UEFA CL final on ESPN2HD is a one-time experiment. UEFA CL final historically have drawn no more than 250,000 households in the US, which is far below what other products that have HD coverage have drawn. Typically, products that get HD coverage on ESPNHD or ESPN2HD tend to get at least 500,000 households, if not closer to 800,000 households, on the SD simulcast.
My guess is they are trying to generate complaints to providers such as Comcast who aren't yet carrying espn2HD, pressuring them to agree to terms and add the channel for the World Cup.
A user over at AVS reported that ESPN2HD showed parts of the 2005 UCL final in HD, but it kept switching back and forth. I'd say a yearly HD broadcast of the Champions League final on ESPN2HD from now on is a safe bet. Instead of discussing how low UEFA CL final ratings are in the USA, which hardly matters to those who want to watch it, and how it's all about the World Cup, I'd rather see the HD telecast of the CL final as two things: ESPN2HD needs more HD content. It has the least HD content of any HD channel out there (no high-def content on certain days), which certainly is an issue when they're trying to add the channel to bandwidth-starving Comcast and Time Warner Cable they probably have all their graphics ready in HD, anyway there's no need for an HD studio UEFA will provide all the live HD images the SD telecast is a simple cropped downconversion of the HD signal sounds like a bargain for a LIVE HD telecast Besides that, there are indeed some World Cup factors, such as ESPN may want to test their satellite transmissions in HD -- when was the last time ESPN broadcast something in HD live from Europe? -- and they can try some new equipment converting 1080i/50 to 720p/60 for the World Cup, which involves pulling 10 frames out of thin air (hard to keep digital artifacts from appearing).
my guess is that they are actually just starting to carry more HD content... hmm, could that be it? baseball season is upon us and almost every baseball game on espn2 is HD. basketball playoffs as well.
Actually, the video converter (basically a computer with a single task) that ESPN will use to convert 1080i/50 to 720p/60 will have to come up with 35 extra frames per second, not 10 extra frames per second. 1080i/50 video has 25 frames per second because each cycle of interlaced video generates only half a frame. 720p/60 video has 60 frames per second because each cycle of progressive video generates a full frame.
"pulling 10 frames out of thin air". 25 frames can be duplicated to make 50 then another 10 frames need to be made up to total 60. That's my reasoning. Whatever it is, we'll probably see a few extra seconds of delay on the HD broadcast.
Yeah, ESPN has been marketing how they will show the entire World Cup in HD, they do not want to screw up. Better to test all the technical stuff when virtually nobody is watching (under 250,000 people), then on June 9th, when up to 500,000 people might be watching (and given the hype, ESPN could do even better ratings-wise).
ESPN averaged over 1 million households for each match of World Cup 1994 and 1998. One would expect ESPN and ESPN2 to draw at least 1 million households for each match of World Cup Germany 2006, with the exception of the 8 matches aired on ESPN2 simultaneously with matches aired on ESPN. It'll be interesting to see how many households Univision can draw for each of its 56 matches. Univision paid about 3 times for the Spanish-language rights (i.e about $90 million) compared to what MLS/SUM paid for the English-language rights (i.e. about $30 million), but there is absolutely no way Univision will average 3 million households for each match telecast.