It’s 2024, you can record 4K 60 fps on even the cheap smartphones. It is ridiculous that a multi-million dollar setup can’t do more than 720p.
I only watch games via OTA, so I’m not paying, but if I was someone who did pay for sports, I would be livid.
Edit: Yes, I’ve seen the Digital Trends video on 4K sports. I understand it is a massive leap in data bandwidth. We should at the very least get 1080p HDR 60 fps. This broadcast is no where near that quality despite ESPN (Disney) having unlimited money.
I can get better quality live streaming to YouTube from my phone in my house.
Here’s an article about all the amazing tech involved in the 2024 finals, yet it’s still dogshit.
by 470vinyl
50 Comments
It costs more to broadcast better quality so the corporations will try to hold off for as long as possible. 720p is embarrassing.
Some broadcasts still can’t even manage a proper stream in 2024.
The issue isn’t shooting it in a higher quality, that would be easy to do.
It’s really fucking embarrassing. Espn acting cheap as hell.
Idk if my ABC is better or something, but I don’t see it as any different on my TV than other channels? And it looks very clear and fine to me.
I’ve come to expect nothing less from ESPN. Quality is just not in their vocabulary
It’s 100% not the cameras. It’s the broadcast itself.
The recording is definitely in better quality, they’re just too cheap to broadcast it at 4k or 2K. Here’s a snippet on how much it costs for a streaming service [https://www.youtube.com/shorts/H_sNcbXj5A0](https://www.youtube.com/shorts/H_sNcbXj5A0)
Now consider how many millions might be watching the game? If they can get away with 720p, they’ll try to do so as much as they can.
The presentation quality is awful from video quality to colour commentary, to pregame/halftime/postgame shows. Everything about ESPN has been an abomination for the last 22 years. Is NBC getting the finals in this next contract?
You should see how bad it looks on Sling. Absolute dogshit quality.
Fucking cheap ass fucking broadcasting companies. NFL games are so crisp and NBA looks the same as it did 15 years ago
Watching via the Spectrum App on an Apple TV 4k, it looks fine, but I’ve noticed games generally look better if I stream via the ESPN app directly. Meanwhile Peacock had the French Open looking really good in HDR (aside from the first hour of coverage when the brightness/colors were so intense it looked like they were on the surface of Mars).
the abc app was horrible yesterday, i thought it was lagging but nope that was their actual quality
You can’t imagine how much it would cost to move all ESPN’s infrastructure to 4k.
It’s no the same as switching to new phone..
It would be hundreds of millions to say the least.
I see this sentiment all over reddit and I really don’t get it? Like everything looks fine to me lol maybe I’m just a pleb who doesn’t know any better but I gotta say “awful” seems extremely harsh.
Also comparing a broadcast that goes to 10+ million people vs. what a cellphone can do is irrelevant, it’s a cost issue.
I have an 85″ TV in our family room and you would think it would be the preferred spot for watching games but it looks like garbage. TVs of that size are unforgiving to anything of bad quality
Even the TNT games on Max were not 4k with good bitrate. If we can’t get it on streaming, we aren’t getting g it OTA lol
Man it is crazy how I thought like 10 years ago we were going to have 4k sports everywhere soon and now it’s still ass
If you watch via OTA doesn’t it at least partially depend on your local ABC affiliate?
I think it looks great over OTA but I also think my tv has really good upscaling.
Over the air is going to do 720 because it is a progressive resolution that handles fast movement and motion better. (Example: Sports) 1080i is interlaced and isn’t good for fast moving action and will look jittery and choppy.
Over the Air isnt doing any 4k broadcasting yet as that is mostly seen in the streaming world and even then, mostly with movies or prerecorded content. Not with sports.
Ya it’s pretty insane, at this point I expect that we’re just gonna have to wait for AI Tv tech to upscale it to 4k before the NBA ever gets its shit together. Doesn’t work great yet but it will get here sooner than the nba/espn/whoever else stops being cheap.
At one point I switched to the Yankees and dodgers (also ESPN) and it was a night and day difference. I don’t understand why basketball broadcast quality is so bad
streaming in low bitrate so everyone can watch it. the recording is top notch for sure.
I remember streaming on TNT earlier this playoffs and the “live” broadcast was somehow a few seconds behind and in a lower quality than one of those pirate streams.
That is why I still keep my plasma TV. The resolution is 720p and it is really a great to watch sports in it, and it is never blurry. I also keep my HDCRT TV (Sony XBR 960) if I want the optimum setup. Latest technology does not always mean better.
