Sunday HD Sports Recap
By Richard Lawler 
posted November 6th 2005 10:58PM
posted November 6th 2005 10:58PM
I don't know about you, but it was grey and uninviting outside in Michigan today, so I had all the reasons necessary to spend a lazy Sunday doing nothing but watching TV. Lets see, double header in HD on Fox, the Lions on CBS, NASCAR in HD on NCA, and golf, not in HD on ABC, which 3 of the 4 do you think I was checking for today? PGA Tour get your act together.
Check for more highlights of today's action after the jump.
Actually, I didn't watch much of the Lions game, watching them get beat down by the Minnesota Sex Boater's Association was quite painful. Luckily the Chiefs-Raiders game was a good one with a great finish, watching Larry Johnson jump over the pile in widescreen from the end zone camera was great.
One of my few beefs about NFL games in HD is the sideline cameras don't take advantage of it enough, probably because they also broadcast in SD. My issue is they show too much space behind the QB when they drop back, I want to be able to see what the WR's are doing downfield. I love NFL Primetime before the Sunday game however, all the footage in HD, all the games, makes a great watch for anything I missed during the day.
The Dickies 500 provided a great change of pace throughout the day, I was rooting for Mark Martin all day but he got passed at the end by Carl Edwards, no complaints about the broadcast from here. NASCAR needs to run a clinic for the Champ car series and F1, I've never seen them in high definition.
I'm typing this up at halftime of the Sunday night game between the Eagles and Redskins, although with Grey's Anatomy getting recorded on one tuner it's hard jumping back between this and INHD's broadcast of Lakers - Nuggets. I've noticed some glitchiness, with the feed jumping back and forth from HD to SD and freezing at points, anybody else seeing that?
All in all a good weekend, not as good as the weekend some of the Carolina Panthers cheerleaders had, but good, how about you?
No Fox doubleheader in Chicago. The Chicago station braodcasted an infomercial rather than the early game. The late game was da Bears, of course.
I HATE when the local station thinks that people would rather watch infomercials than an out of town football game. I mean, the NFC is bad, but not THAT bad, especially in HD.
When I was in a store this weekend I spent some time looking at HDTV football games on plasmas and LCD TVs. The thing that struck me was that I kept seeing a fair amount of motion artifact, regardless of which TV I was looking at. It occurred to me that football provides quite a torture test for HDTV, with fast moving action and frequent horizontal pans across a grass field and grandstands.
Now the artifacting could easily be due to poor setup in the store, but does anyone have a setup where they can say that they see no motion artifacts for live sporting events?
I see no motion artifacts on football games displayed on my TV (Zenith 32V37) using OTA on ABC, CBS, and Fox.
You really need to look at all these factors: what TV is it, where is the HD coming from, and what is it displaying. If it is cable or satelite, or even certain OTA stations, it is going to be compressed to all hell, and that will result in artifacts.
I find basketball to be the toughest sport to display. The fast breaks result in pixelation on my set when displaying Bulls games on WGN. WGN simulcasts another station (Spanish), so their feed is compressed in some way. Bulls games look great as long as nobody moves!