the PQ quality of the Canucks/Flames game was definitely not HD quality...the normal HD Leafs games look way better! a bit disappointing

both games looked fine. Why does everyone whine so much about the CBC. Stop complaining all the time and just watch the hockey games. CBC broadcasts their games in HD, we should all be thankful they now have two trucks for HD Hockey broadcasting. But no more whining, CBC that, TSN that. live with it.

If cbc showed other teams more then the leafs people would not comlain as much.

This should happen when the Leafs miss the playoffs.

Totally disagree, both games did NOT look fine. Both games were extremely blocky. This was on Aurora cable, and it has definately looked much better in the past.

I am curious if any of the people complaining about the HD PQ of the games are receiving the signal OTA. I have heard rumors the BEV intentionally degrades CBC's PQ (if nothing else it is well known that BEV's HD is very bad in general). A similar situation may happen with the cable companies. Unless you are getting the signal directly from CBC you can't blame them as it may not be their fault. If you live in (or near) Vancouver, Toronto, Ottawa or Montreal get an antenna and get real HDTV.

It wasn't so much blocky for me, but "noise"y. The Toronto game looked great, the Calgary game looked HD but not on the same level. It was especially susceptible to motion blurryness, but the whole time was affected by noise.

Hey all...

Just got home from NYC a couple of hours ago and have been reading the replies. All I can tell you is that I've never experienced a weekend of hockey broadcasts like that in my 13 year career of doing television. Don't ask me about the video quality - with all the audio problems we were having I didn't have time to look at a monitor anywhere!!

Sens - Isles, Nassau Memorial Arena - HNIC

Mobile: D80 out of Montreal (YAY for me - that was sarcasm :) )

So, I arrived at the arena Saturday morning bright and early 7:30am ish to find out that there was a New York Titans vs Edmonton Rush NLL game at 12:30pm in the arena. We were also informed that we were not going to be able to load our gear into the arena until the game was over which was going to be about 3pm. That is not good. I basically had 2 hours to get the whole thing up and running so that production could have some production time. Needless to say we didn't things up and running on time and were finishing patching as we went to air in NY. I've worked on close to 250 - 300 games in my time and that was hands down the worse it's ever been. I could go on and on and on about what crap we had to deal with but it's over and I'm moving on! Let's put it this way - with about 30 seconds to go in the second intermission - Drew's announcer headset died. He ended up doing the game with a stick mic and earphone for the third period. Needless to say there were many beers after the game.

Rangers / Leafs, MSG NYC. TSN, Sunday night

Mobile: Dome's Trillium (thank God!)

Took a cab from Long Island to MSG for a 10am call time to find out the Greatest Show on Earth (the circus) was on in the arena and wasn't going to be over till about 2pm. I just started laughing - I had to. Needless to say we were able to get into the building and fax everything out so that when the changeover happenend it was a matter of putting things in place. The day was long, but at least everything worked. I'm not sure how the game sounded per se, except that our A1 was very happy and that's all that matters to me. Again, I could go into more about what exactly went on, but it's over and I have Toronto / Philly tomorrow to enjoy.

Needless to say, I'm glad to be home :)

Cheers!

I agree with the general comments that the games were in HD though not particularly impressive HD. Some shots made me think it was just widescreen SD and others looked ok. As for the 16:9 commercials with bars on all sides presumably they were only provided to the CBC in SD although the Panasonic Vierra Plasma ads that had bars on all sides on CBC have been full widescreen HD on Discovery and National Geographic so they are available.

both games looked fine. Why does everyone whine so much about the CBC. Stop complaining all the time and just watch the hockey games. CBC broadcasts their games in HD, we should all be thankful they now have two trucks for HD Hockey broadcasting. But no more whining, CBC that, TSN that. live with it.

we aren't whining...whatever TSN does, then fine, they are a private company with shareholders/owners/etc....

but CBC is paid for by ALL taxpayers, so when the west coast gets shoddy coverage we have a right to complain (or whine as you put it)...and don't say that our market is smaller than yours. it is and we know that, but we (in Vancouver) are also the 2nd largest english speaking market for the CBC.

i heard an interview by the the executive director of HNIC on friday and he said the game would be in HD, so when i tune it i expect it to be in HD...what i saw (and many others here) was definitely not the same quality as regular HD leafs broadcasts!

