HDTV Makes Super Bowl Crystal Clear
By ALAN ROBINSON
.c The Associated Press
In some ways, the first Super Bowl televised in high definition was a no-frills throwback to the first Super Bowl telecast in 1967.
No fancy graphics and no glitzy production tricks. The emphasis was on the action, not the sideshow that often threatens to overwhelm the game.
Of course, with a picture like this, who needs exploding helmets and whirling logos, cameras mounted in blimps or strapped to helmets?
Oblivious to most of America except the small number of households that have ignored the high costs - sets cost from $2,700 to $110,000 - and dire predictions that high-def won't catch on for many more years to come, ABC produced two Super Bowl broadcasts Sunday.
One was the version seen - in standard, very low definition - by millions of Americans via cable or local TV stations. The other, seen mostly by a few thousand early conformers to a technology that startles the senses much like color TV did to those who grew up in the black-and-white age, was a high-definition broadcast shown on 23 digital stations nationwide.
The NFL likes to say the game is the thing. With high-definition TV, the picture is the thing.
Oh, the picture.
Watching the two telecasts side-by-side, on screens of comparable size, provided as big a contrast as the Tennessee Titans' offense did in the second half compared to the first.
The high definition picture is like watching a moving photograph - seamless, with vivid colors and a picture so sharp that the handwriting on a referee's thrown flag is clearly visible. So is every stitch on a player's uniform, every feather on Rams quarterback Kurt Warner's wife Brenda's blue boa.
The regular, NTSC signal that has been America's TV standard since the days when ''I Love Lucy'' was the program of choice, not ''Who Wants to Be a Millionaire,'' looked as dated as the single wing by comparison to the new technology.
The scanning lines that form the picture become as visible as those on a coach's face (no offense, Dick Vermeil). Colors aren't as bright, details aren't as sharp and fans in the stands are faceless figures, rather than animated, enthused objects.
With an extremely high production cost-to-viewers ratio, ABC's HDTV broadcast was as remarkable for its stark quality as its vivid picture. The colorful graphics - like the exploding helmets - on the regular telecast were missing, replaced by plain text or low-tech substitutes. Not that it mattered.
Also missing: the computer-generated yellow stripe that represents the first-down line. And there were only nine HDTV cameras, fewer than half those on the regular telecast, mostly because they are the only such cameras in the country. They aren't owned by ABC but, rather, are leased to the network by Panasonic, which received several complimentary high-def ads in payment.
The announcers, Al Michaels and Boomer Esiason, were the same, but the high-def picture didn't always match their words. With so many fewer cameras, the HDTV broadcast couldn't explore as many nooks and crannies of the Georgia Dome as the regular telecast did, and it didn't try.
Finally, by the second quarter, the HDTV crew began inserting a picture-in-a-picture of the regular telecast during those occasions when the shot didn't match Michaels' words.
Also, with poorer camera positions than those of the main telecast, the high-def telecast sometimes pulled back to camera angles so wide they resembled the entire-field shots on the videos watched by NFL coaches.
Sometimes, though, HDTV's relatively Spartan production was superior to the multimillion dollar main telecast. On Rams receiver Torry Holt's non-catch in the first half, for example, the HDTV telecast had shown two superior replays by the time the main telecast had shown one.
The Disney-produced (with Disney-owned ABC showing the game, you expected something else?) halftime show, with its colorful, moving images and pyrotechnics, also was far superior on HDTV.
Not all was perfect, of course; the main TV cameraman cut in front of the HDTV camera during John Elway's sideline interview, leaving viewers with a huge closeup of the back of a minicamera. Not exactly must-see TV.
But the picture. Too bad most of America still can't see it.
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