Tankman Posted March 2, 2011 Posted March 2, 2011 During the first stage of the tour on Saturday, I thought there was something wrong with my TV or the beers I just had impaired my vision because the picture quality was very bad. Out of focus and pixalated. Especially any footage that came from the helicopter, that looked like someone was sitting in the chopper with a handy cam. The second stage confirmed that there was nothing wrong with my TV or eyesight, it was still as bad as the previous day. So I decided to query this by emailing Supersport, asking if they know why the picture quality is so bad because I have seen many other races that they cover and the quality has never been this bad. (and feeling a bit embarrassed hoping that they would not send this out into the rest of the world) I was querying the actual picture quality not the picture break up which was understandable. From Monday through to Thursday there were no live broadcasts only the 1 hour highlights package, which did look marginally better. The content was quite nice and well put together. Saturday's live stage was again appalling.But this time I noticed the difference between the live and highlight packages. The highlight packages had the letterbox effect where the live broadcast were full screen. Sent another email to Supersport asking if they are aware of this? (and why they havent bothered answering my previous mail) and why dont they use the letterbox effect during the live show? Low and behold, yesterday I received a phone call ... from Supersport!!!As it turns out it was not Supersport that shot the footage, this job was outsourced to another company (he was not able to say who). Seems like I was not the only one concerned about the picture quality!! Apparently the highlight packages looked better because the Supersports guys did their best to improve the picture quality as far as they could and made use of the letterbox effect. What I am wondering is why would you outsource this job to someone who questionably has the right equipment for the job? With the equipment and experience that Supersport brings to the table, I would have thought they were hands down the number one choice for broadcasting a live event of this caliber? Sponsors choice or how does that work?
pauloc Posted March 2, 2011 Posted March 2, 2011 Definitely wasn't your eyes / the beers. I had the same problem (and co-incedentally also blamed the beers ).
cosborne Posted March 2, 2011 Posted March 2, 2011 BEE Gman you need to elaborate on your essay of an answer. Is that fact or your opinion?
ScottyScott Posted March 2, 2011 Posted March 2, 2011 Gman you need to elaborate on your essay of an answer. Is that fact or your opinion? I think its more a case of General Knowledge
badiejb Posted March 2, 2011 Posted March 2, 2011 Tankman. I dont think you have the right information. There are numerous reasons why the quality was the way it was. Firstly the live broadcast is done by a company who sends out the live signal to supersport. there is nothing wrong with the camera or the footage being sent to the OB van as it is know. So firstly the picture quality was not the issue. The issue is with the company broadcasting the signal. The reason the live pictures had breakup was because of loss of signal due to cloud cover and numerous other reasons. This could also have been avoided a bit better had the director done a proper job. they see the pictures a couple of seconds before it gets sent to the world. So this could have been avoided to a certain extent. As far as the fullscreen and widescreen is concerned. When you see a full screen picture on your tv it means that it is either a 4:3 picture that has now been upscaled to your 16:9 tv or it is being broadcast in 16:9. first check your dstv decoder that its not set to automatically upscale your picture to 16:9. this could be the cause.... They do advertise this on DSTV all the time. The reason the highlights is in 16:9 or widescreen as you see it with the black edges, is because that is the way supersport wants the footage to be sent out so that when you watch it on a standard 4:3 tv you get the full picture and not funny little people who look like stick men.As far as the supersport people trying to do their best to make the picture better....there is no way that they can improve the picture quality after it has been sent to them.If you watch mtb shows on tv you will see that the company who did this do many productions for tv and jobs include the ABSA Cape Epic. so they are not amateurs. I hope this answers some of your questions and every one elses. You are welcome to direct more questions at me and i will answer them. I work in the industry and i watched the live broadcast and the highlight packages. I was also on the TOSA and watched it on different TV's. Hope this clears up some of the queries
Danger Dassie Posted March 2, 2011 Posted March 2, 2011 If Supersport appointed the 'outsourced' film work, then they are still responsible.Could be that they also compressed the signal for bandwidth, which also can lead to poor image quality. Hard to say though, I haven't been able to watch any of the footage unfortunately.Equipment was definitely there though, I saw a few of the guys. Most notably one vocal guy, who seemed to think that he was the only media bike to be anywhere the action in the peleton.Depending on how strongly you feel, it's best to report it to the BCCA (Broadcasting Complaints Authority)
