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Xbox One will provide live NFL games at a blazing 60fps

EvB

Member
hdtv-7.jpg


Guess I just take this for granted, but yeah we've been there for some time.

edit: You one of the bigger problems is all that motion artifacts when things start moving at a high speed. Always been an issue.

1080i@60hz is interlaced, so half of the image is missing at all times.

it's closer to being 540p@60hz .

720p@60hz is going to be significantly better quality.
 

BigDug13

Member
I'm not sure where you are getting your info from, but North American television broadcasts are 30 frames per second, not 60. Could you source where you're getting this 60fps from?

Can you source where you're getting this 30 frames per second on all broadcasts in NA from?
 
I'm not sure where you are getting your info from, but North American television broadcasts are 30 frames per second, not 60. Could you source where you're getting this 60fps from?

That's like asking if I could source where I learned that 2 + 2 equals 4 ;). I've just known this information for so long. Maybe its because I've dealt with several capture cards dating back to when I only had analog cable and have played around with using third party capture software like DScaler which absolutely blew away the default Haupaugge or ATI TV Wonder capture software because DScaler could both handle di-interlacing a 480i signal correctly and would have very little input lag so that I could hook my PS2 up to it to play GTA3 and MGS2 and have it be actually playable and look pretty good.
 

140.85

Cognitive Dissonance, Distilled
I wonder if people who always have frame interpolation turned on in their TVs will even notice a difference.
 

Gestault

Member
I don't know if you're confused or getting into a semantic argument or what, but let me try to clarify the original explanation.

Like I mentioned before, most stations broadcast in 720p60 or 1080i60.

In both cases you can push 24FPS, 30FPS and 60FPS content through.

Obviously there's judder thats introduced with 24FPS unless you have a 120hz panel which is smart enough to recognize the 24FPS content and display it correctly. On a 720p broadcast it's already a progressive signal. On a 1080i60 broadcast, it comes in as interlaced but all of the information to reconstruct it as a 1080p video is there. Modern TV's are able to apply some processing to get it to it's original progressive state-- there's no information lost. So even thou it's a 1080i60 broadcastyou're essentially seeing a 1080p24 brodcast on a 1080p panel.

For 30FPS it's pretty much the same deal except there's no judder introduced since 30 fits into 60hz evenly (every frame is displayed twice).

For 60FPS on a 720p signal, it's straight forward, every frame is a unique progressive image.

For 60FPS on a 1080i signal, the way it works is that there are 60 frames of information, but the even frames only contain image information for horizontal lines 1, 3, 5, 7, ... 1077, 1079 and the odd frames contain image information for horizontal lines 2, 4, 6, 8, .... 1078, 1080. On an old school CRT HDTV what would happen is that it literally would display only the odd lines one frame, and then the even lines the next frame. Since the lines that information was being displayed on were alternating so fast, it would trick your brain into thinking you were seeing a progressive image and it would look pretty good. On a fixed pixel display (like LCD) they can't really do that-- you'd see way too much flicker from the image and it would look bad. So instead they have algorithms which for the even frames will fill in the information for lines 2, 4, 6, 8, .... 1078, 1080 based on the previous frame's lines of 2, 4, 6, 8, .... 1078, 1080, the current frame's lines of 1, 3, 5, 7, ... 1077, and the next frame's lines of 2, 4, 6, 8, .... 1078, 1080. And for the odd frames it will fill in the info for 2, 4, 6, 8, .... 1078, 1080 using a similar technique. Yes its interpolation going on, but its not interpolating a 30FPS signal into a 60FPS progressive signal. Its interpolating a 60FPS interlaced signal into a 60FPS progressive signal. And what your eyes see on your TV is literally a 60FPS progressive signal.

Your original comment here was making a firm point that all live sports in the US are broadcast at 60 fps. I never commented on the process of creating a progressive image from an interlaced one, since resolution is independent from framerate, but your explanations gave the impression that a 1080p60 video source is necessarily 60 fps (as opposed to frame doubling the source). This is what I assumed was your misunderstanding.

Ugh. Seriously? YES. They broadcast in 60. ALL live sports are broadcast in 60 in North America. As I previously explained in the thread, even 1080i broadcasts are 60FPS, not 30.

