The Center Ice feed I get is awful. My cable signal is weak or something. The games look just terrible. And with no HD, it's even worse. So I feel your pain guys.
I was pretty sure it was all games of the 9 ny sports teams in HD on the commercial with the lame suit guy but if you look at the disclaimer on the bottom it pretty much says 'we're lying, it's subject to HD availability'.
Happened last year and has happened the previous years.... Sure it's more of a rare occurrence but I definitely remember having to visit MSG's website to look up their Overflow list to figure out what random channels the games were carried on.... One of the channels was something weird sounding like ZAP network or something.
I know it's happened, but like I said, I can't remember the last time it happened when the Rangers were at home, especially since iO really started pushing its HD Channels in advertisements and more and more people started getting HDTV's.
I was pretty sure it was all games of the 9 ny sports teams in HD on the commercial with the lame suit guy but if you look at the disclaimer on the bottom it pretty much says 'we're lying, it's subject to HD availability'.
yeah, well what's funny is we know that HD Broadcasts are available from Madison Square Garden, one just wasn't available last night, because of the decision to move the Rangers to MSG2
It's actually an issue between Dolan/Cablevision and Verizon more than anything else. Sure, the NHL isn't happy about it, but it's really not their fight. And you're right. Dolan has so many wars going at once I think he forgets who he's fighting.
Not allowing NHL Center Ice to use the HD feed in their package is from Dolan's disagreement with the NHL regarding control of the Rangers' website. It has nothing to do with Verizon.
In the IO guy commercials (waving or wearing the jerseys) he used to say "Every Rangers game in HD" but a while ago they dubbed his voice over to say "Every HD game of the Rangers" probably due to the complaints and some of last years games were in SD
Way back when I watched about 30 or so road games a year, thats all we had on free tv, Channel 9. Small grainy black and white TV, had to move the antenna around to get a good picture. Sometimes the game would 'blackout' and all we would get was sound, for like whole periods at a time.
Perspective.
Terrible argument. This is akin to the "I walked 5 miles to school in the snow". argument. Technology has advanced, and so have the astronomical prices people pay. Cablevision still uses 1998 technology for their ATROCIOUS cable boxes. It takes me 2 buttons, and about 8 seconds to get a guide up. My bill is like $200 a month.
I want every game in HD. Take off the home and gardening HD channel for 3 hours.
cablevision needs to fix the lag there is in changing channels. It's one of those very small things that annoys the crap out of the average person to the point where they'll consider changing services over such a small thing (whether they admit it or not).
I stayed somewhere that had FiOS this weekend, and it was a lot smoother in terms of operation.
how difficult would it be really for Cablevision to just add another HD channel or 2? I have no idea of the logistics involved in it. It just doesn't seem like it's much to ask for. Doesn't even have to be a full time channel, just when a game is on, have t be able to broadcast in HD
Until this year, I didn't have an HD TV. I watched every game and had no problem with the feed. Now that I have an HD TV and watch the games in HD, it bothers me to watch non-HD games.
It's bad enough we always get bumped for the knicks, but the debbies shouldn't get HD priority over us.
The lag in changing channels is horrible for Cablevision. Not even just for actually changing, but pressing the up and down keys to see the channels at the bottom.
Also having to go through an extra screen (which takes too long to load) to get to the guide is annoying as well.
Cablevision also needs a version of the guide like Verizon has that comes up on the side of your screen or something. I don't always need to have a full screen guide. Hence why I never use it. I just use the thing at the bottom.
If Cablevision really wants to beat Verizon, they'd be smart to make as many channels as they can in HD including ALL of the movie channels. Plus MSG2 HD would be a big plus . Also they should really bring back Voom HD.
On my Verizon Fios every time there's a game on MSG 2 the sound doesn't work. You can hear the crowd, and every other detail but not the announcers. It drives me nuts. And after last night in which the Rangers were home, started at 7, and still had to be on MSG 2 instead of the ******* Knicks really pissed me off.
that sounds like heaven ... I would love a broadcast w/o announcers!
that sounds like heaven ... I would love a broadcast w/o announcers!
I've always said that they should make an SAP (second audio program, even though everyone thinks it means Spanish) for hockey which has just the sound of the game and no announcers. I mean with HD TV and all that now, people want to feel more like they are there, what better way than to crank up the arena sounds and get rid of announcers?
I don't care what they said, there's no way the Devils should be in HD on MSG Network over the Rangers, especially if the Rangers are home. There should also, IMO, never be a time where the Knicks OR Rangers are not broadcast in HD when they're playing at Madison Square Garden. You have two MSG channels, the teams that play at MSG should get priority to those.
I don't know if it's the case, but seems to me like Cablevision just trying to keep the Devils happy so he can continue to broadcast them, and so he just pushes the Rangers off of the HD Channel since he has nothing to lose with them. I guess they also figure they don't want two hockey games in HD and the Knicks on the non-HD channel, so hence why the Rangers ended up on MSG-2.
Sorry friend. The Devils (and Islanders) contract with MSG guarantees them exposure on MSG+ (on HD) and MSG+2. Those two teams share that channel. The Rangers and Knicks are on MSG, and both teams there are also guaranteed exposure.
