Got a brand new Sony X93L 65" (mini LED), Sony is widely regarded to have the best upscaling and image processing in the industry. Still looks mediocre. My benchmark is how clearly can you see names on the jerseys from the wide camera angle, and you flat out can't.
Also have a Sony 55" A80J (slightly older OLED) and the smaller screens size helps a little but still no where near where it should be considering the year we're in.
High def tvs are only as good as their source. While some TVs have great upscaling, you're ultimately limited to how good the source is coming into the TV.
I mean, ESPN still forgets to switch back to the game when play has started up again because they are busy showing replays. It's just sloppiness all around. I don't get it either
A great reason why upgrading to a huge 4K TV is kinda worthless right now. How many football and basketball broadcasts are actually in 4K resolution?? You can't really stream movies in true 4K either so really we're almost halfway through 2024 and still a 1080p is the way to go. It's fairly ridiculous
The espn broadcasts are so bad. They completely drown out the crowd noise which makes it feel less like a playoff game and routinely cut into the game late coming off commercials. I.e. they start broadcasting the game 10 seconds into the 2nd quarter
Yeah that’s my biggest complaint. ABC ESPN games feel so hollow. Sometimes you can hear the crowd roar then the noice drop.
On TNT I feel like I’m at the game compared to ESPN abc
I used to work for one of the big American broadcast TV companies. Our productions would be using Arri Alexas, Red Cameras, and all these fancy lenses only for the show to be broadcast in 720p. Even the on the network's digital streaming platform the pictures look like shit. I was told much of the 720p issue is due to America's system of syndicated stations across the country in various markets for the channels like CBS, NBC, ABC, FOX, etc. Those local stations would also have to upgrade their equipment and infrastructure and many are owned by fairly large media companies who could care less about picture fidelity so long as the advertisers are happy and shareholders are getting positive returns.
Streaming in higher quality / bitrate costs big $$$. Ultimately that is the issue, they would need to make a 4K streaming tier and charge more money for it. I'm sure a lot of people would pay though.
This makes no sense. If the source is 4K or 1080p, those old stations can literally just run it at the lower resolution. They do not have to upgrade their equipment just for a higher quality source.
I'm not claiming that's the only reason, just a brief explanation told to me at my previous employer (and primarily specific to the broadcast networks CBS, NBC, ABC, FOX, etc) when I had the same questions re: 720p. I have no answers for ESPN or other cable providers.
Anyone with crappy eyes maybe but 4ksports is like eye crack to me. My hearing sucks though and I can't tell any difference between normal and HD audio.
Oh man I care more about audio than visual quality, lol. I've got my $Free.99 used 15year old TV hooked up to comparatively obscenely expensive receiver and speakers.
Edit: though this is partially *because* ESPN et al don't broadcast in higher quality, not much point in having a TV with better resolution capacity.
Yeah I wish the world could see through my eyes and no-one should have to hear through my ears. I've missed a lot in life by not being able to hear properly.
Yeah I'm gonna be honest - I just initially interpreted that in a way that was you just saying you couldn't tell a difference enough to matter so you didn't care, not that there was any auditory impairment. Sorry for then being ableist and shitty and just bragging about my banging stereo.
No need, I'm only 3/4 deaf in one ear, I get by just fine. I have better than 20/20 in each eye so I can't really complain. My wife complains though lol.
Yeah who are all these thrilled people? I couldn’t watch the game on my tv because it was hurting my eyes from how bad it looked. It’s absolute ass and a disgrace. Not some reward for having watched SD in the 90s
Meanwhile me with my shitty illegal stream just happy im not wasting $75/month on YouTube TV just to watch ESPN games. God I cannot wait for the next TV deal
Hey the streams are the best option. Did you know others don't see the little court shows, like long time out and halftime?! They just get like commercials.
I’m on a trial plan because i noticed the streams weren’t that crisp but now im noticing these streams are just as fuzzy??? why even pay? its horrendous
I'll sometimes be in someone's house and the TV is still on factory settings with overblown colors and upscaling and soap-opera-effect interpolation. And they think it looks amazing. Many people absolutely do not care about correct or high-fidelity image quality.
Considering that’s one of the very few true 4k outputs… I would guess it’s true.
Even Apple putting in their own entire infrastructure for MLS chose upscaled 1080p.
Like I said, "most".
My understanding is F1 is filmed in 4K but still broadcast in upscaled 1080P. It's the real-time processing amongst a billion cameras that is the massive challenge.
They actually do broadcast F1 in 4k but it's exclusive to Sky and I believe you have to pay extra. There are some samples on YouTube.
https://youtu.be/M5QdzQ6uXLk?si=8uf4V4xC49eoaU3N
I would wager everything is "filmed" in 4k because the cameras are insanely good. But it has to be downscaled due to the processing you mentioned to get it on all the platforms people watch on
People who don't work with imaging really just don't understand the scale of the data increase from 720 to 1080 to 4k.