Your explanation here was also giving the impression that you're assuming that 60 fields per second means a signal is also 60 frames per second. This was your original post that brought up this line of questions.
Dude. 1080i60 gets converted to 1080p60 on the fly by all modern TVs if the content is above 30fps ... Sometimes you can see weird artifacts with fast motion but you'd have to know to look for it.
 

railGUN

Banned
Can you source where you're getting this 30 frames per second on all broadcasts in NA from?

I'm a video editor who has worked in broadcast TV for over a decade, and I've never heard of any television station or channel accepting 720p60 or 1080p for that matter. That's not to say there aren't channels or stations that might broadcast at those rates, but the standard television frame rate in North America is 29.97 frames per second.

Here's some info on frame rates and standards from the Final Cut Pro manual:

Frame Rate Basics
When transferring film to video, you need to take into account the differences in film and video frame rates. Film is commonly shot at 24 frames per second (fps), although 25 fps is sometimes used when the final project is to be delivered as PAL video (as opposed to the more common technique of just speeding up 24 fps film to 25 fps). Video can have a 29.97 fps rate (NTSC), a 25 fps rate (PAL), or either a 24 fps or 23.98 fps rate (24p), depending on your video standard.

The frame rate of your video (whether you sync the audio during the telecine transfer or not) and the frame rate you want to edit at can determine what you need to do to prepare your clips for editing. You may find it useful to read Determining How to Prepare Source Clips for Editing before you make any decisions about frame rates.

Working with NTSC Video
The original frame rate of NTSC video was exactly 30 fps. When color was added, the rate had to be changed slightly, to the rate of 29.97 fps. The field rate of NTSC video is 59.94 fields per second. NTSC video is often referred to as having a frame rate of 30 fps, and although the difference is not large, it cannot be ignored when transferring film to video (because of its impact on audio synchronization, explained in Synchronizing the Audio with the Video).

Another issue is how to distribute film’s 24 fps among NTSC video’s 29.97 fps.

The most common approach to distributing film’s 24 fps among NTSC video’s 29.97 fps is to perform a 3:2 pull-down (also known as a 2:3:2:3 pull-down). If you alternate recording two fields of one film frame and then three fields of the next, the 24 frames in 1 second of film end up filling the 30 frames in 1 second of video.

Note: The actual NTSC video frame rate is 29.97 fps. The film frame rate is modified to 23.98 fps in order to create the 3:2 pattern.
 
Your original comment here was making a firm point that all live sports in the US are broadcast at 60 fps. I never commented on the process of creating a progressive image from an interlaced one, since resolution is independent from framerate, but your explanations gave the impression that a 1080p60 video source is necessarily 60 fps (as opposed to frame doubling the source). This is what I assumed was your misunderstanding.



Your explanation here was also giving the impression that you're assuming that 60 fields per second means a signal is also 60 frames per second. This was your original post that brought up this line of questions.

Not sure what you're arguing here, and no there is no frame doubling going on.
 
In this thread, people fail to understand the difference between 60 interlaced fields per second and 30 or 60 progressive frames per second.

Broadcast HD 720p is 60 progressive frames per second, 1080i is 60 interlaced fields per second. For sports broadcasting the signal is always natively 60p or 60i in North America.

The Xbone is not doing anything unique or interesting here. You can watch the NFL every Sunday for the price of a $30 antenna because the NFL is the only professional sport still broadcasted over the air by local network affiliate stations. If you want to spend $500 for an inferior game console to watch the NFL instead of spending $400 on a PS4 which is superior as a game console and $30 on an antenna to get the same 720p or 1080i then great job there sparky. MS is over delivering on value as usual.

LOL at the bolded.
 

railGUN

Banned
That's like asking if I could source where I learned that 2 + 2 equals 4 ;). I've just known this information for so long. Maybe its because I've dealt with several capture cards dating back to when I only had analog cable and have played around with using third party capture software like DScaler which absolutely blew away the default Haupaugge or ATI TV Wonder capture software because DScaler could both handle di-interlacing a 480i signal correctly and would have very little input lag so that I could hook my PS2 up to it to play GTA3 and MGS2 and have it be actually playable and look pretty good.

Well I hate to say it, but I think you're misinformed about a few things. I don't claim to be an expert on frame rates and the likes, but my experiences with this stuff leaves me believing that some of your facts are wrong.
 
