# US Open to be in 720P HD!



## Maruuk (Dec 5, 2007)

O crap, so disappointed--just realized the Open with Tiger's first appearance in months is going to be on ESPN/ABC which only provides 720p which I consider ED, not true HD. Details are blurred, you lose that whole "being there" uncanny sense you get with 1080i. Why o why do these idiots stick with this blurry "ED" format when 1080i is widely available? You'd think with the vast majority of HD set sales swinging over to 1080p there'd be pressure to step up to true HD.

Oh I know that nonsense that on any set smaller than 50" it's impossible to see the difference. Bullcrap! On my 42" the difference is night and day. Sure closeups on people look fine either way, but once you go to the gameplay on a wideshot, the whole background goes soft and blurry in 720p. Details are lost, it looks like upconverted DVD content.

Sure purists will argue that 720p is better for sports as it captures motion cleaner. But they're wrong. I watch NHL hockey all the time in 1080i and there is literally no extra motion blur or motion artifacts of any kind, and that's the fastest sport in the world.

1080i puts you in the gallery. 720p puts you back in your living room watching mere TV.


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## Carl Spock (Sep 3, 2004)

This reminds me of my other board, TrekBBS, where some Trekkies have their own personal canon. _"The movie Generations, when Kirk dies in the end? That didn't happen in my universe. The Nexus allowed Kirk to live on. Kirk is alive in my personal Star Trek canon."_

You don't like 720p, Maruuk. Fine. But according to the FCC, and theirs is the vote that counts, it is called HDTV. In your universe, you can call it ED if you want to, but the FCC considers EDTV to be 480p. I'll listen to them.

Live long and prosper.


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## spartanstew (Nov 16, 2005)

Very misleading thread title.

It's in HD. Your personal preferences don't factor into the equation.


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## Maruuk (Dec 5, 2007)

You guys are so right, you should blindly believe a bunch of crooked political appointees over your own lying eyes.


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## PTown (Aug 18, 2007)

Maruuk said:


> You guys are so right, you should blindly believe a bunch of crooked political appointees over your own lying eyes.


I think your eyes are the ones that lie! 720p is fine, you probably just have a wally world special TV and wonder why it looks like crap.
This thread is a waste of bandwidth.


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

I much prefer 1080 as well... but fair is fair, and we can't argue that 720p isn't HD because the very definition of the HD spec calls out 720p, 1080i, and 1080p at various framerates (24, 30, and 60 depending) as being HD.

Again, I prefer 1080... but calling 720 "ED" is just going to confuse a lot of people.


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## Maruuk (Dec 5, 2007)

What confuses people is calling a relatively blurry and inferior standard "HD". The more folks get 1080p sets the more pressure there'll be on networks to upgrade to true HD and get rid of this ED intermediary 720p standard for good.

"Black is white and white is black!"--The FCC

"Black is white and white is black!"--Ptown


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## spartanstew (Nov 16, 2005)

It's not an intermediary standard. 

It's also not an inferior standard. Different displays handle signals differently. I prefer 720p on my 126" PJ and 1080i on my 65" RPTV. But the difference is minor, and both look great. 

Perhaps you should get a big screen TV and then compare.


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## DCSholtis (Aug 7, 2002)

PTown said:


> I think your eyes are the ones that lie! 720p is fine, you probably just have a wally world special TV and wonder why it looks like crap.
> This thread is a waste of bandwidth.


:lol: :lol: I took a look at the thread title and thought Tiger had a new endorsement deal lined up.


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

DCSholtis said:


> :lol: :lol: I took a look at the thread title and thought Tiger had a new endorsement deal lined up.


I think there's one of those commercials with the smiling guy and the whistling background music where the guy is playing golf!


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

On a topical note... When 720p is done right, it can look quite good. I always think 1080 looks better, but 720 shouldn't look like crap. To the original poster's observations, I think it is less a problem with 720p and more a problem with whatever ESPN/ABC seems to do sometimes. The NBA Finals, for example, have not looked very good at all this year. Sometimes Monday Night Football looks nice, other times not. Same for college football... sometimes nice, other times not so much.

There is a lack of consistency with ESPN/ABC's HD productions and/or transmission that leaves much to be desired.

As a comparative example... sometimes NBC's HD at 1080 does not look as good when compared to CBS 1080... Sunday Night Football, for example, never looks as sharp as does the Sunday CBS slate of HD games.


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## tcusta00 (Dec 31, 2007)

Can a mod please change the title of this thread? There's nothing true about it and if I hadn't clicked on it I'd be thinking the Open isn't in HD.


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## Carl Spock (Sep 3, 2004)

Maruuk said:


> You guys are so right, you should blindly believe a bunch of crooked political appointees over your own lying eyes.


The standards for HDTV and EDTV were established in the 1990s by an industry group called the Grand Alliance. The government at this point kept their hands out of the mix. It was only after the industry set the standards were they adopted and formalized by the FCC.