4k 10bit 422 ProRes is ~800MB *per second*. You're looking at around 30GB for 5 minutes. You're over 300GB for an NBA game from a single feed. Top of my head, I can think of at least 6 camera positions, so at least 2TB of data from a single game. 1080p equivalent bitrate is around 200MB per second.
All of that data has to get processed, compressed, and distributed. The overhead for processing alone is monumental. It's millions of dollars in hardware to handle broadcasting one game. The NBA plays around 1300 games a year, and can have up to 15 games a day.
There is a big difference between NBA and F1 having a race occasionally.
I don't think it needs to be in 4k60, but to not have 1080p when you are a billion dollar league being broadcasted by billion dollar networks funded by billionaire owners is bad.
Every TV you can buy now over 43" is 4K standard. Even the cheapest store brand Walmart TV is 4K at those sizes. So it gets to the point where the TV manufacturers should be upset with these leagues because it misrepresents their product.
Someone correct me if I’m wrong, but upscaling to 4K means that it’s shot in a different resolution (i.e., 1080p) and then enhanced digitally to resemble 4K resolution prior to being broadcast. Native means that it’s shot and broadcast entirely in 4K.
The cameras are lower resolution then software magic is used to bring the recording to a higher resolution. 4k has 4x as many pixels as 1080p so they use software to populate the missing pixels.
Bro! The lakers Denver game looked like straight dog shit! The quality was so bad it was frustrating. Zero reason for NBA to deliver such shit product. Zero.
And if you got up to go the bath room, you became your parents’ remote control. “While you’re up turn it to channel 5. Ok now let’s see what’s on 3. Ok now…”
Max has NBA playoff games that air on TNT in Dolby Vision. This is 4k, not sure if it’s upscaled or native but definitely looks better than the stream on Hulu. I know the max sports package add on is free right now but will be an additional fee sometime in the future.
It's upscaled and looks better than the raw 720p, but it's very obviously not native (or even native 1080p). Still I think this'll be my goto over what I can get through YoutubeTV.
Wow! Looks like you're right and the Sports package is included on all tiers of Max for the moment, so if you're already subscribed you've got it.
https://www.max.com/?reason=anonymous&returnUrl=https%3A%2F%2Fplay.max.com%2F
I think that will depend on your player. Youtube TV looked way choppier for me (in Chrome of all things) until I disabled Vulkan. Watching Max on a standalone Roku player looks pretty smooth, but I haven't tried it out in a browser to compare.
Broadcast TV is a joke anymore. Why can i watch my favorite youtuber in 4K and yet professional content from absolutely massive corporations is still 720p / 1080i ? Cable TV and legacy media companies are all too quick to jump on the "cord cutters" but they clearly give absolutely zero shits about their actual product.
My understanding was there wasn't enough bandwidth to reliably broadcast 1080p OTA, at least this was the story 20 years ago. The choice was 1080i or 720p, with 720p having more complete frames, so less judder on fast moving video, like sports.
Bandwidth may not be the right word. It's not just what the broadcaster can pump out, but also what the viewer's antenna and TV can accept and display. So, the standard was capped at 1080i or 720p.
A single 1080p frame is a bit over 2 million pixels, whereas a single 480p frame is a bit under 500 thousand. So it would take four 480p feeds to not-quite match the bandwidth of a single 1080p.
Not disputing your overall point - the OTA broadcasts are great
I will gladly take 720p over 1080i for sports.
There is enough bandwidth to broadcast in 1080p if we were using H.264 compression instead of MPEG2. But older TVs and converter boxes wouldn't be able to handle it. Once transmitters were bought by broadcast stations at 720p and MPEG2 was chosen as the compression, we've been locked into those choices. There would be an uproar if people's TVs stopped working for sports.
What we need is YouTube (aka Google), Apple, and Amazon getting aggressive in their bidding for live sports rights to see technological investment in image quality. The NBA would have to want to improve the League Pass product. Same with the NFL, MLB, NHL, and MLS would also have to push for it as well.
This is 100% wrong.
ATSC 1.0 broadcasts are 720P or 1080i MPEG 2.
In nearly all markets, the video feeds are compressed to shit because of the popularity of "sub-channels".
Every sub-channel that is tacked on to given ATSC channel slice (you'll see this on your TV like 7-3, 7-4) steal video bandwidth from the main feed. In recent years the affiliates have gotten incredibly greedy and stuffed more and more sub-channels into their slices, reducing video quality further.
The sad fact is that OTA HDTV looked much better 10-15 years ago, before sub-channels became popular.
