EngadgetHD is reporting that Eurovision has successfully taken various sports feeds (NBA, NHL) from the US, converted them to a "UK friendly" format, and broadcast them over here.
Details are extremely sketchy, to say the least. Digging around for the original press release, all that's really talked about is how the feed has been converted from 1080i/60fps (US) to 1080i/50fps (Europe/UK) without downconverting to NTSC format.
That's all very nice, except there's no details of where this content is going (Sky?). Also, one person commenting at EngadgetHD makes the point that "European HD Ready TVs are required to support 1080i @ 50Hz AND 60Hz, so why convert the signal at all?"
Also (and I'm no mathematician here) - isn't there going to be some timing problems with converting from 60 to 50fps? I know it can be an issue with DVDs.
Nevertheless, according to Eurovision's Head of Production and Services, Tony Naets, "Takers of these events were delighted with the results of the Eurovision service, which included the ingest of the original coverage through the resources of Eurovision Americas in Washington, the conversion from the original broadcast format to 1080i/50 and the transport of the converted signal via our dedicated transatlantic fibre to the European uplink."
(Via EngadgetHD)
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