Rant: NCAA games painful to watch

[DublinDoodah]

Man what an annoying experience. This digital "high technology", IMHO, still has a long way to go. I watched the NCAA tourny all day yesterday (HD feed only) and experienced one production misstep after another. I don't know how much of it was CBS's doings vrs. WBNS, but I hope they both get their acts together.

First, the abrupt switches between SD and HD. I kinda understood it when they went to another game for an update on its progress, but found on subsequent updates that the other game was really HD. Also, many times after returning from a commercial, they forgot to switch back to HD for several minutes.

Second, several times the switch to another game happened without warning; sometimes even mid-sentence.

But my biggest gripe is the inconsistent sound levels. As they switched from one forum to another, the sound levels changed drastically. I nearly wore out my remote's volume button. WBNS has always had this problem (please, please, please, WBNS match your late news volume with that of the preceding prime-time shows and the following David Letterman show), but yesterday it was mostly all CBS's doing.

For all the touted "improvements" with the new technology, this is definitely a major step backwards.

[snodgrass23]

It was mostly CBS from what I saw. I was watching the DirecTV package which was the national feeds and it had all kinds of the same wierd issues.

[jchiso]

"Painful" and "annoying" are fair descriptions. I'd add "confusing" and "frustrating". For each of the previous three years CBS has provided HD-only content at two sites per day for the opening weekend. These games were carried on DirecTV without any games- or resolution- switching.

This year looked like it was going to better that experience by providing full HD games at all of the sites. This was not the case. As soon as CBS switched games in some markets the HD broadcasts went to SD, and in many cases remained so for most (if not all) of the game.

The Georgetown game switched to SD early in the first half and never returned to HD on its designated channel. Louisville got a similar treatment. The odd thing about this is that when other HD channels switched to those games later on they got the HD feed, while the designated (HD) channel continued to receive the SD feed!

It's hard to express how bad this year's experience has been. The "new technology" excuse no longer applies; this is CBS' eighth year doing NCAA tournament games in HD.

[TvPat]

Also, many times after returning from a commercial, they forgot to switch back to HD for several minutes.


This is because when they come back from a commerical, Greg Gumbel often give updates of other games (which I like if I only have one game). DirecTV replaces these updates with a special feed of that game, which is in SD. DirecTV has always done this, but you really notice it when you are watching the HD feed.


As they switched from one forum to another, the sound levels changed drastically.


Can't argue with you there. Also, DirecTV is noticably louder than WBNS.

[TvPat]

this is CBS' eighth year doing NCAA tournament games in HD.

It is their eighth year of doing the Final Four in HD. They have only been doing multiple feeds in HD since 2005. Prior to that, only one first round site and one regional site was in HD. This is the first year that there have been more than 2 HD feeds at one time.

[TvPat]

Most of the concerns on this board would not exist if CBS would not insist on blackouts in the Mega March Madness package.

For example
- no one would care if there was a local HD feed OTA
- no one would complain about interruptions
- the "Game Mix" channels wouldn't be worthless

Typical local advertising rates are $5-$10 per 1000 viewers, or a penny per viewer per 30 second ad. At 32 hours of coverage with eight 30 second commercials per hour, I would gladly pay an extra $2.56 for the package to get no blackouts.

[festivus]

Let's not leave the OTA Dish folks out of this rant. We get one game, only some of the time in HD. No multicast. With all of my receivers and PiP capability, I can often watch only one game in SD while others are getting HD and multicast games. But even with that it appears to be messy as you folks have stated.

This has been the worst NCAA coverage that I've endured in years. I'm not leaving WBNS blameless since they chose to do 10.1 in HD with no multicast. And 10.1 has not been consistently in HD. Why go that route when CBS is going to knock it down to SD?

Re the sound levels, WBNS is always not as loud as other channels for me. Not sure why. I didn't notice much diff between the games.

DublinDoodah is right. This is painful.

[MeHDTV]

Right now there is only 1 game that is close, the others are blowouts. Guess which game we haven't seen at all? That's right, the competitive game.