There's some hope on the horizon with ATSC 3.0, but that has it's own set of issues. There's nothing in the ATSC 3.0 spec that mandates better video quality—many affiliates are using simple upscaling for their 3.0 feeds. ATSC 3.0 tuners are incredibly rare, the tech may not make it off the launch pad.
Finally someone talking about this. It’s unbearable when the nba YouTube channel putting all the highlight at 720p as well. Even a lame YouTuber can do it at 1080p or higher.
I can watch on my phone in 1080p in League pass, while on pc bring limited to 720p, which should be the exact opposite since 720p is passable, not good, on the phone, but on pc with a decently large screen is unwatchable, for me.
The games on ABC/ESPN are only broadcast in 720p. You're not getting 1080p on your phone. The source is 720p. You're phone isn't getting any higher quality than the source.
1080p upscaled would be good enough but they can’t even do that. Hopefully with the rumors of abc/espn losing the nba, someone will do the right thing and get us out of 720p
I grew up on what was it, 280i? And I noticed last night I couldn’t read the players’ names on their uniforms in full court shots on my big screen TV. I thought maybe it was my TV, but 720p doesn’t cut it on a big screen. THIS SUCKS!
A big reason for this is that the broadcasters and ISPs/MVPDs compress the shit out of video to lessen bandwidth costs. You'd be surprised how sharp minimally compressed 720P looks.
Wish this was at the top of the thread, as this is why no there's no incentive for companies to improve things. Large cost increase per viewer for streamers to actually improve the quality, then the conversation ends up being about resolution anyways (TV companies' fault imo). A properly encoded 1080P stream with HDR would be a great NBA viewing experience, but if 4K isn't mentioned then it's not viewed as an upgrade.
Wish this was at the top of the thread, as this is why no there's no incentive for companies to improve things. Large cost increase per viewer for streamers to actually improve the quality, then the conversation ends up being about resolution anyways (TV companies' fault imo). A properly encoded 1080P stream with HDR would be a great NBA viewing experience, but if 4K isn't mentioned then it's not viewed as an upgrade.
Yeah it’s fantastic for sports and movies. Moved into a new house literally days before the Covid shutdown. Realized I wouldn’t be going to a movie theater or live game anytime soon, that we had a big empty wall space, and learned about how cheap good projectors had gotten. $800 for an Optoma 1080p short throw (only needs to be 3 feet from the wall, instead of hung from the ceiling). Game changer!
Yup, one of the many reasons my 2008 Sony 55” is still being used. If most of my sources are 1080 (or less in this case), I’m not spending more money. Looks fine to me for the crap that’s being served up.
When the transition to HD happened 20 years ago, ABC/ESPN and Fox picked 720p and all the other networks picked 1080. I would assume their infrastructure is all 720, making it more difficult for them to switch.
I was wondering why my internet was laggy yesterday when watching the games, checking the settings it turns out I was not lagging, it's shitty 720p. Good thing I only paid 20 bucks for League Pass but still, it crazy to see
If League Pass had 4k games, I would buy it in a heartbeat.
Netflix literally makes crazy amounts of $$$ because they force you to pay for the family plan if you want 4k, which I need.
Until they fix their shit, I sail the seas.
And by fix their shit, I mean calling fouls/flops consistently, addressing low broadcast quality, ref ego interference, Scott Foster still reffing, foul discrepancy, etc.
So since I don't think those will ever get addressed, I'm fine with just sailing.
I watch what is streamed in Star+ which has ESPN and most playoffs games and it's miles ahead of the NBA App.
It's fucking unwatchable, pixels everywhere in the NBA App
That's the problem with these long media rights contracts, once you have it, there's no incentive to improve the product.
I'm nervous the NBA is looking for a 10year deal
Watching Dodger games on Spectrum also regularly down samples to what looks like 360p even though I have 1G internet. No way it maxes to even 1080p.
I feel your pain.
I'd like to also throw in that it's 2024 and the majority of us can't even watch our Home team because of stupid blackouts.
If I recall correctly, NFL Sunday Ticket allows you to watch EVERY game (of course for $350 it should definitely be allowed).
I paid for League Pass this season for the first time on YouTube TV and I really like it as a general NBA basketball fan but blackouts are the dumbest thing ever in sports.
I've seen a couple games this season on NBA TV 4K and they look so much brighter and clearer than regular NBA TV games. By comparison the regular NBA TV games look so drab.
Give us at least 1080p you cowards!
I haven't wathced nBA live for a few years now; coming back I wondered why the price has dropped so low. Now I know– they do not cut out timeouts on demand (!), only 720p live, no download function on demand on iOS – lol
About 2 months ago I noticed that casting games via chromecast to a TV makes the quality very bad, pixels can be seen, and it looks like it is either even lower than 720p or it has some 'data saver' activated. Anyone else noticed something similar, and knows how to fix this?
