I don't like FOX sports graphics

[therealjm12]

Gotta say first of all, I have a last generation anaolog Sony Vega TV. A beautiful picture. I have no intentions of replacing it in the near future with a H. D. set.

I watched the Bills/Eagles today on FOX. I have noticed it before the graphics are really hard to read. The picture seems dark and hard to watch. The bars on the top & bottom shrink my 35" picture. Not everybody has H. D.
Turning over to Jets/Patriots on CBS, a bright full screen picture and graphics easy to read.
I noticed the same on baseball. When I watched the Yankees on Yes or WWOR very easy to read graphics. Always knew, the score, inning, balls, strikes, outs, & pitch count. When I watched FOX all that was very tiny on the screen.

 

[fybush]

Not everybody has H. D.

No...but the balance has tipped VERY sharply in the last couple of years. The days of TV production in the 4:3 aspect ratio are over, and the industry has standardized on 16:9. Those "bars on the top & bottom" are only going to become more prevalent in the years to come, as fewer and fewer broadcasters continue to spend the money to produce programming that's "4:3 safe". (All those "4:3 safe" graphics end up wasting screen space on the 16:9 screens out there; when I'm watching sports in HD, I want my infobox out in the corner of the screen, not stuck somewhere in the middle.)

Having said that, there's certainly a middle ground: it's not easy to create graphics that are legible and proportional for not only your 35" SD screen and my 46" HD, but also for the 14" CRT in my bedroom and the 9" CRT in my parents' kitchen...never mind the 4" screen in my pocket. It's certainly possible there's room for improvement at Fox; it's also very possible that the dark picture (which I wasn't seeing on my HD set when watching the game earlier...or on the SD LCD in my kitchen) had something to do with the local station or your delivery mechanism. Are you on cable, or OTA?

 

[therealjm12]

Are you on cable, or OTA?

Time Warner.
I remember the old days when NBC had the AFC and CBS had the NFC. The picture for those games were different,too. It was probably a matter of personal preference but the NBC games seemed sharper than the CBS games. Of course, they were using different cameras, but I believe RCA has stopped making cameras before NBC lost the rights to the AFC.

 

[mgsports]

Fox Sports Central was to show a Dallas Stars Pre-Game recently but never did.

 

[fybush]

Fox Sports Central was to show a Dallas Stars Pre-Game recently but never did.

"You have been watching Non Sequitur Theatre. Next: whipped cream!"

 

[PTBoardOp94]

Is there a number from the cable federation as to how many customers subscribe to HD? The most recent number I can find is 65% in 2009, to the question "Do you own at least one high definition television?"

I imagine there is a chunk of folks who do own an HDTV but do not receive any HD content.

By the way, I agree about the Fox Box being SD-unfriendly.

 

[DToTheJ]

I watched the Bills/Eagles today on FOX... The picture seems dark and hard to watch...

The real problem is that the Eagles are hard to watch. (The same could be said of the other team for the previous dozen years or so... : )

 

[cd637299]

I have an analog TV and converter box.

I agree that Fox is unfriendly to SD viewers. During baseball, all I see is the home team's score.* However, my box has a feature to change to letterbox if I wish....I see the score of both teams, and I can either leave it that way or have it cropped again.

Seems IMO like a "push" to get folk to say to themselves, "I better buy a 16:9 HD set quickly!"

[*About two months ago, I received Fox' XHRIO analog channel 2 in Matamoros/Brownsville TX on TV DX (E-skip) during a ballgame; and IIRC, XHRIO's picture during the game was "auto-cropped", no letterbox, which meant that only the home score showed! If XETV Tijuana/San Diego is Fox also, does that occur there too for their analog signal? These two stations won't be "digital-only" for a while, as they are based in Mexico.]

cd

 

[FreddyE1977]

at least they aren't making hockey pucks glow anymore

 

[JeeperOne]

Fox Sports Central was to show a Dallas Stars Pre-Game recently but never did.

What does that have to do with this thread (As if we didn't know the answer to that question already)? :

Cheers & 73 ;D

 

[JeeperOne]

I watched the Bills/Eagles today on FOX... The picture seems dark and hard to watch...

The real problem is that the Eagles are hard to watch. (The same could be said of the other team for the previous dozen years or so... : )

The same could also be said about a dozen or so other teams over the last several years (Unfortunately this includes my Denver Broncos )

Cheers & 73 ;D

 

[BRNout]

I imagine there is a chunk of folks who do own an HDTV but do not receive any HD content.

A MUCH larger chunk than you think - and larger than most industry folks think. Why? Well, because you cited 65% of households that had HD channels on cable. BUT, of those houses, how many pop for an HD box in every room? Very few, I'd wager. So, it's probably typical to have HD for your "main" TV, but standard cable in the other rooms. That means stretch-o-vision or boxed 4:3 for the other sets, even though they are 16:9. That's the case in our house and in many others.

What's sad is that I used to get HD content on all 3 TVs. Then Comcast went all-digital and we got the mini boxes. The net effect was that the local HD feeds disappeared on those other sets. We stepped backwards, technologically. Another life improvement brought to you by the Digital Gods!

Want HD? Them Comcast makes you buy a box. Or, you can climb up on the roof and set up an antenna (if you don't have one).

 

[mgsports]

It is a Fox Sports thing.

 

[JeeperOne]

If they shrink the screen much further, it'll FADE TO BLACK altogether with only the audio present

Cheers & 73 ;D

 

[nomadcowatbk]

I imagine there is a chunk of folks who do own an HDTV but do not receive any HD content.

Early HDTVs had no built in digial tuner

 

[PTBoardOp94]

A MUCH larger chunk than you think - and larger than most industry folks think. Why? Well, because you cited 65% of households that had HD channels on cable.

No. The number I cited was the number of homes owning one or more HD sets. Has nothing to do with programming availability.

 

[Sammi Brie]

For whatever reason KSAZ is airing the ALCS right now in widescreen SD (stretched to fit). The NTSC artifacts are visible. Is their recorder (for primetime shows) tied up or something?

 

[JeeperOne]

For whatever reason KSAZ is airing the ALCS right now in widescreen SD (stretched to fit). The NTSC artifacts are visible. Is their recorder (for primetime shows) tied up or something?

How can it be? The ALCS IS Fox Primetime tonight......

Is MyNetwork doing any primetime tonight? If so, that might explain it then Raymie.....

Cheers & 73 ;D

 

[oldiesfan6479]

For whatever reason KSAZ is airing the ALCS right now in widescreen SD (stretched to fit).
The NTSC artifacts are visible. Is their recorder (for primetime shows) tied up or something?

I noticed this too. (KSAZ-TV Phoenix, BTW.) The video "went south" about 4:57 PM PT and
was fixed by 5:10 or so. But the strange thing is, this was only on the feed to Cox Cable--
at least their analog feed. You could watch it OTA and everything looked fine.

 

[BRNout]

A MUCH larger chunk than you think - and larger than most industry folks think. Why? Well, because you cited 65% of households that had HD channels on cable.

No. The number I cited was the number of homes owning one or more HD sets. Has nothing to do with programming availability.

What do you mean "no"? My point was that most HD compatible sets connected to cable aren't actually getting HD service.

My discussion had nothing to do with programming availability. Read what I wrote again, I think you misunderstood.