The whole presentation is just a joke. I’m so tired of the YouTube tv shit being all over the screen and digitally altered onto the court if your so lazy just put it on the court 🤦♂️
ESPN always used to get me so heated when I used them as the primary source for sports stuff. The ads before a highlight would play in perfect crisp HD and never buffer. Then when the highlight I wanted to watch started playing, well suddenly it was like they were on shitty dial up internet.
ITT: Nobody seems to understand how sports broadcasting works and it’s 720p or 1080i for literally every event you’ve ever watched except for some one-off 4K streams Prime (and maybe Fox?) have done for football games.
Something about the finals felt off, couldn’t get hyped/focused into watching it.
Thought it was just the Celtics arena colour scheme but maybe it is on the producers.
I’ve always heard that ABC and ESPN decided to stick with 720p because it was better than 1080i for sports. I’m calling bs on that though because CBS and NBC are both 1080i and their sports broadcasts look great.
Tonight’s broadcast is brought to you by TV cameras from 2005, sponsored by Starry, the official drink of the NBA that no NBA player drinks, back to you courtside, Dingle McCringleberry
Yoo I thought it was just me, it was kinda difficult to tell when a shot when in cause the net was so pixelated
I’ve watched some of the Finals on my iPhone 13 Pro via ESPN app and it’s so smooth and clear with no artifacts.
OTA TV with antenna is also pretty good but does not seem to be as smooth as my iPhone.
Comcast cable looks like crap with artifacts everywhere.
I have an OLED and the games look like shit lol
All raptors games for the last 5 years have been in 4K. Event the Canadian football league is in 4K. USA is a joke.
It’s gonna be even worse in Dallas. I’m not sure if there’s pregame pyrotechnics or just the lighting but that arena always looks like someone just blew out a bunch of candles.
I was streaming it but it was in HD and it felt a little difficult to follow the ball. Which I don’t know I’ve ever noticed before watching basketball.
I’m on YouTube tv. I paid for the 4k sports just to test it out. NFL in 4k is amazing. The handful of regular season NBA games in 4k looked amazing. I can’t believe the actual finals looks like dog shit with no 4k option. And YouTube TV is sponsoring the finals. How the fuck.
I understand OTA has limitations but there’s really no reason to not offer at least 1080p with Dolby Atmos as a streaming option for every game. The on-court equipment is more than capable of handling this and you can charge whatever it takes to turn a profit, people like me with home theatre setups will pay.
The fact that it’s not offered in 4K is a travesty. Like wtf
Don’t help the games ain’t that good either.
Apple bought the MLS rights a couple years back. I could not believe the improved picture quality.
Games on Fox now look like they are a decade old in comparison.
ABC still broadcasts in 720p ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I’ve been so annoyed at this for years. Do they even sell HDTV’s anymore? They’re on 8K now and there’s zero content. They’ll keep saying “the average household is still on 720p/1080p” but I suspect they’re just cheap. At the end of the day we all lose.
The average quality of an Apple Tv + BASEBALL game is fucking way higher than the NBA finals. Wild.
I work in this industry and it really is that companies in the audio/visual entertainment industry aren’t willing to put in the money/effort for at least 1080p.
Companies are my clients and I operate their dated equipment. I guess 720p is ‘good enough’ and the bare minimum for HD, so they don’t want to bother putting the money in.
Obviously, there are exceptions, but most companies will put off upgrading their broadcasting equipment as long as they can to not incur additional expenses. It really is just about maximizing profits.
I loved the tnt broadcasts on Max because I could actually differentiate the players. Watching ESPN on Directv is like 480p or something, I can’t tell kyrie and djj apart or Luka and kleber
These finals are awful! From the analysis to the broadcasting to the teams to the fans. One of the worst finals in recent memory
I noticed a considerable different this year between how good NBA League Pass on AppleTV is, and how terrible all games on Xfinity have been (channel didn’t matter).
I think it’s the hardware compression and something to do with how Xfinity is cheap.
It’s like we’re stuck in a time loop.
Where I have to be subjected to the same 5 posts about ESPN and everyone falls for it every time.
I hate it here.
After watching an MLS game on Apple TV, the quality improvement was VERY VERY noticeable. It sucks because NBA could really benefit from the resolution and bitrate increase. Faces wouldn’t be a blur and you would see details like the net swishing.
Bro I pay for it and its advertised as HD… is unwatchable.