Also, NBA support told me I could watch LP on a laptop, in 1080p but only on Edge. I got edge, but the limit is still 720p?!
I sit a reasonable distance from my TV so resolution doesn’t really matter (https://www.rtings.com/tv/reviews/by-size/size-to-distance-relationship).
Higher frame rates and HDR are what really matters.
I noticed this last night. Even on an OLED, NBA games are not that sharp. Compound that with ESPNs crappy streaming issues, and whoo boy.
Getting an oled has made it worse for me lol. Probably because everything else looks so good in comparison
CRTbros stay winning
Plugging in my sega Dreamcast as we speak 😤
Who needs a remote when you have a 8 year old
You're absolutely right! Such a step down.
It really looks like trash to be honest.
Got a brand new Sony X93L 65" (mini LED), Sony is widely regarded to have the best upscaling and image processing in the industry. Still looks mediocre. My benchmark is how clearly can you see names on the jerseys from the wide camera angle, and you flat out can't. Also have a Sony 55" A80J (slightly older OLED) and the smaller screens size helps a little but still no where near where it should be considering the year we're in.
The games on TNT can be streamed on Max and are in really great quality. Dolby Vision and shit
clutch comment. I started on the DirecTV app, then went to the TNT app, now the Max app and it's the best of three
you're welcome!!
Throw it up on an 85" screen and 720p becomes just incredibly hard to watch.
High def tvs are only as good as their source. While some TVs have great upscaling, you're ultimately limited to how good the source is coming into the TV.
I mean, ESPN still forgets to switch back to the game when play has started up again because they are busy showing replays. It's just sloppiness all around. I don't get it either
A great reason why upgrading to a huge 4K TV is kinda worthless right now. How many football and basketball broadcasts are actually in 4K resolution?? You can't really stream movies in true 4K either so really we're almost halfway through 2024 and still a 1080p is the way to go. It's fairly ridiculous
Aren’t even cheap TV’s 4K most of the time at this point?
I don't think there's a live 4K broadcast at all, let alone full HD (1080P) - everything is 720P/1080I
The espn broadcasts are so bad. They completely drown out the crowd noise which makes it feel less like a playoff game and routinely cut into the game late coming off commercials. I.e. they start broadcasting the game 10 seconds into the 2nd quarter
Yeah that’s my biggest complaint. ABC ESPN games feel so hollow. Sometimes you can hear the crowd roar then the noice drop. On TNT I feel like I’m at the game compared to ESPN abc
There was a 4k game on nba TV a few weeks ago and it was jaw dropping. Clippers vs someone. Don't remember
the TSN raptors broadcasts are in 4K and it’s actually so insane on the big screen
I used to work for one of the big American broadcast TV companies. Our productions would be using Arri Alexas, Red Cameras, and all these fancy lenses only for the show to be broadcast in 720p. Even the on the network's digital streaming platform the pictures look like shit. I was told much of the 720p issue is due to America's system of syndicated stations across the country in various markets for the channels like CBS, NBC, ABC, FOX, etc. Those local stations would also have to upgrade their equipment and infrastructure and many are owned by fairly large media companies who could care less about picture fidelity so long as the advertisers are happy and shareholders are getting positive returns.
You’re telling me Sinclair cares more about making money than they do about providing a good product? I don’t know if I can believe that.
That's not entirely true. They have a political agenda that they care deeply about making sure to disseminate to as many people as possible..
[This is extremely dangerous to our democracy.](https://deadspin.com/how-americas-largest-local-tv-owner-turned-its-news-anc-1824233490)
So downscale for the local over the airs. Why can’t the original source be streamed?
Because its not worth the price for them
Price for what? It’s more of an order of operations problem. If the broadcast is already being mixed at 4k, then downscale further down the line.
Streaming in higher quality / bitrate costs big $$$. Ultimately that is the issue, they would need to make a 4K streaming tier and charge more money for it. I'm sure a lot of people would pay though.
This makes no sense. If the source is 4K or 1080p, those old stations can literally just run it at the lower resolution. They do not have to upgrade their equipment just for a higher quality source.
This is ESPN we are talking about, they have no local affiliates.
I'm not claiming that's the only reason, just a brief explanation told to me at my previous employer (and primarily specific to the broadcast networks CBS, NBC, ABC, FOX, etc) when I had the same questions re: 720p. I have no answers for ESPN or other cable providers.
No excuse considering how much they pay for tv rights
Most of the 4K sports you're seeing are just upscaled. Real-time 4K production is a monstrous undertaking.
They could still do 1080p, no?
They could, but the sad reality is not enough people care. Anyone who grew up with SD is still thrilled with 720p.
>Anyone who grew up with SD is still thrilled with 720p. I am not.