LOL at the bolded.

What's even more hilarious is that you probably will have to pay for Live Gold to get this so that's another $50 a year.

I don't get who this is targeting, if you have OTA/cable/satellite TV you already have this. Why would you pay extra to stream the same thing to your Xbone? I thought the whole point of the HDMI input on the Xbone was to watch the pay TV service you already have on it!
 

Mihos

Gold Member
It's neat, but I watch football on a projector and there just is no good place to put an xbox and Kinect in my setup.
 

Gestault

Member
Not sure what you're arguing here, and no there is no frame doubling going on.

You believe that all sports broadcasts in the US are 60 fps. I believe that's not the case. Your explanations didn't clarify your view, from my reading. I assumed you might want someone to explain why it looked that way. I don't see a reason to try in the future.
 

cilonen

Member
People are confusing refresh rate (field rate) and actual frame rate. In the US & Japan broadcasts have always been 30FPS, with a frequency of 60Hz, I.e. Each frame is illuminated twice. In other regions it's 25FPS (24.49ish) at a frequency of 50Hz.

It gets confusing because in the switch to HD the names 1080i60 and 1080i50 got thrown around referring to the field rate whereas the actual frame rate of these are still 30 and 25-ish respectively.

This is somewhat independent of whatever refresh rate your TV advertises itself as, which adds more confusion, not to mention all the motion enhancement stuff modern LCD's advertise themselves at with ridiculous refresh rates, that is a different measurement yet again (and I still don't really understand how Sony arrive at the numbers they use in their latest TV's, they look good though!)
 
Well I hate to say it, but I think you're misinformed about a few things. I don't claim to be an expert on frame rates and the likes, but my experiences with this stuff leaves me believing that some of your facts are wrong.
Whether a 1080i60 signal is actually 1920x1080@30hz with 2 fields per frame or 1920x540@60hz, is not really important in the argument of whether sports are already broadcast at 60FPS. They are.
 

railGUN

Banned
You know, after more digging, I did find this article, which states that certain sports broadcasters do broadcast at 60p...

Today's broadcast video common denominator is SDI, either SD or HD. SMPTE 294M specifies SDI at a 29.97 frame rate and a 59.94 field rate for SD and 1080i or p. HDTV in the 1080i format, as fed to and rebroadcast by most NBC, CBS and PBS affiliates, is at 59.94 fields per second. The 720p format, as specified by SMPTE 296M and used by ABC, FOX and ESPN, has no fields. It delivers 59.94 progressive frames per second. Both 1080i and 720p mathematically match downconverted SD video.

http://broadcastengineering.com/news/whats_the_difference_between_5994fps_and_60fps_07032011

In any event, I fucking hate frame rates.
 
People are confusing refresh rate (field rate) and actual frame rate. In the US & Japan broadcasts have always been 30FPS, with a frequency of 60Hz, I.e. Each frame is illuminated twice. In other regions it's 25FPS (24.49ish) at a frequency of 50Hz.

It gets confusing because in the switch to HD the names 1080i60 and 1080i50 got thrown around referring to the field rate whereas the actual frame rate of these are still 30 and 25-ish respectively.

This is somewhat independent of whatever refresh rate your TV advertises itself as, which adds more confusion, not to mention all the motion enhancement stuff modern LCD's advertise themselves at with ridiculous refresh rates, that is a different measurement yet again (and I still don't really understand how Sony arrive at the numbers they use in their latest TV's, they look good though!)

Sports has always been broadcast at the highest field rate, 60i or 60p.

60i is not 30p split into 2 interlaced frames. It is actually 60 even and odd fields shown alternately every second.

60p is 60 progressive frames a second.
 

mcrommert

Banned
From wikipedia...end of story


50p/60p is a progressive format and is used in high-end HDTV systems. While it is not technically part of the ATSC or DVB broadcast standards yet, reports suggest that higher progressive frame rates will be a feature of the next-generation high-definition television broadcast standards.[12] In Europe, the EBU considers 1080p50 the next step future proof system for TV broadcasts and is encouraging broadcasters to upgrade their equipment for the future.[13]


This is only in planning...they don't exist yet
 

sangreal

Member
You know, after more digging, I did find this article, which states that certain sports broadcasters do broadcast at 60p...



http://broadcastengineering.com/news/whats_the_difference_between_5994fps_and_60fps_07032011

In any event, I fucking hate frame rates.

