OLN Picture Quality

" MetroPed" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Dear bike race watchers

Below is the text of an email I just sent to OLN. If you've noticed the same thing you might want
to also contact them olntv.comfeedback.aspOpen ↗

BTW: I should have told them I'm watching on DISH. Perhaps it doesn't happen on DirectTV or Cable

Thanks

Bob

======================================

Dear OLN

REF:Picture Frame Jump

For the last few years my wife and I been watching a lot of bike racing on OLN. We've always been
slightly bothered by how the picture gets blurry when there's a lot of change. (Ex picture is
showing almost all bikes passing). I've been told this happens because OLN is compressing the
picture to reduce transmission costs. While I'd prefer a sharp picture,

I

Quoted message said:

can live with it. Unfortunately it appears that you've recently begun

to

Quoted message said:

also drop frames. When there's a lot happening the moving objects in the picture (like a bike) now
jerk forward at times.

Not only is this annoying, it's strenuous. My wife stops watching when

it

Quoted message said:

happens often.

I urge you to find a better transmission technique.

It is not OLN's fault. The dish carrier is putting more and more channels up there on the satellite.
The more they put up there, the more compression they need to do. I have watched OLN on Direct TV as
well as on Digital Cable. It's appears better on the cable, but not much since digital cable also
compresses the data stream. Look on alt.satellite.tv newsgroup for discussions, and complaints:

Here is one quote from an exchange: "I get noticeable compression artifacts, or what I call motion
artifacts, that are easy to see especially on the local channels. Just to see that this was not a
problem in my installation I went to see a neighbor's picture and it was the same. Some people just
don't see these defects and I must say that on some TV's it is more evident than on others. The
DirecTV picture is not as sharp as a good analog picture but to it's credit there is no ghosting or
snow and the signal does not weaken when adding multiple receivers. Premium movie channels are quite
good but are nowhere near DVD quality. And by the way if you look closely at a DVD picture you will
notice a small amount of digital artifacts. I have 3 RCA DRD430RG's and a Directv TIVO(HDVR2). All
of them produce the same picture with the same defects. For the local channels I usually switch to
my cable feed especially when viewing any sporting events where the compression artifacts are most
evivdent."

In article <[email hidden]>, [email hidden] says...

Quoted message said:

Dear bike race watchers

Below is the text of an email I just sent to OLN. If you've noticed the same thing you might want
to also contact them olntv.comfeedback.aspOpen ↗

BTW: I should have told them I'm watching on DISH. Perhaps it doesn't happen on DirectTV or Cable

Thanks

Bob

======================================

Dear OLN

REF:Picture Frame Jump

For the last few years my wife and I been watching a lot of bike racing on OLN. We’ve always been
slightly bothered by how the picture gets blurry when there’s a lot of change. (Ex picture is
showing almost all bikes passing). I’ve been told this happens because OLN is compressing the
picture to reduce transmission costs. While I’d prefer a sharp picture, I can live with it.
Unfortunately it appears that you’ve recently begun to also drop frames. When there’s a lot
happening the moving objects in the picture (like a bike) now jerk forward at times.

Not only is this annoying, it’s strenuous. My wife stops watching when it happens often.

I urge you to find a better transmission technique.

I noticed that too. It happens on all the channels, to a certain extent, on my cable set up. The box
that Time Warner in NYC uses converts all the channels to a digital signal and they will all break
up when there is a lot of changing information on the screen. I'm not sure if it is a crappy cable
box or if OLN is just being compressed too much.
-----------------
Alex __O _-\<,_ (_)/ (_)

But you can still see the action can't you?

I guess if you can wait for the DVD to come out, that's your best option.

jw milwaukee (quite pleased with my OLN)

Quoted message said:

For the last few years my wife and I been watching a lot of bike racing on OLN. We’ve always been
slightly bothered by how the picture gets blurry when there’s a lot of change. (Ex picture is
showing almost all bikes passing). I’ve been told this happens because OLN is compressing the
picture to reduce transmission costs. While I’d prefer a sharp picture, I can live with it.
Unfortunately it appears that you’ve recently begun to also drop frames. When there’s a lot
happening the moving objects in the picture (like a bike) now jerk forward at times.

It surely can't be worse than last year? One thing I'm not missing now that I'm back in France is
the [censored] quality of the OLN coverage, although I did miss the Giro this year...

Gee, one of the things I'm enjoying about this year's Tour are the excellent pictures. They really
seem to be getting right in the rider's faces. And so far Phil hasn't apologized once about
"picture breakup."

Joanne

MetroPed said:

Dear bike race watchers

Below is the text of an email I just sent to OLN. If you've noticed the same thing you might want
to also contact them olntv.comfeedback.aspOpen ↗

BTW: I should have told them I'm watching on DISH. Perhaps it doesn't happen on DirectTV or Cable

Thanks

Bob

======================================

Dear OLN

REF:Picture Frame Jump

For the last few years my wife and I been watching a lot of bike racing on OLN. We’ve always been
slightly bothered by how the picture gets blurry when there’s a lot of change. (Ex picture is
showing almost all bikes passing). I’ve been told this happens because OLN is compressing the
picture to reduce transmission costs. While I’d prefer a sharp picture, I can live with it.
Unfortunately it appears that you’ve recently begun to also drop frames. When there’s a lot
happening the moving objects in the picture (like a bike) now jerk forward at times.

Not only is this annoying, it’s strenuous. My wife stops watching when it happens often.

I urge you to find a better transmission technique.

Sincerely,

Bob Brubaker

Joanne Corsano said:

Gee, one of the things I'm enjoying about this year's Tour are the excellent pictures. They really
seem to be getting right in the rider's faces. And so far Phil hasn't apologized once about
"picture breakup."

Joanne

It's the French. I noticed this right away watching the grand tours a couple years ago. The French
just are the very best at televising a bike race, with the Spaniards being second. The Spaniards
routinely get in the way of the riders, with yesterday's screwup in the breakaway being the first
time I remember seeing the cameras really interfere with the TdF.

I have fond memories of last year's Giro, and the moto-cam sticking on Salvodelli's wheel during his
rocket-assisted descent to gain the lead.

--
--
Lynn Wallace xmission.com~lawallOpen ↗ "I'm not proud. We really haven't done everything we
could to protect our customers. Our products just aren't engineered for security." --Microsoft VP in
charge of Windows OS Development, Brian Valentine.

It's two things, a poor PAL to NTSC conversion and a low bandwidth satellite connection. Alan

"Raptor" <[email hidden]> wrote in message "]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Joanne Corsano said:

Gee, one of the things I'm enjoying about this year's Tour are the excellent pictures. They
really seem to be getting right in the rider's faces. And so far Phil hasn't apologized once
about "picture breakup."

Joanne

It's the French. I noticed this right away watching the grand tours a couple years ago. The French
just are the very best at televising a bike race, with the Spaniards being second. The Spaniards
routinely get in the way of the riders, with yesterday's screwup in the breakaway being the first
time I remember seeing the cameras really interfere with the TdF.

I have fond memories of last year's Giro, and the moto-cam sticking on Salvodelli's wheel during
his rocket-assisted descent to gain the lead.

--
--
Lynn Wallace xmission.com~lawallOpen ↗ "I'm not proud. We really haven't done everything we
could to protect our customers. Our products just aren't engineered for security." --Microsoft VP
in charge of Windows OS Development, Brian Valentine.