pagliaci

The picture quality of their broadcasts is terrible, especially on a big HDTV. I hope they are planning to upgrade to HD soon.

kc0bbq

There's a Vs. HD. On DishNetwork it shares an HD slot with Golf Network, so sometimes you lose out to a big golf tournament during primetime, but it's there.

Az B

It's not really HD, just upconverted SD. It's better than nothing, but it's not HD.

Az

smoke

same thing on direcTV. maybe it's not true hd, but it sure looks a ton better than their regular broadcast

FriendlyFred

All of these different networks around the world that are covering the Tour are using the same feed and the same cameras, and are then inserting their own commentary. As far as I know, they don't even have control of which cameras are on the air (clean feeds from each camera that the network could then 'switch' between themselves). The Tour IS being shot in HD (see the info below), but the networks like Versus are choosing to down-convert to SD:


__________________________________________________________________________________
Also for the first time in history: the Tour de France will this year be filmed and produced in High Definition by France Télévisions. A race like the Tour with different stages filmed in HD has never been done before and this means that all material needs to be adapted, including the cameras being used on motorcycles and helicopters.

Based on these High Definition images, France Télévisions produces a specific channel on which the Tour de France will be broadcasted 24 hours a day during the whole period from July 7th till 29th: all stages will be broadcasted fully and live and will be commented by France Télévisions journalists (the comments for the normal TV channels France 2 and France 3 and this channel will not be the same). In the evening, at night and on rest days the stages will be repeated to come to a 24 hour programme which totals about 500 broadcasting hours of which 100 live.

In France the HD channel can be received in two ways:
- through DVB-T (digitale television over the air) for people who are equiped with an HD DVB-T receiver and an HD ready or Full HD TV and live in the areas around the TV towers on the Eiffel tower in Paris, on Fourvière in Lyon and in the Etoile area in Marseille (see coverage maps below)
- via TV over ADSL from Orange: all cable-, satellite- and ADSL-operators were proposed to broadcast this channel but -as the press release mentions- only Orange took this chance and will thus have an exclusivity by being able to offer this channel to its customers through La TV d'Orange via ADSL or optical fiber in the cities where HD TV is available

stonecrd

It would be great, on my 63" the SD is pretty fuzzy. I will say it is better than previous years though but that just might be my cable carrier.

ericy

That was my thinking. It looks noticeably better on the VSHD channel.

RockyMtnMerlin

Me too. But it would be nice to be able to see that true HD feed from France! But then given today's doping news, maybe not.

drainyoo

Why the hell would they down-covert. Their feed looks terrible.

kc0bbq

Who wants to see all the track marks on the riders, anyway?

kc0bbq

If the revenue from ads due to viewership numbers is too low to support buying the extra satellite bandwidth, they're going to downconvert. Just a possibility, I imagine there are other reasons.

Devil

I do! I do!

Az B

Bandwidth. HiDef requires a ton more room than SD. Both cable and satellite have a limited amount of bandwidth. Would they rather use it for NASCAR, Football, and Jay Leno or for some fringe element sport that only attracts a half million viewers.

Az

USAZorro

Who needs to see cars turn left, or get grossed out by Jay's chin in HD?