Would the truck be in Montreal, for Swimming Games. I saw a huge CBC Truck at Ile Sainte-Hélène this morning.... CBC International Broadcasting Center.... Maybe?

That would be an SD truck. The HD mobile won't be at that event.

Allways a pleasure to hear.
I watch CBC HD on a regular basis.
Still hoping that something will happen in september for SRC HD.
We hear nothing about.. but the SD picture is SHARP, big difference with SRC REGULAR (?)

That would be an SD truck. The HD mobile won't be at that event.
This is too Bad. It'll be great to have that event in HD. This will be a unique event. Even the Cirque du Soleil will be at the opening. CBC and RC have really miss this one .

Marc, do you know if SRC will have a HD truck in Montreal ?

Marc, do you know if SRC will have a HD truck in Montreal ?

Toronto got an HD truck, Montreal got an HD production studio. I don't know of any plans to build more in the immediate future. The focus right now is on the delivery side, bringing transmitters to more communities.

On the plus side, the truck can go to Montreal.

Marc - last night on the second half of The National there was a documentary on the Gaza strip by Adrienne Arsenault (sp?). The documentary was in 16x9 and was shown letterboxed on CBC-HD (which means it was therefore letterboxed on all 4 sides). The picture quality was very good and I am assuming that it was shot in HD given the widescreen format.

Does the CBC have plans to show portions of The National in HD? Are there technical issues that currently prevent part of the program from being in SD and other portions in HD that would have explained why this documentary last night was not shown in HD?

Does the CBC have plans to show portions of The National in HD? Are there technical issues that currently prevent part of the program from being in SD and other portions in HD that would have explained why this documentary last night was not shown in HD?

The production facilities for The National are SD. That segment, if it was actually available in HD, would have to be delivered separately in order to air in HD.

Integrating the two in a live show would be very difficult since news programs are constantly adjusting content to keep current. This affects the timing of the show and therefore the switchover points would be moving targets.

Also, keep in mind that letterbox does not necessarily mean HD. Even before going HD approximately 15% of the SD programs on CBC were letterboxed (usually 14x9).

I am not aware of any plans to change The National’s production facilities to HD in the immediate future.

Marc, any idea when they are going to resolve the transmission problems with Mount-Royal. I hate to think that HNIC will be broadcasting in HD and the Western part of Montreal cannot receive the signal.

I am not aware of any plans to change The National’s production facilities to HD in the immediate future.Thanks a lot Marc.

Marc, any idea when they are going to resolve the transmission problems with Mount-Royal. I hate to think that HNIC will be broadcasting in HD and the Western part of Montreal cannot receive the signal.

Sorry, but it won't be this season. I got the official word today: "We are planning to move in Sept.2008 provided we resolve some licensing and Safety Code 6 (http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/hecs-sesc/ccrpb/publication/99ehd237/toc.htm) issues by that time."

I hate to think that HNIC will be broadcasting in HD and the Western part of Montreal cannot receive the signal.Doesn't Videotron carry the channel?

Nick

Doesn't Videotron carry the channel?

Nick


They do, but why would I pay for a channel that hardly ever has any HD material on. This is true for most of the HD channels. I have Expressvu and refuse to pay an extra $10 month for these channels. OTA is the way to go. I currently can get PBS HD from Plattsburgh(all programs are either SD Widescreen or HD). The rest of the U.S. stations come on-line next summer. I will watch those channels instead of the Canadian ones. The CRTC is giving no reason or incentive to go HD. Montreal will probably not see CTV, Global, TQS, or TVA anytime soon.

They do, but why would I pay for a channel that hardly ever has any HD material on. This is true for most of the HD channels. I have Expressvu and refuse to pay an extra $10 month for these channels.
Understandable. I'm surprised Videotron is allowed to charge extra for local HD channels! I thought that anything that was available OTA would be part of their basic $20 or so a month package; which is how Rogers is.

Nick

Hey Marc,

Just like to add the request for HD test patterns in the off hours!

Thanks in advance, much appreciated.

Hi Marc.. the bumpers for Star Wars were incorrect tonight. Coming out of the 15 min news break they did a brief summary of the first 2 hours that had most of the cbc insert and text at the bottom cut off.

Lots of the video looked really crappy. Especially faces and light sky backgrounds which in the shiny places seemed to constantly shimmer. Quite a negative difference in visual quality between what you were airing and your friends at CITYTVHD who were running a movie at the same time who's video was esentially flawless.

Even the blue closing credits rolling up the screen now at the end of the movie are not smooth rather a judder seems to stop them for a micro second every second.

Also much earlier the greatest canadian was show full screen 16:9 but you could see that there was a logo that tried to appear from time to time at the bottom left that was almost totally chopped off.. I could see the word "the" probably "the greatest canadian". Sure looked like something was incorrectly zoomed.

You're right, the graphics are still a big issue. It's part of the growing pains where the content is edited in 4x3 but airing on both 16x9 and 4x9 station. It's not acceptable and we're trying to get the word out to the content editors.

I only watched few minutes of Star Wars at home. I didn't see any horrible video and there were no other reports of problems.
The credits were jumping. I'm hoping that will go away with the next version of encoder software, which is in the works.

You're right, the graphics are still a big issue. It's part of the growing pains where the content is edited in 4x3 but airing on both 16x9 and 4x9 station. It's not acceptable and we're trying to get the word out to the content editors.

I only watched few minutes of Star Wars at home. I didn't see any horrible video and there were no other reports of problems.
The credits were jumping. I'm hoping that will go away with the next version of encoder software, which is in the works.

Hi Marc thanks for the update. Its great knowing you are here monitoring the thread and hearing the feedback.

The only HD show that you guys are running in the whole week, airing in prime time on a Sunday night is going to get pretty close scrutinity from me.

In that time slot its very easy to surf by your stablemates on the CN tower and from across the pond in buffalo all in HD. You're all struggling with various aspects of the technology (PSID, audio, video) and improving fast. Early adopters can be overly critical. That should help you guys get ready for the mass market that is just around the corner.

What is your home watching/monitoring enviroment for CBC HD? Do you check out the competion OTA?

I'm Sony 34" widescreen crt + samsung 351 stb outputting 1080i via dvi, OTA on CH 20 from the CN Tower.

It will be interesting to if the sw update does the trick and improves other aspects of pq especially from film sources.

I have a 51" Toshiba RPCRT, 8300HD PVR from Rogers and a Pioneer HTIB. When I want to check out OTA I get my hands on a unit from work. We have an LG and Samsung box that I use with a set top UHF antenna.

The encoder software update is specifically for film. The current software doesn't handle 3:2 pulldown very well, so that feature has been switched off.

The encoder software update is specifically for film. The current software doesn't handle 3:2 pulldown very well, so that feature has been switched off.

Thanks for the update Marc. This explains a lot. When the encoder doesn't do 3:2 pulldown the STB decoder probably doesn't do it either because certain flags in the digital stream are not set. The result was that movie (at least in 1080i) was really affected in a number of picture element areas especially in comparison to the movie that was being shown against it at the same time on CITYTV that evening.

Here's hoping that the update is installed soon. Can you let us know when its due/goes live? I restrict commenting on your HD film based broadcasts until then.

So what is the status of the CBC doing any CFL games in HD this season. Last I saw they were testing the truck at one of the games - but that was weeks ago!