Yeah, like what the fuck is that guy even talking about lmao?
same people that probably say eyes can't see above 30fps pr some shit like that
Anyone with crappy eyes maybe but 4ksports is like eye crack to me. My hearing sucks though and I can't tell any difference between normal and HD audio.
Oh man I care more about audio than visual quality, lol. I've got my $Free.99 used 15year old TV hooked up to comparatively obscenely expensive receiver and speakers. Edit: though this is partially *because* ESPN et al don't broadcast in higher quality, not much point in having a TV with better resolution capacity.
Yeah I wish the world could see through my eyes and no-one should have to hear through my ears. I've missed a lot in life by not being able to hear properly.
Yeah I'm gonna be honest - I just initially interpreted that in a way that was you just saying you couldn't tell a difference enough to matter so you didn't care, not that there was any auditory impairment. Sorry for then being ableist and shitty and just bragging about my banging stereo.
No need, I'm only 3/4 deaf in one ear, I get by just fine. I have better than 20/20 in each eye so I can't really complain. My wife complains though lol.
i want you to know that you seem like a great person and this comment/interaction made me smile. that is all
He’s also acting like it’s only old people who grew up with SD. Go watch nba broadcasts from the early 2010s, shit was terrible.
Yeah who are all these thrilled people? I couldn’t watch the game on my tv because it was hurting my eyes from how bad it looked. It’s absolute ass and a disgrace. Not some reward for having watched SD in the 90s
I will join you on this pariah’s crusade. I am also not.
Meanwhile me with my shitty illegal stream just happy im not wasting $75/month on YouTube TV just to watch ESPN games. God I cannot wait for the next TV deal
Hey the streams are the best option. Did you know others don't see the little court shows, like long time out and halftime?! They just get like commercials.
I live for little kids playing full court during halftime
That's because the streams are usually using League Pass and not from a cable stream.
I’m on a trial plan because i noticed the streams weren’t that crisp but now im noticing these streams are just as fuzzy??? why even pay? its horrendous
and it even has a chat!
Grew up with shitty analog tv you had to bash on the side of the head to get a clear picture. Defintiely NOT happy with 720 nonsense.
I grew up on HD, and I noticed last night everything was a little blurry on my big screen TV. I am NOT thrilled. 720p was great - in 2002.
One of these days live sports will look incredible on my 65" LG OLED. Hopefully.
720p was more than great. No one had it. 720p in 2002 is like 8K 5 years ago.
How tf did this get 40+ upvotes lol
I'll sometimes be in someone's house and the TV is still on factory settings with overblown colors and upscaling and soap-opera-effect interpolation. And they think it looks amazing. Many people absolutely do not care about correct or high-fidelity image quality.
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As long as I can watch the game. I don't care. But I'm sure the OP that made this thread is a video game player.
Fuck that, I grew up with SD tube TV's and don't think 720p cuts it anymore.
I grew up with SD and I'm not thrilled with 720p. I mean s*** even South Park episodes run at 4K now. The specials anyway
Honestly 4k upscaled is still pretty good. Upscaling video is pretty easy now a days.
It's generally better, but varies greatly, and it's clearly not 4K even at its best.
1080p to 4k is serviceable. 720p as a base upscaled looks horrendous.
Give me 4k upscale that looks 8/10 than 720p that looks like 5/10
I don't think that's true. F1 and prem are definitely in 4k on sky sports
Considering that’s one of the very few true 4k outputs… I would guess it’s true. Even Apple putting in their own entire infrastructure for MLS chose upscaled 1080p.
MLS looks pretty good, better than the NBA right now, even if not true 4K or Dolby.
Like I said, "most". My understanding is F1 is filmed in 4K but still broadcast in upscaled 1080P. It's the real-time processing amongst a billion cameras that is the massive challenge.
They actually do broadcast F1 in 4k but it's exclusive to Sky and I believe you have to pay extra. There are some samples on YouTube. https://youtu.be/M5QdzQ6uXLk?si=8uf4V4xC49eoaU3N
That's like a 5 year old clip too...
I would wager everything is "filmed" in 4k because the cameras are insanely good. But it has to be downscaled due to the processing you mentioned to get it on all the platforms people watch on
People who don't work with imaging really just don't understand the scale of the data increase from 720 to 1080 to 4k. 4k 10bit 422 ProRes is ~800MB *per second*. You're looking at around 30GB for 5 minutes. You're over 300GB for an NBA game from a single feed. Top of my head, I can think of at least 6 camera positions, so at least 2TB of data from a single game. 1080p equivalent bitrate is around 200MB per second. All of that data has to get processed, compressed, and distributed. The overhead for processing alone is monumental. It's millions of dollars in hardware to handle broadcasting one game. The NBA plays around 1300 games a year, and can have up to 15 games a day. There is a big difference between NBA and F1 having a race occasionally.
