"Maybe in a couple of years we could just abandon television coverage all together and give the highlights via Morse Code."

Props to Ryan Ballengee at Waggle Room for spotting Shane Bacon's post lamenting ESPN-on-ABC/TNT-via-BBC-feed's coverage of next week's Open Championship that is coming to us in stunning standard definition television.

People complain about links golf looking burned out and "brown" once the British kicks off, but Turnberry is different. It has the light tower and the Aisle Craig and it rolls along the west coast unlike any course you'd see in Scotland. Some of the holes are breathtaking, so it's disappointing we won't get to see it in high definition.

I guess the one good thing that can come from this is it takes the historic championship back to what it once was. Maybe in a couple of years we could just abandon television coverage all together and give the highlights via Morse Code.

So is this a BBC thing? Or a final-year-ABC-deal thing?

Either way, we'll be able to complain together all weekend long during the interactive live blog.

Comments

[kyle]

this honestly matters to people?

[Golden Bell]

It's a BBC thing. They're not entirely HD yet. Enough HDcameras for Wimbledon (though NBC produced its own HD coverage), but not for a golf tournament.

[Kevin]

Kyle, do you have HD? I don't watch anything that isn't in HD any more. The British Open will break that rule, but I won't enjoy it nearly as much as a telecast in HD.

My wife doesn't care HD vs SD, but I do, honestly.

[pasaplayer]

And my wife and I just bought our first HD sets over the weekend! My first comment on leaving the store: Yeah, the Open on HD!

LD won't make getting up at 0500 nearly as much fun.

[M]

1. The BBC have a strict policy that for a show to be in HD a minimum of 75% of the content must be in HD (and that doesn't include content shot on HDV or 16mm) That would mean that almost all the radio cameras would have to be HD, as would all the cabled cameras. The BBC wouldn't do a mix of HD cabled and SD radio cameras, as that would probably mean they would fall below the 75% HD minutage quota.

2. The main SISLive OB unit that acts as the central hub at the Open and as the domestic presentation truck at Wimbledon is being replaced by an HD version, but that truck is not in service yet. A similar, though smaller, HD version is being used for BBC One/Two/HD presentation at Wimbledon this year, but it might not be suitable for the Open, so they may still have to use the SD truck still. (They wouldn't be able to justify sub-contracting a truck from a 3rd party facility provider instead of the contracted provider in the current budget climate)

3. HD coverage from the BBC is separately funded to SD. The main networks - BBC One->BBC Four, CBBC, CBeebies, BBC News, BBC Parliament etc. - are all SD only. They only fund at a level for SD production. BBC HD is a separate channel, and for chosen shows it also broadcasts it funds the extra costs for HD over and above the SD production costs, but it has a limited budget.

thats borrowed from elsewhere.

the previous years 16x9 SD hasnt looked too bad, not worth complaining too much about.. Now.. Lexus at the half, lexus at the corner, LEXUS this, LEXUS 45 minute break with no golf, etc... thats worth complaining over. (all while BBC shows 234234 shots of golf)

[sandwedge]

The Open has been in HD the last two years (at least). Why the change backwards? This makes no sense and in this day and age is, well, ridiculous. Nothing looks better in HD than golf.

[M]

Open has never been in HD.. its all been in SD 16x9, including this years.

[Pickworth]

The BBC is useless at broadcasting golf. Always has been. Admittedly it's a lot harder to track a flying ball over linksland than through a chute of trees. But the wobbly camera work just makes me giddy after four days. They need to try something new.

[Scott]

It's "Ailsa" Craig not "Aisle." Come on! (Not you, Geoff)

[Jack]

Turn your watches back a hundred years when entering The Land of UK.

[greenfee]

This is quite laughable.
I watched the PGA TOUR’s AT&T NATIONAL on Sunday in the UK about which Geoff has posted getting +207% audience because Tiger Woods and Anthony Kim were going head to head.
A tournament that the runner up shot 62 to tie the lead and we barely saw a shot from him save a few putts and an interview.
So you'd rather have the Tiger Show, constant bios & stats and endless ads would you? But as long as it's in HD it's ok?
I'll be watching The Open on the BBC, 10 hour daily wall-to-wall coverage without commercial breaks and will enjoy seeing ALL the players in contention on my screen and if Hunter Mahan shoots another 62 at least I know I'll get to see it.

[dsl]

Along similar lines as greenfee and M, I'd say the real shame is that we can't just watch the actual BBC broadcast. At least they seem to make up for inferior visual quality with superior commentators and content. Here, we'll get the BBC's inferior visuals AND the sorriest bunch of talking heads ESPN and ABC can put together.

Every year, the best moment in the broadcast comes when they bring in the BBC commentator (Ben Wright or Peter Alliss?). He absolutely knocks it out of the park for a few minutes and then the broadcast goes back to being exactly like every other golf tournament.

[dsl]

Oh, and greenfee, you'd hate to watch golf with me. I DVR'd the final round on the weekend and managed to expertly use the fast forward button so I could cut out what little non-Tiger action they showed. My version of the final round was in glorious HD and was commercial, fluff and hype free.

I figure if I keep saying this, maybe someone influential will catch on:

Give me a channel with JUST Tiger and NO commentators for every tournament he plays. Just put a mic on the bag and an 18+ (for language) warning at the top of the screen. Oh, and feel free to show commercials between every shot if you want. I promise I won't skip them.

[The Devil's Arsehole]

greenfee and dsl's first post = Nail on the HEAD.

Having said that I do agree with Golden Bell and I don't really watch anything that isn't in HD anymore. 16X9 SD will still be OK - anything but black rectangles on the sides is good with me. (stretching the picture obviously also sucks big)

[greenfee]

dsl - Yes, I've learned my lesson and I'll be recording it from now on.
The shame is the broadcasts start at 20:00 on Sunday evening over here, I naively thought I could settle down with a beer and watch live golf!

What I don't get is that eventually the fact that Mahan was tearing it up must have penetrated the producer's consciousness. So was the schedule so inflexible that they couldn't show more of his shots?

Conceivably we could have a player who shot a 62 to win a PGA tournament and viewers hardly saw any of it.