The big Giants-Patriots game on 3 TV channels

[wa2ise]

Here in NYC area, this game is being shown on channels 2 (CBS), 4 (NBC) and 9 (a local, "MY9"). Also on the HDTV counterparts as well. While the digital channels have consistant color saturation and tint and contrast, the 3 analog channels vary some. Odds are it's just my antenna but channel 2 is more color saturated than channel 4, and the converted to NTSC 525i HD signal (from my Sangsung HD ATSC box) is less so than 2 but more than 4, and channel 9 is a bit more contrasty. I don't have cable, so I don't know about the NFL Network.

So how consistant is your TV?

[Keefla]

i watched the game at a local sports bar in standard def on 5 old style rear projection ProScan tv's on the NFL network. On the bright scenes you could see the ESPN logo burned into the lower right hand corner of all the screens. yaaay! Color on all but 1 of them was kinda yellowish, so i pulled me and my beer up to the one with the best color and least convergence issues and had myself a good time.

[Thyratron]

Pretty consistent here, on the two network stations. Looked great on the '84 Zenith (sorry, not an early color TV, but at least the screen is curved).

[bordeno]

Great game, looked super on the Panasonic 720 Plasma. One of the best values for the money, if not the best.

Unless you are more than 16 points ahead of the Patriots with less than six minutes remaining in regulation, you will lose. It has yet to be proven otherwise.

A remarkable team. Hats off to them.

[chewy]

What a game! Now just 3 more. Hats off to the Giants. They played them real tough. Game looked great on 60 inch Pioneer Elite Plasma! Now, just waiting for the playoffs!

[Pete Deksnis]

Originally Posted by wa2ise

Odds are it's just my antenna but channel 2 is more color saturated than channel 4...

Nope, not anything at your location since I see the same thing. More, or more accurately, less saturation on NBC channel 4 NTSC than the others here in the NYC area. And this is true for all my sets from CT-100 to HDTVs running in analog mode.

I speculated a few weeks ago when I first noticed the syndrome that NBC channel 4 was trying to emulate the look of HD. Anyway, it's the best reason I can think of as to why channel 4 analog suddenly looks so crappy.

Pete

[Dave A]

The game was a NFL Network production and simulcast by the others from a NFL feed. Anything you saw was introduced at your local affilliate or by the equipment at your local cable company retransmitting the off-air.

Someday I will reconstruct for a thread the video path I did for a single analog camera shot from The Phillies stadium to ESPN2 in Orlando for a baseball draft show. My rough count was that the signal was handled (by equipment) as analog or digital around 40 times before it arrived back at the stadium on Comcast ESPN2. It was on the air for 4 seconds.

Dave A

[oldtvman]

Sick of the patriots and Bill Belechek Cheaters never win Winners never cheat

[ChrisW6ATV]

Originally Posted by wa2ise

the digital channels have consistant color saturation and tint and contrast

Originally Posted by bordeno

looked super on the Panasonic 720 Plasma

Originally Posted by chewy

Game looked great on 60 inch Pioneer Elite Plasma!

How dare you all make nice comments about non-analog, non-CRT equipment and signals! It will just mess things up here on AK.

[wa2ise]

Originally Posted by ChrisW6ATV

How dare you all make nice comments about non-analog, non-CRT equipment and signals!

Well, for me I'm using a CRT type VGA compter monitor to watch HDTV. Looks as good as only a CRT can do.

[Pete Deksnis]

Here are screen captures (not camera shots of the screen) of the same Grand Marshall dude, rose bowl parade 2008, NTSC, channels 4 (NBC) and 7 (ABC), New York City stations:

Judge for yourself if there's low saturation on NBC by design.

[Thyratron]

Originally Posted by ChrisW6ATV

How dare you all make nice comments about non-analog, non-CRT equipment and signals!

I didn't realize that there was anything nice to be said about that stuff!

[Dave A]

Pete,

Having spent enough of my life in remote trucks that it could be measured in years, I have a few thoughts from the remote end. I will leave the station processing to others other than to say "GIGO". Garbage In, Garbage Out".

The camera settings at the remote end are some of the most subjective settings in all of television other than stage lighting and are totally at the whim of the operator and his/her eye and judgement of what is happening on the waveform monitor and color monitor on the truck. Add to this, the difference between Sony and Ikegami, the two major players in cameras. That is the difference between Ford and GM.

I can put two different video operators at the video console on the same show and end up with two different shows. One dark, one overexposed. One contrasty, one flat. Color saturation is adjustable but tends to be set to a spec point and ends up being visually variable depending on iris and black level settings.

When I sit at a video console, I tend to be generous with the iris to the point of blooming some whites in order to get otherwise darker parts of the scene up to a useable level. And I tend to run the blacks up a bit to push up the gamma area in the middle of the waveform where the bulk of the picture information is for the viewer (most of the greys). On a remote, you do not have the luxury of time to set all of the camera gammas individually. You just make wholesale adjustments as best you can.

But I usually work in sports and showing a white uniform against a dark seating area guides me. I would never do this on a good stage opera with good even lighting. Every situation is different.

Other ops, especially the ones trained in the tube days when the first thing to hit 100% stopped there, are still doing it that way today. And something in the picture had to be black at 7.5 units and they will find something to put there notwithstanding there is nothing black in the picture.

And black does not mean black with no detail. A black jacket should show detail because even black cloth reflects light in varying levels showing the pockets, lapels and stitching. The dark parts are the finest adjustments with little range for error.

After that, the signal from the remote is tested with color bars during transmission tests all the way back to the station or network with what my experience is generally very good oversight. Sat uplinks, Verizon last mile video loops, VYVX long-haul fiber transmission, sat receivers, etc. Whatever the combination is for the show. A lot of operators along the line whose only job is to set levels on color bars passing their facility.

At the station at the very end, not much happens to the signal in my experience. It comes in and in these days of digital, it is pretty much fixed. It will pass through a switcher and a few pieces and then on to the xmtr. The most that would happen is in the analog down-conversion on a hi-def show or digital signal and that is not enough to give the difference you see in your pix. Your pix show clear color differences and iris settings.

My bet looking at the pix is the possible Sony/Ikegami color differences along with two sets of eyes seeing the same thing with two different ideas on iris settings in two different remote trucks.

It's scary how the signal finally gets home,

Dave A

[Pete Deksnis]

Thanks for your insight Dave. It must be a zoo at times; had no idea there were so many possible cooks along the way who could stir the video pot.

Pete