Olympic gold for BBC as it showcases the future of TV: Super Hi-Vision
With Andy Murray capturing the headlines in the US today with his Olympic gold at Wimbledon, the BBC collected its own gold medal with a fulsome article in the New York Times.
Gold for Andy Murray at Wimbledon
A Times writer told readers of America’s most influential paper, “While some U.S. television viewers are grumbling about the retro feel to the NBC network’s Olympic coverage, with tape-delayed broadcasts of the opening ceremonies and other events, audiences in Britain are getting a more contemporary — even futuristic — TV Games.”
At the centre of the praise was the BBC’s marathon coverage — 2,500 hours of programming during more than two weeks of the Games with as many as 24 live feeds of the various events, whether basketball or fencing.
“We wanted to give people every venue, from first thing in the morning to last thing at night,” Roger Mosey, director of the BBC’s Olympic coverage told the Times.
Recalling that London Olympics of 1948, were the first to be televised to people’s homes, readers were told ,“This time, the BBC and NHK, the Japanese public broadcaster, are testing a new technology — so-called Super Hi-Vision television, which they describe as providing 16 times the resolution of conventional high-definition television.
“It’s better than 3-D,” Mosey said. “It’s like looking through a glass window at an event.”
Super Hi-Vision is not available in homes yet and may not be until 2020 or so. , executives say. But the technology is being used to film a number of events for closed-circuit broadcasts on giant screens in London , Bradford, and Glasgow in the UK; and Tokyo and Fukushima in Japan. Americans are getting a taste, too: A feed has been provided to NBC for a screen in Washington.
Through the first six days of the Games, 45.4 million Britons have tuned in to at least 15 minutes of the BBC’s coverage — more than during the entire three weeks of the Beijing Olympics in 2008. More than 16 million have used the Red Button service, providing simultaneous live feeds.
Mosey also revealed that after the Beijing Games, in a time zone
seven hours ahead of London, he discussed with BBC director general Mark Thompson, if whether it made sense to delay the broadcast of the opening ceremony (just like NBC).
It might have attracted a higher audience in the prime time evening hours.
But Mosey said they concluded that British viewers would not have accepted a delay. “We respect what NBC is doing, but the BBC would have been absolutely killed if it had time-shifted the opening ceremonies,” he said.