Sunday, January 11, 2004
The Fo Network
So, I spent today watching the football playoffs and it was quite enjoyable. However, I'd like to discuss that never ceases to amaze me. Let me set the scene, first: It was very cold outside. Ok, that's not relevant, but I thought I'd mention it again. At any rate, I have digital cable, and I get HDTV through it. I also have a wide-screen, HD-ready TV, so the difference in quality between HD and normal cable is quite noticeable. It's pretty sweet-looking. The first comment I have is that HD has been around for a while - at least three years - so it should have been relatively mastered by the broadcasters by now, one would think.
CBS, ABC, and NBC all have broadcasts in HD. Hell, even PBS has HD broadcasts. Not everything is broadcast in HD - mostly sporting events. CBS does most of their primetime in HD. NBC does the Tonight Show. There may be more. What about FOX? No, FOX still hasn't figured out how to broadcast in HD. They show plenty of sporting events - baseball, football, hockey. Certainly, those events would look quite sharp in HD. But nooo...they can't figure it out. They do broadcast on the HD channel in "FOX Widescreen", but for some reason they just haven't upgraded to HD. It's pretty lame. But, honestly, it's not that much worse than HD - it's "DVD quality". Well, also, sometimes it's really fuzzy and glitchy, but it's FOX. What do you expect?
What amuses me to no end is that all of the channels, but especially FOX, haven't figured out how to properly format the widescreen broadcast, HD or no HD. You know the little transparent logos that every network now has, to let you know what channel you're watching? Usually they're in the lower-right corner of the screen. Well, on FOX, and CBS, and sometimes other stations, the logo is too far to the right, so it gets cut off. It's as if they took the normal broadcast and guessed where the logo should go, and screwed up. I don't know if the local affiliate is responsible for this logo, but doesn't someone watch these broadcasts? You'd think at least once in the two years that I've had HD, they would have looked at the broadcast and say, "Hey, that logo's in the wrong place! Let's fix it so we doin't look like idiots!" Nope, no such luck. So here are the possible options in my mind: One is that my television is like no one else's TV and is somehow cutting off part of the image. I don't think so - the ratio looks correct and other channels (ABC, sometimes, and all of the cable HD channels) look fine. Another option is that no one responsible for the broadcast has ever actually looked at it. That CAN'T be the case, can it? So, the other thing I can think of is that they simply don't possess the advanced technology require to put the logo in the right place. And I'm left thinking I'm watching the "FO" network.
Amazingly, that's not the extent of their ineptitude. Maybe it's better described as laziness, but either way, the network comes off looking bad. In-camera images usually look great - I'm seeing more of the picture than someone else would. It's sharp and vastly superior for viewing sports. But, along with any sports come the little graphics - statistics, the "Fox Box" in the upper corners, the side bars, the intros and wipes. And most of the time, especially on Fox, these are all formatted for non widescreen TVs. I can kind of understand it - why do the graphics twice? Well, I'll tell you why - it makes you look lazy and pathetic.
So, the end result is that all of these snazzy graphics take up only the middle 75% of the screen. There will be bars across the bottom or top that suddenly stop before they get to the edge. But the best is that the "Fox Box" will be in the upper part of the screen, but not nearly in the right corner - like I said, it's about 75% of the way there. It just looks goofy. And, the FOX logo in the bottom right is also located only 75% of the way to the edge. But didn't I just say that it was far to the right and cut off? Yes, I did. It's in BOTH places. So there's a logo 75% of the way to the right edge, and there's one about 110% to the right edge, cutting off the "X".
Is it that hard to do one thing different for the widescreen broadcast and one for the regular broadcast? ESPN can do it right. So can ABC and NBC some of the time. You broadcast the same picture - I understand - instead of adding the Fox Box and logo BEFORE adding the picture itself, add it afterwards. And put it in the right place. These are BILLION dollar networks. Stop making it look like it was produced in my high school TV production room.
CBS, ABC, and NBC all have broadcasts in HD. Hell, even PBS has HD broadcasts. Not everything is broadcast in HD - mostly sporting events. CBS does most of their primetime in HD. NBC does the Tonight Show. There may be more. What about FOX? No, FOX still hasn't figured out how to broadcast in HD. They show plenty of sporting events - baseball, football, hockey. Certainly, those events would look quite sharp in HD. But nooo...they can't figure it out. They do broadcast on the HD channel in "FOX Widescreen", but for some reason they just haven't upgraded to HD. It's pretty lame. But, honestly, it's not that much worse than HD - it's "DVD quality". Well, also, sometimes it's really fuzzy and glitchy, but it's FOX. What do you expect?
What amuses me to no end is that all of the channels, but especially FOX, haven't figured out how to properly format the widescreen broadcast, HD or no HD. You know the little transparent logos that every network now has, to let you know what channel you're watching? Usually they're in the lower-right corner of the screen. Well, on FOX, and CBS, and sometimes other stations, the logo is too far to the right, so it gets cut off. It's as if they took the normal broadcast and guessed where the logo should go, and screwed up. I don't know if the local affiliate is responsible for this logo, but doesn't someone watch these broadcasts? You'd think at least once in the two years that I've had HD, they would have looked at the broadcast and say, "Hey, that logo's in the wrong place! Let's fix it so we doin't look like idiots!" Nope, no such luck. So here are the possible options in my mind: One is that my television is like no one else's TV and is somehow cutting off part of the image. I don't think so - the ratio looks correct and other channels (ABC, sometimes, and all of the cable HD channels) look fine. Another option is that no one responsible for the broadcast has ever actually looked at it. That CAN'T be the case, can it? So, the other thing I can think of is that they simply don't possess the advanced technology require to put the logo in the right place. And I'm left thinking I'm watching the "FO" network.
Amazingly, that's not the extent of their ineptitude. Maybe it's better described as laziness, but either way, the network comes off looking bad. In-camera images usually look great - I'm seeing more of the picture than someone else would. It's sharp and vastly superior for viewing sports. But, along with any sports come the little graphics - statistics, the "Fox Box" in the upper corners, the side bars, the intros and wipes. And most of the time, especially on Fox, these are all formatted for non widescreen TVs. I can kind of understand it - why do the graphics twice? Well, I'll tell you why - it makes you look lazy and pathetic.
So, the end result is that all of these snazzy graphics take up only the middle 75% of the screen. There will be bars across the bottom or top that suddenly stop before they get to the edge. But the best is that the "Fox Box" will be in the upper part of the screen, but not nearly in the right corner - like I said, it's about 75% of the way there. It just looks goofy. And, the FOX logo in the bottom right is also located only 75% of the way to the edge. But didn't I just say that it was far to the right and cut off? Yes, I did. It's in BOTH places. So there's a logo 75% of the way to the right edge, and there's one about 110% to the right edge, cutting off the "X".
Is it that hard to do one thing different for the widescreen broadcast and one for the regular broadcast? ESPN can do it right. So can ABC and NBC some of the time. You broadcast the same picture - I understand - instead of adding the Fox Box and logo BEFORE adding the picture itself, add it afterwards. And put it in the right place. These are BILLION dollar networks. Stop making it look like it was produced in my high school TV production room.
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