BravoHD "The West Wing Bad" picture quality

I have been using the SA4200HD for a week or so.
All the HD channels have been pretty good so far, especially
BravoHD when they broadcast a concert, however, "The West Wing" looks
horrible when it is broadcast on BravoHD.
It seems like the faces are pixelating and, or muddy looking.
Has anyone had the same experience?
I have IO Cablevision on Long Island.
Lou

"Lou" wrote in message
et...

I have been using the SA4200HD for a week or so.
All the HD channels have been pretty good so far, especially
BravoHD when they broadcast a concert, however, "The West Wing" looks
horrible when it is broadcast on BravoHD.
It seems like the faces are pixelating and, or muddy looking.
Has anyone had the same experience?
I have IO Cablevision on Long Island.
Lou



What type of HDTV are you using? West Wing on Bravo looks very good on our
Mits rear projector through the Motorolla DCT 6200 cable box. West Wing
tend to be darker than a lot of other shows with a lot of shadowy interior
shots.

The West Wing has the worst all around broadcast quality of any show
on TV.

The picture is habitually out-of-focus--even the character who is in
the center of the screen and talking at the camera is fuzzed out.
Nothing is ever fully in focus. Recently far too many of the scenes
have been shot with hand-held cameras and are very jittery.

The sound is muddy all of the time. While we otherwise like the show,
my wife and I are continually asking each other, "What the hell diid
he say?"

And this applies to standard definition tube-type TV. In HDTV, these
things are worse. The 3D visual effect that you see from many HDTV
programs requires that the entire scene be in focus, including the
background and foreground--not to mention the subject of the shot.
This show is a waste of good bandwidth.

--e



On Fri, 12 Mar 2004 03:38:20 GMT, "Lou" wrote:


I have been using the SA4200HD for a week or so.
All the HD channels have been pretty good so far, especially
BravoHD when they broadcast a concert, however, "The West Wing" looks
horrible when it is broadcast on BravoHD.
It seems like the faces are pixelating and, or muddy looking.
Has anyone had the same experience?
I have IO Cablevision on Long Island.
Lou

Agree, the sound is terrible, and actors try to cover lousy writing by
talking too fast. We stopped watching it.
Ross

"einride" wrote in message
...

The West Wing has the worst all around broadcast quality of any show
on TV.

The picture is habitually out-of-focus--even the character who is in
the center of the screen and talking at the camera is fuzzed out.
Nothing is ever fully in focus. Recently far too many of the scenes
have been shot with hand-held cameras and are very jittery.

The sound is muddy all of the time. While we otherwise like the show,
my wife and I are continually asking each other, "What the hell diid
he say?"

And this applies to standard definition tube-type TV. In HDTV, these
things are worse. The 3D visual effect that you see from many HDTV
programs requires that the entire scene be in focus, including the
background and foreground--not to mention the subject of the shot.
This show is a waste of good bandwidth.

--e



On Fri, 12 Mar 2004 03:38:20 GMT, "Lou" wrote:


I have been using the SA4200HD for a week or so.
All the HD channels have been pretty good so far, especially
BravoHD when they broadcast a concert, however, "The West Wing" looks
horrible when it is broadcast on BravoHD.
It seems like the faces are pixelating and, or muddy looking.
Has anyone had the same experience?
I have IO Cablevision on Long Island.
Lou

The picture is habitually out-of-focus--even the character who is in
the center of the screen and talking at the camera is fuzzed out.
Nothing is ever fully in focus. Recently far too many of the scenes
have been shot with hand-held cameras and are very jittery.

I don't think it's fair to put *all* the blame on the Bravo network. I've
had the chance to compare the HD OTA feed of the latest West Wing episodes
with the reruns on Bravo (both via Dish Network and via Comcast cable in
Washington, DC) on my Sony 32XBR400, and I think I'm qualified to comment
here.

To be sure, the HD OTA feed looks slightly crisper, but not by much. The
production design of the show is such that it's *supposed* to look dark
and moody and atmospheric. Notice how the lighting is arranged, with
alternating pools of bright incandescent light and areas of shadow. (Take
it from a federal government employee. That's NOT how the offices look in
real life.) Note how the characters are often in motion from light areas
to dark areas as they deliver their lines. The intent, I suppose, is to
create some kind of visual drama in a show that is VERY dialog intensive.
Also note the camera's soft focus. Again, this is by design and the idea
is to create a mood. All in all, the people in Hollywood who control how
the West Wing looks don't want it to look like the Tonight Show. They're
going for atmosphere.

So even when I watch a brand new episode via the digital UHF broadcast of
the 1080i feed from my local NBC affiliate, the West Wing looks dark and
moody and a little out of focus. When I watch the reruns on Bravo, I
occasionally notice some compression artifacts. But that's probably when
the real time bandwidth allocation at Dish Network or Comcast is
temporarily squeezing the bitstream just a trifle too much.

The sound is muddy all of the time. While we otherwise like the show,
my wife and I are continually asking each other, "What the hell diid
he say?"

I concede the West Wing's dialog comes fast and furious. And sometimes the
writers include lines that aren't really necessary to the plot, sort of
the verbal equivalent to background extras in a scene. (During a walk and
talk Josh will say to Toby something like: "Sanders and Morgan have been
out to get us ever since we rolled them on S. Res. 248. Now they think
they've got a shot to derail the Mathias nomination to the Fourth Circuit,
but they'll be singing a different tune after we add that rider to the CR
directing the BRC to zero out the Williston Depot." Then the dialog will
shift to something integral to the plot. I often find myself wracking my
brain to keep up with the irrelevant details.)

But I have not noticed that the actual audio quality is bad, either on
Bravo or via the OTA feed. And I'm not using any fancy audio setup - just
the speakers in my Sony Wega. I *do* miss lines here and there. But that's
because they're talking so rapidly, or Toby's doing his anguished sotto
vocce thing again.

Paul Michael Brown ) wrote in alt.tv.tech.hdtv:
Then the dialog will
shift to something integral to the plot. I often find myself wracking my
brain to keep up with the irrelevant details.)

Many of these details aren't irrelevant, and come up later (or were something
that happened before).

--
Jeff Rife |
For address harvesters: | http://www.nabs.net/Cartoons/OverTheHedge/StarWars1.gif
|
|
|

You are all correct. HDTV makes a bad recording even worst. I don't believe
that West Wing is recorded in HD. Looks more like the Wide Screen programming
that Fox calls High Resoluion, It is the poorest quality HD that I have
encountered.

In article ,
(RICHLACA) wrote:

You are all correct. HDTV makes a bad recording even worst. I don't believe
that West Wing is recorded in HD. Looks more like the Wide Screen programming
that Fox calls High Resoluion, It is the poorest quality HD that I have
encountered.

With the exception of this week's upcoming episode, The West Wing is
shot on film and an HD transfer is created (just as with any movie that
is filmed). The look is the look that the show's producer/director/
want. If you don't like it, don't watch it. I think it looks fine and
continue to enjoy is excellent show.

In article ,
(RICHLACA) wrote:

You are all correct. HDTV makes a bad recording even worst. I don't believe
that West Wing is recorded in HD. Looks more like the Wide Screen programming
that Fox calls High Resoluion, It is the poorest quality HD that I have
encountered.

With the exception of this week's upcoming episode, The West Wing is
shot on film and an HD transfer is created (just as with any movie that
is filmed). The look is the look that the show's producer/director/
want. If you don't like it, don't watch it. I think it looks fine and
continue to enjoy is excellent show.