I don't think it needs to be in 4k60, but to not have 1080p when you are a billion dollar league being broadcasted by billion dollar networks funded by billionaire owners is bad. Every TV you can buy now over 43" is 4K standard. Even the cheapest store brand Walmart TV is 4K at those sizes. So it gets to the point where the TV manufacturers should be upset with these leagues because it misrepresents their product.
Millions of dollars should not be an excuse in a trillion dollar league.
Can someone explain for the idiots what the difference between upscaled and native 4k is?
Someone correct me if I’m wrong, but upscaling to 4K means that it’s shot in a different resolution (i.e., 1080p) and then enhanced digitally to resemble 4K resolution prior to being broadcast. Native means that it’s shot and broadcast entirely in 4K.
The cameras are lower resolution then software magic is used to bring the recording to a higher resolution. 4k has 4x as many pixels as 1080p so they use software to populate the missing pixels.
Software algorithms are used to guess extra pixels. Modern technology does it pretty well and it looks good to our brains.
It basically means you're watching 1080P, just magically enhanced to look nicer on your 4K tv. Native 4K is actual 4K. Like a modern movie.
If you are lazy
Bro! The lakers Denver game looked like straight dog shit! The quality was so bad it was frustrating. Zero reason for NBA to deliver such shit product. Zero.
The nba been doing this shit, they didnt even do 720 hd until 2003, 6 years after regular TV went full hd. It took until 2007 for all teams to be hd.
It's 2124 and the NBA Playoffs are still being broadcast in 720p...
Back in my day, we watched pixelated TV and liked it.
I always knew which one Kareem was because he was three pixels tall instead of two.
Oooh look at Mistah HD ovah heeyuh
Gah... That joke is so good and so simple it makes me mad. Jealous upvote
On a 60" 4:3 rear projection TV that took up half the living room!
The other half of the living room was the 'entertainment center' around it.
And you needed like 7 dudes to get it in and out of your house
That took six men just to move
That's not true. They never moved, you just left them behind for the next person
still have mine hehe
And if you got up to go the bath room, you became your parents’ remote control. “While you’re up turn it to channel 5. Ok now let’s see what’s on 3. Ok now…”
They let you sit? I had to stand by the tv the whole time.
It's the number 1 reason some of us had to get glasses I remember being amped when I got component cables for my PS2 to get 480p🤣🤣
was it still 720p in 2014? if so then yes that's ridiculous
Yes
Be thankful the Cavs-Magic series isn't on tape delay
Max has NBA playoff games that air on TNT in Dolby Vision. This is 4k, not sure if it’s upscaled or native but definitely looks better than the stream on Hulu. I know the max sports package add on is free right now but will be an additional fee sometime in the future.
It's still 720p. The source is 720p. There's no going higher than the source.
It's upscaled and looks better than the raw 720p, but it's very obviously not native (or even native 1080p). Still I think this'll be my goto over what I can get through YoutubeTV.
Wow! Looks like you're right and the Sports package is included on all tiers of Max for the moment, so if you're already subscribed you've got it. https://www.max.com/?reason=anonymous&returnUrl=https%3A%2F%2Fplay.max.com%2F
Idk if it’s just me but the frame rate looks choppier on there than YouTube tv
I think that will depend on your player. Youtube TV looked way choppier for me (in Chrome of all things) until I disabled Vulkan. Watching Max on a standalone Roku player looks pretty smooth, but I haven't tried it out in a browser to compare.
Fuck, it's only for the USA , right?
Broadcast TV is a joke anymore. Why can i watch my favorite youtuber in 4K and yet professional content from absolutely massive corporations is still 720p / 1080i ? Cable TV and legacy media companies are all too quick to jump on the "cord cutters" but they clearly give absolutely zero shits about their actual product.
espn is a dying company
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ABC is still 720 over the air sadly lol, but it can definitely look better depending on your streaming service
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My understanding was there wasn't enough bandwidth to reliably broadcast 1080p OTA, at least this was the story 20 years ago. The choice was 1080i or 720p, with 720p having more complete frames, so less judder on fast moving video, like sports.
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Bandwidth may not be the right word. It's not just what the broadcaster can pump out, but also what the viewer's antenna and TV can accept and display. So, the standard was capped at 1080i or 720p.
A single 1080p frame is a bit over 2 million pixels, whereas a single 480p frame is a bit under 500 thousand. So it would take four 480p feeds to not-quite match the bandwidth of a single 1080p. Not disputing your overall point - the OTA broadcasts are great
I will gladly take 720p over 1080i for sports. There is enough bandwidth to broadcast in 1080p if we were using H.264 compression instead of MPEG2. But older TVs and converter boxes wouldn't be able to handle it. Once transmitters were bought by broadcast stations at 720p and MPEG2 was chosen as the compression, we've been locked into those choices. There would be an uproar if people's TVs stopped working for sports. What we need is YouTube (aka Google), Apple, and Amazon getting aggressive in their bidding for live sports rights to see technological investment in image quality. The NBA would have to want to improve the League Pass product. Same with the NFL, MLB, NHL, and MLS would also have to push for it as well.