Of course. It is mentioned right in the OP that ESPN cares more about frame rate than resolution. It is only strange that the author seemed to have missed that the reason they're vocal about this is they broadcast in 720p/60 instead of 1080i/30
 

cilonen

Member
Sports has always been broadcast at the highest field rate, 60i or 60p.

Yeah, I think you're right; my bad for leaving 720p60 out of my post. That is a broadcast standard too - I just wanted to try to help clarify some of the confusing ways of naming the same standards!
 
I'm a video editor who has worked in broadcast TV for over a decade, and I've never heard of any television station or channel accepting 720p60 or 1080p for that matter. That's not to say there aren't channels or stations that might broadcast at those rates, but the standard television frame rate in North America is 29.97 frames per second.

Here's some info on frame rates and standards from the Final Cut Pro manual:

NTSC doesn't have anything to do with HD broadcasts though.
 

hesido

Member
Damn it, guys.. We've been watching NBA, NFL, Soccer, 99% live broadcasts, in 60fps / 50fps for eternity. It's a TV standart; although interlaced, but it wasn't much of a problem for CRT technology due to the way that rows were being displayed in alternate fashion (It did flicker tho, but the motion was 60hz NTSC / 50hz PAL)

And here are people asking why is it needed if it's not a game.. We need 60fps where sensing the motion is important. Especially when there's god damn camera pans, you need that 60fps. And god damn it, anyone can feel it. Not everyone can tell it.
 

cilonen

Member
From wikipedia...end of story


50p/60p is a progressive format and is used in high-end HDTV systems. While it is not technically part of the ATSC or DVB broadcast standards yet, reports suggest that higher progressive frame rates will be a feature of the next-generation high-definition television broadcast standards.[12] In Europe, the EBU considers 1080p50 the next step future proof system for TV broadcasts and is encouraging broadcasters to upgrade their equipment for the future.[13]


This is only in planning...they don't exist yet

720p60 does. 1080 not yet but I think BT Sport in the UK are starting to advertise 1080p sport on some models of set top box because they stream the channel to you over BT broadband rather than OTA.
 

railGUN

Banned
NTSC doesn't have anything to do with HD broadcasts though.

I think it does for frame rates still. From one of my broadcaster spec sheets (who only accepts HD, but has an SD channel as well):

Programs will be aired in the NTSC 525/29.97 drop frame format and care must be taken to ensure that all format and frame rate conversions are done properly to ensure consistent aspect ratios and timing.

Edit: so yea, you're right, but I still deal with NTSC despite only doing HD because of down-conversions and the likes handled by the broadcaster, who has digital SD channels.
 

Levyne

Banned
Is this actually 60fps footage or is it akin to that shitty motionflow trumotion motioninmotion whatever the fuck they call it shitty interpolation

Edit: Reading a bit and it seems not? I think? This thread is pretty informative
 

shock-value

Neo Member
This announcement is stupid and misleading. All broadcast sports are already displayed in 60fps.

For streams at 720p (ESPN and ABC I believe -- and possibly others), they are true, progressive, no-holds-barred 60fps.

For the majority which are 1080i, the vertical resolution is effectively halved (since you are jamming two "displayed frames" into each "transmitted frame" every other scan line), but the image is interpolated by your TV each frame so it still looks pretty good. The TV is able to recover the two distinct "display frames" from the single "transmitted frame" and display them separately (each for 1/60 of a second). So in this case it is the resolution which is diminished, not the framerate (which is still true 60fps).

So the only thing that MS can be doing here that is special is to broadcast in 1080p, which would still be novel and would still improve image quality somewhat (although by far the more important issue is what bitrate they would be transmitting at), but would not affect framerate.
 
Is this actually 60fps footage or is it akin to that shitty motionflow trumotion motioninmotion whatever the fuck they call it shitty interpolation

Edit: Reading a bit and it seems not? I think? This thread is pretty informative

It's not really that different than what you're seeing now. You're currently seeing a refresh rate of 60 times a second.
 

railGUN

Banned
I'm actually quite flummoxed about this 720p60 sports broadcasts. This must be an American thing... Or does anyone know if TSN or Sportsnet broadcast this? I can't seem to find anything.
 

flkraven

Member
This might be the best place to ask this.