I am curious if any of the people complaining about the HD PQ of the games are receiving the signal OTA. I have heard rumors the BEV intentionally degrades CBC's PQ (if nothing else it is well known that BEV's HD is very bad in general). A similar situation may happen with the cable companies. Unless you are getting the signal directly from CBC you can't blame them as it may not be their fault. If you live in (or near) Vancouver, Toronto, Ottawa or Montreal get an antenna and get real HDTV.

actually, i have both (well, shaw here in vancouver) as well as OTA...and the OTA wasn't any better....plus the signal was cut after the 2nd period for some reason.

Tonight's game between the Leafs and Rangers on TSN-HD looked much better than either HD game on CBC last night.

Ditto.

Of course very subjective but close up shots to the ice and players during a CBC HD hockey broadcast does not look...right. it looks like it might look if the cameras were having to 'see' through the glass...not sharp. I dont notice this on TSN HD hockey broadcasts.

Thank for the update Stoakley. I feel for you. Glad you got back safely.

Thank for the update Stoakley. I feel for you. Glad you got back safely.
Hey Roger,

Thanks. It was certainly a most interesting weekend of hockey for me. The Islanders / Sens game was a disaster and I think HNIC is going to file a complaint with the league about the time factor - at least everyone on the crew hopes they do. A total disaster, but you make do with what's available to you.

On the other hand I didn't have to smell elephant sh$t and hockey sweat all day long like I did yesterday :D

Cheers!

Ditto.

Of course very subjective but close up shots to the ice and players during a CBC HD hockey broadcast does not look...right. it looks like it might look if the cameras were having to 'see' through the glass...not sharp. I dont notice this on TSN HD hockey broadcasts.
That is what I mean when I said CBC doesn't use all HD cameras, those shots all season look like that.

I am curious if any of the people complaining about the HD PQ of the games are receiving the signal OTA.

All the coments I made were about OTA reception of the game. Go back and read.

Stoakley, thanks for the info.

So is it safe to say that I can expect to see a much better HD PQ OTA for the next HNIC game? (hopefully?)

did anyone else experience a strange hum during the saturday night leafs/pittsburg broadcast? it only came up when the camera panned right towards the boards to the side of the net.

stoakley - i feel for you, especially on sunday. i heard earlier that the circus was being loaded out from MSG and then that time lapse video your crew showed during the first period. is it true that MSG did some upgrades to the arena? it sure looks much brighter in there. i don't like how they have the railings set up near the glass. it gives off a visual illusion that the shape of the rink is slightly warped.

Here in Calgary on Shaw Cable - both CBC games in HD were of very poor quality. CBC is usually pretty good on Sat. nights - but I was definitely dissapointed with the picture on both games.

TSN's HD is always better - but on Sunday's Leaf game the quality was amazing.

did anyone else experience a strange hum during the saturday night leafs/pittsburg broadcast? it only came up when the camera panned right towards the boards to the side of the net.

stoakley - i feel for you, especially on sunday. i heard earlier that the circus was being loaded out from MSG and then that time lapse video your crew showed during the first period. is it true that MSG did some upgrades to the arena? it sure looks much brighter in there. i don't like how they have the railings set up near the glass. it gives off a visual illusion that the shape of the rink is slightly warped.
Hey Billy,

Thanks. The game at MSG was a piece of cake compared to the Islanders / Sens game... a total nightmare! Nothing like walking down from level 5 to ground level while the maintanence guys are hosing down tiger and elephent urine down the ramp! Good times... good times.

I'm not sure if they've done any upgrades to the arena since the last time I was there, but I would agree that the arena is brighter than years past.

ASA: I'm not sure about the HD show from last Saturday, I was worried about whether or not our announce team had mics and IFB's that were going to work :) I felt for our A1 and the rest of the production crew - let's just say there were a lot of beers at the hotel bar when we got back!!

Cheers

All of these problems lead to an easy solution. Hockey Night in Canada should be IN CANADA.