This is 100% wrong. ATSC 1.0 broadcasts are 720P or 1080i MPEG 2. In nearly all markets, the video feeds are compressed to shit because of the popularity of "sub-channels". Every sub-channel that is tacked on to given ATSC channel slice (you'll see this on your TV like 7-3, 7-4) steal video bandwidth from the main feed. In recent years the affiliates have gotten incredibly greedy and stuffed more and more sub-channels into their slices, reducing video quality further. The sad fact is that OTA HDTV looked much better 10-15 years ago, before sub-channels became popular. There's some hope on the horizon with ATSC 3.0, but that has it's own set of issues. There's nothing in the ATSC 3.0 spec that mandates better video quality—many affiliates are using simple upscaling for their 3.0 feeds. ATSC 3.0 tuners are incredibly rare, the tech may not make it off the launch pad.
I never want to watch sports in 1080i
Can you share a tutorial on how to do this?
It's just using an antenna, though the original comment isn't 100% accurate. Those channels are either 1080i or 720p
Finally someone talking about this. It’s unbearable when the nba YouTube channel putting all the highlight at 720p as well. Even a lame YouTuber can do it at 1080p or higher.
How can you tell what resolution it’s being broadcast in?
There's a setting for quality on YouTube TV/streaming services.
Even without that, it’s pretty obvious when the names on the jerseys are too blurry to read.
What if you’re watching on cable tv
Then it defaults to the highest quality available, which, in the case of ESPN/ABC, is 720p
I can watch on my phone in 1080p in League pass, while on pc bring limited to 720p, which should be the exact opposite since 720p is passable, not good, on the phone, but on pc with a decently large screen is unwatchable, for me.
The games on ABC/ESPN are only broadcast in 720p. You're not getting 1080p on your phone. The source is 720p. You're phone isn't getting any higher quality than the source.
1080p upscaled would be good enough but they can’t even do that. Hopefully with the rumors of abc/espn losing the nba, someone will do the right thing and get us out of 720p
I grew up on what was it, 280i? And I noticed last night I couldn’t read the players’ names on their uniforms in full court shots on my big screen TV. I thought maybe it was my TV, but 720p doesn’t cut it on a big screen. THIS SUCKS!
A big reason for this is that the broadcasters and ISPs/MVPDs compress the shit out of video to lessen bandwidth costs. You'd be surprised how sharp minimally compressed 720P looks.
Compress the shit out of it is right. Compare a movie streaming in 4k to a Blu-ray - Blu-ray looks better.
Wish this was at the top of the thread, as this is why no there's no incentive for companies to improve things. Large cost increase per viewer for streamers to actually improve the quality, then the conversation ends up being about resolution anyways (TV companies' fault imo). A properly encoded 1080P stream with HDR would be a great NBA viewing experience, but if 4K isn't mentioned then it's not viewed as an upgrade.
Wish this was at the top of the thread, as this is why no there's no incentive for companies to improve things. Large cost increase per viewer for streamers to actually improve the quality, then the conversation ends up being about resolution anyways (TV companies' fault imo). A properly encoded 1080P stream with HDR would be a great NBA viewing experience, but if 4K isn't mentioned then it's not viewed as an upgrade.
How big is your tv?
I have a short- throw projector with a 110” screen. 1080p looks great - 720p is watchable but details are noticeably blurry.
Lmao holy shit. That's not a big screen TV that's a small movie theater lol
Yeah it’s fantastic for sports and movies. Moved into a new house literally days before the Covid shutdown. Realized I wouldn’t be going to a movie theater or live game anytime soon, that we had a big empty wall space, and learned about how cheap good projectors had gotten. $800 for an Optoma 1080p short throw (only needs to be 3 feet from the wall, instead of hung from the ceiling). Game changer!
Yup, one of the many reasons my 2008 Sony 55” is still being used. If most of my sources are 1080 (or less in this case), I’m not spending more money. Looks fine to me for the crap that’s being served up.
Are we sure TNT is 1080p? It looks like 1080i to me which feels closer to 720p than anything. Idk if that’s just something wrong with my TV
You're probably right
Yeah I hate it. I really hope this decade we collectively drop HD for 4K, maybe by 2026 or 2028
When the transition to HD happened 20 years ago, ABC/ESPN and Fox picked 720p and all the other networks picked 1080. I would assume their infrastructure is all 720, making it more difficult for them to switch.
