Either my eyesight is going, or the picture quality at this week's Monte Carlo and the last Pacific Life Masters are really out of focus. The camera for a start is set too far back from the baseline (not TC's fault) but the ball seems to become invisable when it is on the far side of the court. This is on a 42" plasma. Is anyone else out there of the same opinion?? TJ.
Your message describes my thoughts exactly, right down to the 42" plasma. Is no one paying attention to what the viewers actually see; quality of picture; it's not in the "technical difficulty" category; the set-up for filming the event is just fundamentally flawed with the camera too far back; there's no or little contrast between the ball and the court. The direction of all balls hit on the far end and most hit on the near end can only be determined by watching the player reaction and then you might get a qlimpse of the ball but are never sure you're not imagining it. I love to watch tennis, am a coach, and stress the value of watching tennis to my students. But there is currently (am trying to watch the Monday coverage I taped) no value in watching these Monday matches. This has occurred in past tournaments and it seemed the night matches were better; maybe different lighting, filters, whatever? made the contrast better. At any rate, it is frustrating to watch and not be able to see and more frustrating that we'll be missing all this competition during the week if somethings not done to improve the coverage. I thought the whole purpose of coverage was intended to support the end users; viewers. What's even more frustrating is that the commentators seem oblivious to the problem; don't they have a monitor that shows the same picture we're trying to see? They applaud/comment on a great point or shot and my thought is: "well if you say so". So in closing to my fellow viewer, I feel you pain, and yes there's at least one more viewer of the same opinion, or maybe even stronger!!!
I was going to start a thread observing the same lousy picture and camera work. Here are my observations. First, the camera is WAY WAY WAY too far away from the action for many of the matches. Not all, though. Watching the Ljubicic/Kuerten match, there are a few times when they show a low camera angle which looks fine - I can see the ball no problem. But when they go to the high camera angle, as in all the previous matches, the cam was so far away there simply was NO ball to be seen at all! And this is on a one hundred and ten inch screen using a hi-def capable projector. All I could see were the players running around swinging every now and then. That REALLY sucks. The worst part is there seems to be no reason this couldn't be recified simply by zooming the cam in. I mean, I could see not only the umpire's chair, but at least twenty feet behind it as well. There's NO reason the camera has to be showing so much of the sides. Zoom that sucker in and get it closer to the action so we can at LEAST see the ball. Come on, Tennis Channel. WAKE UP!
I thought I was the only one having trouble finding the ball. I don't have a plasma, just a regular old fat-screen TV and my eyes were in pain trying to figure out where the heck the ball was! I hope all this gets sorted out before the French.
My wife, who is nearsighted, complained about not being able to see the ball at all. I could pick it up only occasionally, so figured other people were having trouble too with the high & distant camera posistion. Can't someone at Tennis Channel wake these guys up & get them to rectify the problem? Otherwise it's a waste of time. Maybe if the TV sponsors were made aware they might bring pressure to bear.
Couldn't agree more. We are experiencing the exact same problem. Unable to see the ball. Please fix this problem or there is no point watching.
I'm new to this board, will Tennis Channel respond to these posts or at least give an explanation for the poor quality Monte Carlo broadcast. COME ON TENNIS CHANNEL TELL US SOMETHING!!
Suggest everyone send an email to the Tennis Channel. Hit "Contact Us" at the bottom of this page. If enough complain, maybe they can make a change. Until then we have stopped watching. Its a simple solution! All they need to do is zoom in on the court.
TC must not have enough band width, watch the bouncing ball when the player is about to serve, there are not enough frames per second
Yes, I have the same problem. Mine is back projecion TV and DIsh Network's HD TV and all digital signal. We cannot see the ball being played at all. Is it a resolution problem.
It is a shame for Tennis Channel to broadcast so many hours of coverage, which is really nice, but compromise on the picture quality.
Please do something about it.
AS the previous people have mentioned it is the camera people who are televising this not the fault of TTC. There is no way this can be fixed by the viewers. The cameras angles are way too far from the court. This was the same last year, match after match on clay. The ball gets totally lost in the light and on the clay, so all you see are 2 people swinging away and have no clue where the ball leaves from or lands. I am afraid the entire French Open will be like this also. I have tried to watch it on my 42" Panasonic plasma, and have just given up trying.
Surely someone could mention this to someone there, as I assume it's like this wherever this is televised, ( or maybe not.) Maybe each country or network, or whatever, has it's own camera feed??
Actually, I do not think this is the fault of the cameras or the camera angle. The problem is that there are serious video compression artifacts and simply not enough bandwidth to properly broadcast a sporting event like tennis. You will notice that the ball has a streaking artifact when it is in motion, and all of the edges in the picture have ringing artifacts. Whether or not the compression is coming from the feed provided to TTC or if TTC is compressing the signal themselves, I'm not sure.
You're exactly right. Who knows if TC is even monitoring these boards? Everybody should hit the "Contact Us" link and email their concerns directly to TC. I just did.
I am contacting all the sponsors as well as the Masters Series, the ATP, and every contact us email for the Tennis Channe. Suggest you all do the same.