Today is historically the busiest day of the year for The Solid Signal Blog. As football season kicks off in earnest, people are looking for tips to deal with satellite and antenna problems, and there’s no better resource for those answers. If you’re new to The Solid Signal Blog, welcome! I hope you found the answers you’re looking for. I also thank you for finding this article.
No NFL football in 4K
It is true. At this point in time there hasn’t been any announcement. No one has come forth to say that you’ll see any game in 4K this year. You’d think by now if there was going to be any 4K football you would have heard about it.
Why is this so hard?
Other sports have been broadcast in 4K, so why not football? Football is the most camera-intensive sport. It’s the only sport where there’s a camera on cables going over the action. It’s also the most graphics-intensive sport, with virtual lines of scrimmage, real-time illustrations and plenty of slow motion replays. That has to figure into the situation.
I have been told that several NFL stadiums are fully 4K-ready, with 4K cameras everywhere, 4K recording equipment, and all the connections that a broadcast truck would need to get 4K video out. I don’t know if it’s possible to uplink it directly to a satellite, but it’s definitely possible to stream it over the internet to a broadcast center located somewhere else.
Will it be DIRECTV to the rescue?
DIRECTV usually puts out its 4K schedules about a month in advance. That could mean they are planning some 4K for later in the year. It’s also possible — though unlikely — that we’ll see a 4K Super Bowl this year. That’s something people have been asking for… for a long time.
I know that DIRECTV is the absolute leader in 4K and the only service with a live 4K channel that’s on 24/7/365. They’re the logical choice to partner with, since the NFL already has a strong relationship with them. They also have more 4K than anyone.
We’re only in the first period
If the NFL season were a football game, we’d just be a few minutes into the first. Hopefully by the time we get to the two minute warning, we’ll see a lot more 4K. Fingers crossed!
Just curious, do you happen to know which stadiums are using 4K cameras, and are they currently using them now to broadcast games in HD? Thanks
As far as I know, every stadium has some manner of 4K capture (camera) system while all stadiums use external broadcast trucks provided by networks.
Hello Stuart Sweet, As someone who was BURNED by 3D I am very cautious about 4K. There isn’t that much being broadcast in 4K so I am resisting the idea of getting a client and losing recording capability. The current and future HS systems are not my cup-O-tea! Should that eventuality come about I will go to some other service or services to have an equivalent or better experience. I hope to see a great deal of 4K programming but so far it seems extremely slower than the change from black and white to COLOR broadcasting! The delta (rate of change) seems to be as slow as paint drying or grass growing!!!!!!
Unfortunately Mr. Fingeret, DIRECTV is unlikely to move away from the Genie/client model. The HR series are considered legacy equipment. The Genies are more cost effective for everyone and have a much higher level of satisfaction among the current user base.
Hello Stuart Sweet,
I agree that most people are satisfied with the Genie/Client model. One of the things that will happen to the current user base is downsizing. AT&T’s current thinking is that the amount of DirecTV subscribers will be approximately 5 million in 2020 – 2021. That has been Randall Stephenson’s information presented to the financial community. I tent to be one of the outliers in many things! One example from my past was changing from really liking US manufactured automobiles, almost exclusively, to foreign manufacturers models. I didn’t dislike US made cars but I thought that they were short sighted in not making improvements to their vehicles that the foreign manufacturers were willing and able to do. For a long time I was an outlier with automobiles. I was also fascinated by my first time seeing a real computer. It was located at the Brookhaven National Lab on Long Island, NY. It was set up to play a simplified version of pong! The display was tiny and circular. My imagination went wild and I hoped that sometime in the future I would own a computer of my own. This was at the time that one of the predictions was that there was only 10 computers needed in the world! Talk about short sighted.
Yours,
Kenneth Fingeret