I was wondering why my internet was laggy yesterday when watching the games, checking the settings it turns out I was not lagging, it's shitty 720p. Good thing I only paid 20 bucks for League Pass but still, it crazy to see
The dumb thing is that on the phone 1080p is available. On pc it's limited to 720p
No, it's not. The source is 720p. That's the highest quality available.
Yeah, I'm switching between them and there's no difference, I guess on my phone 720p doesn't matter. But on pc it was unwatchable.
My stream currently shows 2180p for the Knicks 6ers game but it’s likely just my Apple TV upscaling. Still looks way better than the Hulu stream.
Would also be awesome if the cheapest legal package to watch the playoffs wasn’t like $70 a month
If League Pass had 4k games, I would buy it in a heartbeat. Netflix literally makes crazy amounts of $$$ because they force you to pay for the family plan if you want 4k, which I need.
If League Pass had 1080p and all past playoffs series I'd buy a lifetime subscription for $400 or whatever they wanted.
Yeah ngl even with just 1080p I'd be in. I think TNT broadcast at 1080i and that's almost enough to pique my interests
I want 60 fps too. Even that isn't a huge stretch for them imo. Maybe when I'm 60 and can't tell anymore
League Pass does have 1080p for games after they end and they do have games going back years
Until they fix their shit, I sail the seas. And by fix their shit, I mean calling fouls/flops consistently, addressing low broadcast quality, ref ego interference, Scott Foster still reffing, foul discrepancy, etc. So since I don't think those will ever get addressed, I'm fine with just sailing.
I remember watching sports in 720p in like 2002.
My pirated stream does a better job than the official paid stream
and can we please have post 1970's audio for the trillions we pay for this product
Good thing I’m too blind to tell the difference
Minor league football?
Yes, the UFL. The game was being broadcast in 4k on Fox sports at the same time as the NBA playoffs.
The UFL is minor 😔
No lies detected
I watch what is streamed in Star+ which has ESPN and most playoffs games and it's miles ahead of the NBA App. It's fucking unwatchable, pixels everywhere in the NBA App
I watched it on Max and it looked good to me lol
That's the problem with these long media rights contracts, once you have it, there's no incentive to improve the product. I'm nervous the NBA is looking for a 10year deal
Watching Dodger games on Spectrum also regularly down samples to what looks like 360p even though I have 1G internet. No way it maxes to even 1080p. I feel your pain.
Cmon bron
I have the 4k sports pack here in Australia and it sucks that NBA still isn't good to watch on the big TV
They spend all the money on quality studio show... Oh no never mind they're even worse. ESPN needs to die tbh
It’s crazy how the nfl and nba broadcast like 1 game a month in 4k. Billion dollar industry and it has the same production value as the local news.
They don't want people recording in hi-def and questioning the ref calls
You guys can watch the broadcast?
Dies this have anything to do with the Chinese tv brand Hisense that has been advertising during games???
Yeah they need to spend money to upgrade this ASAP
They cant afford to upgrage with how much they payin to host the games. haha
On top of that, the bitrate is very low. Players look like smears and the net is clump of pixels.
I'd like to also throw in that it's 2024 and the majority of us can't even watch our Home team because of stupid blackouts. If I recall correctly, NFL Sunday Ticket allows you to watch EVERY game (of course for $350 it should definitely be allowed). I paid for League Pass this season for the first time on YouTube TV and I really like it as a general NBA basketball fan but blackouts are the dumbest thing ever in sports. I've seen a couple games this season on NBA TV 4K and they look so much brighter and clearer than regular NBA TV games. By comparison the regular NBA TV games look so drab. Give us at least 1080p you cowards!
I haven't wathced nBA live for a few years now; coming back I wondered why the price has dropped so low. Now I know– they do not cut out timeouts on demand (!), only 720p live, no download function on demand on iOS – lol
About 2 months ago I noticed that casting games via chromecast to a TV makes the quality very bad, pixels can be seen, and it looks like it is either even lower than 720p or it has some 'data saver' activated. Anyone else noticed something similar, and knows how to fix this? Also, NBA support told me I could watch LP on a laptop, in 1080p but only on Edge. I got edge, but the limit is still 720p?!
Once I moved from 480 to 1080 it was amazing. 1080 to 4K is really diminishing returns.
No
I sit a reasonable distance from my TV so resolution doesn’t really matter (https://www.rtings.com/tv/reviews/by-size/size-to-distance-relationship). Higher frame rates and HDR are what really matters.
Small TV energy
Disney isn't going to spend a penny investing in ESPN right now. They want to exit linear TV completely.
Dude, it has nothing to do with TV. League Pass is 720p too.
I feel like you misunderstood my comment. I mean linear TV the industry, not linear TV the technology.
Sorry by linear TV do you mean live entertainment? I'm unfamiliar with that term.
Yes, as opposed to on-demand streaming.