So, Fox is streaming the Super Bowl for free. Is there any way to watch this stream on Xbox 360 / Xbox One? Or am I going to have to plug my laptop into my TV?
 

shock-value

Neo Member
? I was wondering if our sports networks broadcast in 60p is what I meant - I can't find anything about it, so I'm guessing no.

You mean 720p60? According to Wikipedia the two you mentioned are 1080i60. So still 60fps but with a lower effective vertical resolution.
 
This announcement is stupid and misleading. All broadcast sports are already displayed in 60fps.

For streams at 720p (ESPN and ABC I believe -- and possibly others), they are true, progressive, no-holds-barred 60fps.

For the majority which are 1080i, the vertical resolution is effectively halved (since you are jamming two "displayed frames" into each "transmitted frame" every other scan line), but the image is interpolated by your TV each frame so it still looks pretty good. The TV is able to recover the two distinct "display frames" from the single "transmitted frame" and display them separately (each for 1/60 of a second). So in this case it is the resolution which is diminished, not the framerate (which is still true 60fps).

So the only thing that MS can be doing here that is special is to broadcast in 1080p, which would still be novel and would still improve image quality somewhat (although by far the more important issue is what bitrate they would be transmitting at), but would not affect framerate.

This junior knows his shit.

To be strictly correct, when discussing interlaced formats like 1080i60, you have to talk about something called temporal resolution. The effective resolution of 1080i varies depending on what is shown. If a still frame is being shown, resolution is actually 1080 lines, because the even and odd fields are showing the same thing. When a moving scene is shown, the effective resolution decreases as the even and odd fields do not match. In theory, if a scene is moving faster than the refresh rate of the recording camera, effective resolution can be as low as 540 lines as the even and odd fields are showing completely different things. In reality the human eye cannot truly resolve the difference in resolution that well and so on most cases it's very difficult to see the variance in effective resolution, such is why watching NBC Sunday Night Football or the NFL on CBS in 1080i60 doesn't really look different at all from Fox NFL Sunday or ESPN Monday Night Football in 720p60.
 
the NFL app actually streams games? I always just use the TV app

Well, while people argue over the framerate and res questions, this was my first thought too.

I guess if you're the sort of person who wants to sit and watch highlights or specific sports tv shows/clips, then you might find this interesting. As someone who loves football, but only the actual games, this sounds likely useless. Can't imagine you'll see more than a game or two broadcast live all season, if that. (Unless there's some kind of Direct Ticket esque additional package to buy. Which, if there is, you've once again lost me.)
 
This junior knows his shit.

To be strictly correct, when discussing interlaced formats like 1080i60, you have to talk about something called temporal resolution. The effective resolution of 1080i varies depending on what is shown. If a still frame is being shown, resolution is actually 1080 lines, because the even and odd fields are showing the same thing. When a moving scene is shown, the effective resolution decreases as the even and odd fields do not match. In theory, if a scene is moving faster than the refresh rate of the recording camera, effective resolution can be as low as 540 lines as the even and odd fields are showing completely different things. In reality the human eye cannot truly resolve the difference in resolution that well and so on most cases it's very difficult to see the variance in effective resolution, such is why watching NBC Sunday Night Football in 1080i60 doesn't really look different at all from Fox NFL Sunday or ESPN Monday Night Football in 720p60.

A lot of the studio shots (pregame, half time), overlays, etc will even look better on the 1080i broadcast because there's not that much motion going on.
 

weeeeezy

Banned
Does anyone have an example video of a sporting event filmed at 60 FPS? I can't really grasp how moving to 60 FPS can make things much better for TV.
 

shock-value

Neo Member
This junior knows his shit.

