BBC promises Open Championship in HD next year

by Richard Lawler posted Jul 17th 2009 at 5:47PM

Despite inexplicably choosing to broadcast this year's British Open in standard definition, the BBC pinky swore at a news conference Wednesday that next year, all would be in high definition, it just hadn't been ready yet to invest in HD cameras. As it is, even with thorough widescreen coverage from ABC & TNT, and DirecTV dropping in one of their snazzy HD Mix channels for the event, we'll still know deep down that we're not watching it in the best quality available. So, F1, you're on deck, no excuses.

Filed under: ABC, TNT-HD, Sports, BBC HD

Tags: abc, bbc, british open, BritishOpen, golf, the open championship, TheOpenChampionship, tnt, uk

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Neutral

DavidB @ Jul 18th 2009 11:25AM

I'm not sure what YOU guys are seeing in your locale, but I'm watching right now on WJLA ABC 7 and there is NO WAY what I'm seeing isn't HD.

Neutral

Ben @ Jul 18th 2009 4:21PM

Yes there is a way, because what you are watching is 16x9 SD.

Congratulations, you can't tell the difference between 480p upconverted and 1080. If I were you, I'd very quickly blame it on my TV in an attempt to shield yourself from the shame.

Neutral

THizzle7XU @ Jul 19th 2009 11:55PM

I'll take widescreen over nothing at all at least. I find myself more annoyed by 4x3 content than the actual resolution of what I'm watching. Although HD is nice as well...

Neutral

pablo_paul @ Jul 18th 2009 1:57PM

I can't belive the BBC haven't shown any F1 in HD I can understand if you can't do it for every race but you can't even be bothered to do it for the British GP.

Neutral

Darkwave @ Jul 18th 2009 7:02PM

It't not actually down to the BBC, they would if they could. The feed comes from the backward ass FIA which refuse to broadcast in HD.

Neutral

Nick Clark @ Jul 19th 2009 5:46PM

Well said Richard! All weekend we have seen awesome slo-mo shots of the golfers yet it's a waste of time and effort as we can only watch it in SD...roll on 2010!

Neutral

David @ Jul 19th 2009 10:28PM

we can put a man on the moon 40 years ago, but we will still have to put up with SD upscaling crap.

Neutral

roy @ Jul 20th 2009 8:33AM

Hi guys,
In regard to F1 the FIA provide HD pictures for all races including the British GP. If you watch F1 coverage on German Premiere or Sky Italia etc all GPs are shown in HD. BBC chose not to take the feed.
In regard to Open Championship no HD coverage from British picture provider is embarrassing!! On that im not sure why the graphics the beeb were using were from my Commodore 64. After excellenty Wimbledon coverage i was suprised at the appauling Open coverage - apart from Lineker of course.

Neutral

duerra @ Jul 20th 2009 8:08PM

Pretty sure Comedy Central is on the hot seat. Seriously, wtf is it with so many of their new shows still not being in HD, plus their second most valuable property (John Stewart)? It's driving me crazy. I cringe watching The Daily Show every night, it's the last standard definition show I watch on a regular basis.

Neutral

caribousteaks @ Jul 22nd 2009 8:41AM

Typical Big Brother Corporation. Once again last to the game. How sad! Wouldn't it be nice to have a forward thinking progressive, pushing the envelope national television network. The BBC used to be highly respected in its programming and broadcasts...30 years ago. Today it is behind even half baked local commercial networks. Its so easy to say "no", or "the markets not ready for it", or "it costs too much". With the typical half empty attitude like that we would have never had a man on the moon, a concord, a high speed train, an HDTV. Shame shame BBC. To bad for UK and world viewers!

Weekly Webcomic Wrapup is preparing to enter the fray Left 4 Dead 2 pre-loading now available through Steam Dragon Age: Origins gets patched, tool set released	You spend more time on MSN Messenger than ANYTHING else Mozilla Jetpack contest winner harnesses GPU power to process data Fugly Friday : Aiseikai Hospital has no opthamologist on staff
Worm rickrolls unsecured jailbroken iPhones via SSH Heads Up: Update your Apple TV to 3.0.1 ASAP, says Apple Gokivo updates navigation app for iPhone, lowers the price	Six top trades for the rest of 2009 Earnings highlights: CBS, Comcast, News Corp., Time Warner, UBS, Viacom ... Trade #3: Market Vectors Gold Miners ETF (GDX)
Reminder: Watch the first episode of Halo Legends today Homemade Fallout 3 Shishkebab, make 'em now before the apocalypse Gears of War 2 celebrates first anniversary with triple XP	VIDEO: Mind the pole, please Gordon Murray working on EV version of city car? Hubinette to drift Smart Fortwo chasing Tom Cruise in Night and Day
Edited Left 4 Dead 2 PC has better performance? Splinter Cell: Conviction novel out now GoGamer.com brings us some pre-Black Friday sales	Ryan Moats Earns Texans' Starting Job Bucs Legend Excited to Christen Team's Ring of Honor Broncos Sign Veteran CB Ty Law