FOX Sports scaling back HD MLB coverage
By Matt Burns 
posted Apr 1st 2007 7:58PM
posted Apr 1st 2007 7:58PM
Sorry Major League Baseball fans. That fancy HDTV of yours might not be in use as much as you hoped this season. FOX Sports is planning to scale back their coverage this year due to lack of HD production trucks - yeah, we think it's a lame excuse too. All your going to get is 1 to 2 games a week in HD. Lets hope that this means 1 to 2 games in each region are going to get HD games. Baseball is one of the best looking sports presented in HD; calm, relaxing, crystal clear game in high definition. Guess it's too bad FOX doesn't care about it.
maybe this is one of those times that if enough people complain to fox they may change this during the course of the season...bc this truly sux
This is worse than the way CBS treats football.
The YES network here in NY state carries every Yankees game in amazing HD. The quality matches the best HD signal I've ever seen.
yea, if there arn't enough trucks... there arn't enough trucks. Fox can't just somehow come up with them.
Of course they can buy more trucks, they just don't want to because they are CHEAP.
Maybe FOX thinks this whole "hi-def" thing is just a fad... FOX has never exactly been at the forefront of new trends...
I'm not sure what the "only N games per week" comment means though. There IS only one Fox Saturday game per week.
HDNet should carry baseball again.
"FOX has never exactly been at the forefront of new trends..."
I'm not so sure that is true. FOX is the only network that broadcast a 480p digital widescreen image until it could upgrade to true high def. While every other network continued to broadcast in analog until they upgraded to high def.
Their sports programming also may have been the last to finally go HD, but they also didn't begin broadcasting until everything was spic'n'span. FOX is year in and year out the only network I have never had issues with as far as HD and HD audio goes.
No networks, except for HDnet, own production trucks any more. They rent them from companies like NEP (http://www.nepinc.com/).
There are just not enough HD trucks in the industry right now to accommodate all the HD Sports production needs.
It was really the HD transition that pushed many of the networks towards renting instead of owning, as they faced the expenses of retooling all their existing trucks to work with HD.
Blah. Blah. Blah. The people that want to watch this stuff in HD are, effectively, the ones paying the bills. FOX: Just pony up the cash and give us America's Past Time in HD. The Vatican is getting on board with all HD broadcasts, why can't you?
The Fox widescreen broadcasts were awful last year. They were eye-bleeding, make you vomit quality.
Scott M, the NESN broadcasts are just as great for the Sox. The problem is when the game is a national game on Fox.
FOX manages to show six NFL games in HD each Sunday during the fall, but cannot seem to manage to produce half that number for the baseball broadcasts. Sounds like they just don't think the audience size for the baseball warrants the HD cost that football does.