To be strictly correct, when discussing interlaced formats like 1080i60, you have to talk about something called temporal resolution. The effective resolution of 1080i varies depending on what is shown. If a still frame is being shown, resolution is actually 1080 lines, because the even and odd fields are showing the same thing. When a moving scene is shown, the effective resolution decreases as the even and odd fields do not match. In theory, if a scene is moving faster than the refresh rate of the recording camera, effective resolution can be as low as 540 lines as the even and odd fields are showing completely different things. In reality the human eye cannot truly resolve the difference in resolution that well and so on most cases it's very difficult to see the variance in effective resolution, such is why watching NBC Sunday Night Football or the NFL on CBS in 1080i60 doesn't really look different at all from Fox NFL Sunday or ESPN Monday Night Football in 720p60.

Yes that is a good point about temporal resolution. I believe that is the motivating factor for ESPN and some other sports networks to broadcast in 720p rather than 1080i. They want a consistent image even when displaying fast moving 60fps content (i.e. sports). Not to mention 720p takes up less bandwidth generally so there are fewer compression artifacts as well.
 

JaggedSac

Member
So what exactly did MS sign this deal to get? What is different from what they have now? Bear in mind I have never used the NFL app on the Bone.
 
So anyways the point of all this discussion is that the Xbone is doing the same thing you already have on your OTA/cable/satellite TV feed. So unless you actually have no TV service of any kind at all this is stupid and pointless. Anyone who watches the NFL already has TV service, otherwise how could you already be watching it?
 

railGUN

Banned
You mean 720p60? According to Wikipedia the two you mentioned are 1080i60. So still 60fps but with a lower effective vertical resolution.

I've already been completely wrong in this thread (but learned something at least), but according to my math, if the 60 refers to fields, and you need two fields to make a frame, then how is 60i not effectively 30p?

I get that they look similar - And I do work with 720p60 and 1080p60, which is the frame rate I prefer things recorded in when I want to slow them down.

Every piece of footage on my computer right now that has been shot in 1080i60 (which is the vast majority) all give me a native frame rate of 29.97 fps with a field dominance of top.
 

shock-value

Neo Member
I've already been completely wrong in this thread (but learned something at least), but according to my math, if the 60 refers to fields, and you need two fields to make a frame, then how is 60i not effectively 30p?

I get that they look similar - And I do work with 720p60 and 1080p60, which is the frame rate I prefer things recorded in when I want to slow them down.

Every piece of footage on my computer right now that has been shot in 1080i60 (which is the vast majority) all give me a native frame rate of 29.97 fps with a field dominance of top.

60i is effectively 30p if you display it raw without recovering the display fields. You'd get a 30fps video that looks like this: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/19/Interlaced_video_frame_(car_wheel).jpg
 

Mandoric

Banned
So what exactly did MS sign this deal to get? What is different from what they have now? Bear in mind I have never used the NFL app on the Bone.

The reporter is rewriting old news, and royally fucked up the tech component by buying standard press release fluffery hook, line, and sinker.

The original source appears to be here - which mentions that 60fps is double "standard" video but doesn't note that sports are an exception, and for some reason plays up the Xbone's power like the PS3 and 360 couldn't do 60fps HD video fine.
 

hesido

Member
This junior knows his shit.

To be strictly correct, when discussing interlaced formats like 1080i60, you have to talk about something called temporal resolution. The effective resolution of 1080i varies depending on what is shown. If a still frame is being shown, resolution is actually 1080 lines, because the even and odd fields are showing the same thing. When a moving scene is shown, the effective resolution decreases as the even and odd fields do not match. In theory, if a scene is moving faster than the refresh rate of the recording camera, effective resolution can be as low as 540 lines as the even and odd fields are showing completely different things. In reality the human eye cannot truly resolve the difference in resolution that well and so on most cases it's very difficult to see the variance in effective resolution, such is why watching NBC Sunday Night Football or the NFL on CBS in 1080i60 doesn't really look different at all from Fox NFL Sunday or ESPN Monday Night Football in 720p60.

Also, we have to mention that there there are several de-interlacing methods. You need to de-interlace on any progressive display. The best ones are that rebuild an entire frame by way of motion-estimation and re-projection, when you do that, the resolution is not halved, tho it's a partly generated image with possibilities of artefacts here and there, but it's a damn good image. High end TV's would be most likely to employ that technique, but I'm not sure which do or if at all.

Here's a very good site about what interlace is and why we are still talking about it when 99.9% of all new displays are progressive: http://www.100fps.com/

Going progressive is the only sane way as the recording and broadcast will match the technology of our displays.
 
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