Venture is widescreen.

Next Week's schedule appears to be missing 00:30. Thanks for getting rid of the 30 hour clock.

Passed on.

RMR tonite. OUTSTANDING PQ.
The outside segments; Cutting the tree & the rant were beautiful.
As always I enjoy the humor, HD or not.

One thing I never understood was how they got 5.1 sound in sports with all the different camera angles. I understand how when they make a DVD they can lay all the tracks separately and create an immersive 5.1 experience. But in a football game, how can they make 5.1 sound?? Crowd comes out of L and R rears?? Commentators out of center channel? Game from the fronts?? But what about when the camera angles change? And if I receiver comes off the sideline trash-talking and goes from right to left on the screen, does that also go from the right speaker to left speaker?????

Or is it all just matrixed and not true 5.1 sound????

I am still having glitches on CBC HD making it unwatchable for me on CBC HD 802 Bell Expressvu. I phoned a tech rep yesterday and they told me to plug in the receiver directly into the wall and not use a power bar but the problems persists. I have no trouble with any of the HD channels on Bell.

Rick Mercer and Intelligence earlier this week were fine for sound and in DD5.1

Week of October 23 looks like a record for CBC roughly 35 hours of WS and about 17 hours of HD, some repeats. (The hockey was only listed as 1/2 hour, but I counted more.)

So no one has an answer then?

So no one has an answer then?

You're right, I haven't really noticed how sound moves Left -> Right or vice versa. Field noises definitely come from the Front speakers. Ambient crowd noise and stadium announcers come from the rear. I'll listen more carefully tonight. btw, no matter what I think I hear on one broadcast, it will undoubtedly be done differently by the other broadcasters also doing football.

Yeah, I have noticed the stadium announcers coming from the rears....pretty cool!! And they definitely pipe the play-by-play and colour guys through the center channel. So I guess its not TRUE 5.1 sound in that it is positionally correct. But they do have dedicated channels for each sound "type". It would be pretty fascinating to find out how its done and why its done that way.

Thanks Cotu. :)

It's a double-edged sword. Yeah, it's great having the sound all around you with the crowd in the back, but last Monday night on MNF (I know this is CBC-HD thread, but just for interest sake) some idiot was banging a cowbell or something through the whole game. It was just as annoying as if he was sitting about 2 rows behind me. It has happend before with drums as well. I'm surprised that it doesn't annoy the sound mixer as much as me so he (or she) would change the mix or send someone up to move the mic.

Ha ha yeah, if the mixers could edit that crap out on the fly, that'd be sweeet too! LOL!

There will be HD hockey and football this Saturday.

Hockey: WAS vs EDM 10PM eastern time
Football: MONTREAL at TORONTO 2PM eastern time

I have experimented with a box that takes 2.0 in and creates a 5.1 mix. It actually sounds very good, but we don't use it on air on a regular basis.

5.1 sporting events are ‘true’ surround.

There is no direct relationship to camera placement and the 5.1 mix. It's not like a home camcorder where the mic is built into the camera. The sound techs place MANY mics at venue. The actual mix is the artistic decision of the person on the audio console. For example, some may put commentary strictly on the centre channel, while others ‘spill’ some out to the left and right.

For example, some may put commentary strictly on the centre channel, while others ‘spill’ some out to the left and right.

TSN does the former on their CFL HD broadcasts. I think CBC does as well. It is actually too much...it seems to 'disconnect' them more from the broadcast. I prefer if the announcers are primarily on the centre channel with just a bit leaked onto the front left and right channels.

The actual mix is the artistic decision of the person on the audio console.

Cool, thanks Marc!! So they can do this on the fly? That is crazy man! This technology amazes me every day man!

I agree with Faston, I prefer if the play-by-play and colour come directly through center and no spillage.

One last question; will the 5 CFL playoff games (East/West semis, East/West finals, and Grey Cup) all be in HD??

Marc,


1 any chance you could post the exact graphic used for the on-air logo? ;-)

2 can you tell me the brand and model of box used for sd->hd upconversion, most especially I'm trying to understand the zoom settings, I think it's about 2.25 zoom factor... (480 active to 1080 active) also curious about it's deinterlacing features.

3 something I've always been curious about, is tracing a program from commission to my home. Let's take Coronation Street for example, produced by the BBC. On their web site, under BBC Commissioning, they list the technical specs for production, which is very high quality. The final format for international distribution is listed (one of the listed was hdbetacam tape, I believe?).
So, say, a tape made by the producers (in mpeg2), shipped by BBC to CBC, from CBC reencoded to add the ratings and CBC logo in realtime (plus commercial inserting), then sent to a cable company through some satellite company, which then reencodes to fit the channel bandwidth, to the settop box, for a total of about two recompressions. This would explain why it looks so horrible and blocky by the time I get it.
Would this be about right? Does OTA CBC look much better?

One last question; will the 5 CFL playoff games (East/West semis, East/West finals, and Grey Cup) all be in HD??

I haven't seen the details yet.

jmac698:

1. No
2. We use a few different makes and models. As a rule, we don't zoom. We pillar box SD programs.
3. If you haven't looked at a good SD over air signal, you should. I think you will be impressed.

I agree with Faston, I prefer if the play-by-play and colour come directly through center and no spillage.
Actually, you disagree with me. I said that I find it better with a bit of spill. The other way sounds too disconnected and unnatural to me.