Tankman Posted March 2, 2011 Author Posted March 2, 2011 Tankman. I dont think you have the right information. There are numerous reasons why the quality was the way it was. Firstly the live broadcast is done by a company who sends out the live signal to supersport. there is nothing wrong with the camera or the footage being sent to the OB van as it is know. So firstly the picture quality was not the issue. The issue is with the company broadcasting the signal. The reason the live pictures had breakup was because of loss of signal due to cloud cover and numerous other reasons. This could also have been avoided a bit better had the director done a proper job. they see the pictures a couple of seconds before it gets sent to the world. So this could have been avoided to a certain extent. As far as the fullscreen and widescreen is concerned. When you see a full screen picture on your tv it means that it is either a 4:3 picture that has now been upscaled to your 16:9 tv or it is being broadcast in 16:9. first check your dstv decoder that its not set to automatically upscale your picture to 16:9. this could be the cause.... They do advertise this on DSTV all the time. The reason the highlights is in 16:9 or widescreen as you see it with the black edges, is because that is the way supersport wants the footage to be sent out so that when you watch it on a standard 4:3 tv you get the full picture and not funny little people who look like stick men.As far as the supersport people trying to do their best to make the picture better....there is no way that they can improve the picture quality after it has been sent to them.If you watch mtb shows on tv you will see that the company who did this do many productions for tv and jobs include the ABSA Cape Epic. so they are not amateurs. I hope this answers some of your questions and every one elses. You are welcome to direct more questions at me and i will answer them. I work in the industry and i watched the live broadcast and the highlight packages. I was also on the TOSA and watched it on different TV's. Hope this clears up some of the queries The only information I have, is what I saw and what Supersport told me.Also as I mentioned, I my query has nothing to do with the picture breakup, we see that even in the TDF so I have no issues with that. So firstly the issue was exactly the picture quality and as you said the live broadcast is done by a company that sends the signal to Supersport. So it is outsourced, what is so incorrect about that information?My flatscreen is not set to auto detect, I have seen the add on DSTV many times and made sure it is setup correctly. This is what I said about the highlight packages "The content was quite nice and well put together." again, this is not my issue. Please tell me why the picture quality (not breakups) was so bad especially the live broadcasts?And why are the races that Supersport cover, Argus, 94.7, SA's etc so much better? Are you sure you read through my first post properly?
Tankman Posted March 2, 2011 Author Posted March 2, 2011 If Supersport appointed the 'outsourced' film work, then they are still responsible.Could be that they also compressed the signal for bandwidth, which also can lead to poor image quality. Hard to say though, I haven't been able to watch any of the footage unfortunately.Equipment was definitely there though, I saw a few of the guys. Most notably one vocal guy, who seemed to think that he was the only media bike to be anywhere the action in the peleton.Depending on how strongly you feel, it's best to report it to the BCCA (Broadcasting Complaints Authority) I am not sure who outsourced to who or even if they were forced to outsource or not. Have no knowledge of the politics in the broadcasting industry. I dont feel the need to report it to the BCCA, maybe make the sponsors aware of the bad quality and question why the standards were dropped for an international event but our local races are quite nicely done. (the Epic, also springs to mind)
badiejb Posted March 2, 2011 Posted March 2, 2011 Dude. Supersport don't cover races. They get freelance people to film them and have outside broadcast units at most events. Again, why was your picture quality so bad and the ine I was watching fine? Im not trying to get into a typical hub discussion where people start going back and forth. Thought i could give some in insight. Have you noticed this before? Sorry if this didnt answer your questions
badiejb Posted March 2, 2011 Posted March 2, 2011 I did hear this from another friend too. The bad quality, but we were with the sponosrs the whole event as well as CSA (not that it means alot) and we had no complaints. Did you wtch supercycling last night? The same footage was used. It looked good on my tv? How was yours?
Tankman Posted March 2, 2011 Author Posted March 2, 2011 (edited) Dude. Supersport don't cover races. They get freelance people to film them and have outside broadcast units at most events. Again, why was your picture quality so bad and the ine I was watching fine? Im not trying to get into a typical hub discussion where people start going back and forth. Thought i could give some in insight. Have you noticed this before? Sorry if this didnt answer your questions Cool man! I dont know why my picture was bad, that is what I am trying to find out, from other comments/threads I was not the only one that experienced this. Maybe watching on the flatscreen made it more noticeable, I havent compered this to watching on a normal TV. But other Live events has not been this bad. I admit, I dont know how the industry works and who covers what but I have a very strong suspicion that this time they used someone different than usual? Edited March 2, 2011 by Tankman
'Dale Posted March 2, 2011 Posted March 2, 2011 Me have Samsung flat screen.Picture quality uncool too. In fact, worst quality of any channel on my menu.
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