That's how the contract works, and that's why MSG has the right to show Devils and Islander games. Both teams signed on because they were both given a lot of money, and guarantees that they will be shown in HD and so on... The Devils didn't sign on to be a second fiddle to the Rangers on MSG networks.
I can't find the commercial online, but
“We launched HD in 2003 with a philosophy that high-definition programming should be available free to our digital cable customers, and more than 100 HD channels later we have held firm to that commitment, with a great and diverse array of programming that includes all HD games of all nine professional sports teams in our market,” said John Trierweiler, Cablevision’s senior vice president of product management. http://www.optimum.net/downloads/iOTVJuneHD.pdf
I think that's exactly what they say in the commercial too.
It's interesting wording on their part because it expressly states that they will broadcast "all HD games" not that every game will be broadcast in HD. Basically they're just saying if there's an HD broadcast available they'll provide it, not that every local professional sports game will always be HD.
I never understood why everyone complained about this prior to buying a new television two weeks ago. It's incredibly frustrating to watch SD on an HD television. I watched last nights debacle on my bedroom TV which is still standard but I didn't shell out the money for an HD TV because I was looking forward to still watching hockey in SD.
The reason why it looks like garbage is the same as if you take a picture such as
Its resolution is 640x480 (like SD). Now take the very same picture and blow it up so that it's 1440 x 1080 (like 1080i HD).
Now picture looking at a picture like this in motion. There you have why SD looks horrible on an HD TV. Then throw in the crappy broadcast signal that MSG2 has (making quality even worse) and you have a horrific broadcast.
The reason why it looks like garbage is the same as if you take a picture such as
Its resolution is 640x480 (like SD). Now take the very same picture and blow it up so that it's 1440 x 1080 (like 1080i HD).
Now picture looking at a picture like this in motion. There you have why SD looks horrible on an HD TV. Then throw in the crappy broadcast signal that MSG2 has (making quality even worse) and you have a horrific broadcast.
Well that's another question I had. Why is it "only" 1080i and not 1080p anyway?
In the United States, 1080p broadcasts as of yet do not exist; all major networks use either 720p60 or 1080i60 encoded with MPEG-2, and the consumer televisions currently do not support codecs needed to support 1080p50 or 1080p60.
For material that originated from a progressive scanned 24 frame/s source (such as film), MPEG-2 allows the video to be coded as 1080p24, irrespective of the final output format; these progressively-coded frames are tagged with metadata (literally, fields of the PICTURE header) instructing a decoder how to perform a 3:2 pulldown to interlace them. While the formal output of the MPEG-2 decoding process from such stations is 1080i60, the actual content is coded as 1080p24 and can be viewed as such, using a process known as inverse telecine, since no information is lost even when the broadcaster (as opposed to the receiver) performs the 3:2 pulldown.[8]
Also note that true 1080i resolution is actually 1920x1080 where the picture I upscaled was 1440 x 1080. That's why you normally expand your screen to fill the black borders on the outside. So what you end up doing is stretching the image even more and making it more blurry. Although I think SD is normally 720x480 and not 640x480 which would blow up to 1620 x 1080. Either way, you get the idea.
The sad truth of the matter is with the product on the ice not being able to see the game clearly is not a pressing problem. This team is a disaster from a talent perspective. The only issue now is getting Glen Sather fired so we can begin to move forward like the Knicks finally could after Thomas was fired.
Well that's another question I had. Why is it "only" 1080i and not 1080p anyway?
To make an image 'p' (progressive) uses twice as much data as an 'i' (interlaced). Your carrier only has a certain amount of bandwidth to deliver all the channels it offers, so not going with P saves them some bandwidth. That explains why you have some channels in HD and some are not (even though you may notice those companies offer their channels in HD on other providers).
That's why I like DirecTV because I guess satellite has more bandwidth and I get a ton more HD channels than I did with cable (and all the Center Ice games are in HD also which is sick, but of course MSG is not, which sucks.).
I think Cablevision's marketing strategy focuses on all the local sports teams in HD because they know they can't offer more HD channels as a whole so they can concentrate on selling the core competence they have (ergo MSG in HD) whereas other providers cannot.
Last edited by GothamRanger: 12-31-2009 at 02:47 PM.
Reason: added last pgph
This has happened a fair share of times in the past, this really isn't new....
When the Rangers wind up playing on one of the overflow channels, it's never in HD....
Quote:
Originally Posted by RangerFan10
I can't remember the last time it happened when they were at home, while the Knicks on the road and the Devils were the teams playing on the HD channels...
I don't know about the home/away specifics, but I've seen the Rangers bumped by the Knicks on MSG and either the Isles or Devils on + multiple times every season. It's aboslute garbabe that one of the most popular teams in the league is bumped from a channel named for their arena for two other NHL teams that are significantly less popular. I accept that the NBA is more popular even though I don't understand it. I realize that they probably have binding deals with the Devils and Isles that require them to be broadcasted over the Rangers on the + but it doesn't make it any less frustrating or stupid.
I didn't watch the game last night. I am at the point where I don't have the desire or patience to watch crap definition. I bought my HDTV, I pay for my cable, I support my team despite 9 horrible seasons in the last 13 years. If the Rangers and MSG don't feel the need to treat us with a modicum of respect than I guess they really don't want us to watch all that much to begin with.
. Also they should really bring back Voom HD.
