Why ESPN HD Looks So Good

Not So High on High Definition

This is an article about how TV Providers compress HDTV signals in order to get as many as they can on a single 6 megahertz channel.

I've always thought ESPN HD had the best picture quality and this article explains why.

Well-heeled consumers unboxing their HDTV sets under the Christmas tree will expect to be wowed. Philip Garvin, general manager and chief operating officer at HDNet, which offers two high-definition programming channels with news, sports and movies, believes the way to knock off people's socks is by delivering the programming without tweaking the signal.

The Denver-based network, owned by billionaire Mark Cuban and available to 4 million homes, would like its HDNet and HDNet Movies channels to be carried at 19.4 Mbps or higher. But the scarcity of bandwidth intrudes on negotiations, and HDNet doesn't always get what it wants from cable operators.

“What we're facing is: How much do you compress? We could argue about that forever, and there's nothing that we, as a network, can do,” he said. “It's highly unlikely that we can avoid [operators] decoding and re-encoding [HDNet's signals].”

Compression can be a bargaining chip in carriage deals. According to Doug Jones, chief architect of cable products at video-equipment maker BigBand Networks, networks sometimes obtain a more favorable carriage fee if they agree to have their HD programming carried at 10 or 11 Mbps. “That's all tied into the programmer negotiations,” he said.

On the other hand, bandwidth guarantees may be written into carriage agreements. Cable networks and broadcasters that are in a position to make such demands — including The Walt Disney Co.'s ESPN — require distributors to carry high-definition channels at about 19.4 Mbps each, according to executives at operators and equipment vendors.