This is not a political issue nor was it a political decision. You're on much stronger ground, Maruuk, saying that you don't like 720p. Start a thread calling 720p the ugly stepchild of HDTV and you might find some agreement. Trying to re-define terms to suit your own agenda just makes you look foolish.


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## leehrat (May 27, 2007)

Saturday and Sunday will be on NBC


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## n3ntj (Dec 18, 2006)

spartanstew said:


> Very misleading thread title.
> 
> It's in HD. Your personal preferences don't factor into the equation.


Yep...watched Tiger, Phil, and Adam Scott this afternoon in HD and it looked awesome. No complaints here. Nice job ESPN/NBC/D* for providing us with the BONUS HD channels for the US Open.


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## cjever19 (Jun 2, 2007)

n3ntj said:


> Yep...watched Tiger, Phil, and Adam Scott this afternoon in HD and it looked awesome. No complaints here. Nice job ESPN/NBC/D* for providing us with the BONUS HD channels for the US Open.


Thanks for the heads up on the bonuses. I guess I stepped away when I first tuned to 206 ESPN and missed the Menu/Clear pop up. Saw your post and checked the 700's and there they are, 4 bonus channels. Is it just me or did DTV not advertise this? I remember the masters bonus channel ads all over the place, but nothing for this.

720P looks great here on my Panny plasma!


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## TheRatPatrol (Oct 1, 2003)

So how come there were no interactive channels during the weekend? Or was this strictly an ESPN thing?

And why an 18 hole playoff vs. a playoff hole, like they do in other tournaments?

BTW, the playoff will be Monday on ESPN at 12pm ET/9am PT for the first 9 holes. The second 9 holes will be on NBC at 2pm ET/11 am PT. Set up those manual timers.

Thanks


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## HarryS (Mar 6, 2005)

The Open plays by USGA rules. And thanks for the timer info.


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## Lincoln6Echo (Jul 11, 2007)

Maruuk said:


> O crap, so disappointed--just realized the Open with Tiger's first appearance in months is going to be on ESPN/ABC which only provides 720p which I consider ED, not true HD. Details are blurred, you lose that whole "being there" uncanny sense you get with 1080i. Why o why do these idiots stick with this blurry "ED" format when 1080i is widely available? You'd think with the vast majority of HD set sales swinging over to 1080p there'd be pressure to step up to true HD.
> 
> Oh I know that nonsense that on any set smaller than 50" it's impossible to see the difference. Bullcrap! On my 42" the difference is night and day. Sure closeups on people look fine either way, but once you go to the gameplay on a wideshot, the whole background goes soft and blurry in 720p. Details are lost, it looks like upconverted DVD content.
> 
> ...


I don't know...but me thinks you need to hold off on drinking your 40 oz. before you try to watch something that is supposedly in HD.

Here are some facts...

480i = SD
480p = ED
720p/1080i/1080p = HD

OK, now that we got that out of the way, since we're talking Golf here, how about let's compare some of the programming on Golf/VS HD, namely the Golf stuff. Looks to me that some of it is either upconverted SD stuff, or their HD cameras are not up to snuff as they should be. Is this stuff in 720p or whatever, I have no idea as my TV doesn't display resolutions.

But for you to redefine 720p as ED just makes you sound foolish as someone has already said. All I know is that on my 42" AQUOS, I honestly can't tell a difference between 1080i and 720p when switching my 622 to either. I leave it on 1080i, but check 720p from time to time.


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## SPACEMAKER (Dec 11, 2007)

This has to be the dumbest thread I've ever seen. What a maroon.


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## wilbur_the_goose (Aug 16, 2006)

FWIW - WCAU-DT in Philly runs these dumb "get the picture" scrolls every hour. When they do so, they change the picture to SD (great technology, huh).

So, we switched to 82 (WNBC-DT, MPEG-2) when those scrolls were on.

Let me tell you, the MPEG-4 picture was MUCH better than the MPEG-2 picture. Tiger's red shirt looked almost splotchy on 82 compared to WCAU-DT.

FWIW - I thought the ESPN HD picture was also better than 82.


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## SPACEMAKER (Dec 11, 2007)

wilbur_the_goose said:


> FWIW - WCAU-DT in Philly runs these dumb "get the picture" scrolls every hour. When they do so, they change the picture to SD (great technology, huh).
> 
> So, we switched to 82 (WNBC-DT, MPEG-2) when those scrolls were on.
> 
> ...


My local NBC affiliate had a weather warning graphic all day. We didn't get HD until the last 3 holes.

I have already written down the number of who to contact at the station today just in case they forget to flip the HD switch at 2pm.


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## Carl Spock (Sep 3, 2004)

I know the mods cleaned up this thread title to get rid of the inccorrect reference to the US Open being shown in ED, but it's still wrong. The majority of the US Open was on NBC, and that's 1080i.

Nice playing today. This US Open was as memorable as Nicholas' last Master's win.


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