NESN will show Red Sox home games in 4K HDR in 2022

TDFenway

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Aug 21, 2016
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Very quietly during the Bruins game on Thursday night, they ran a promo saying 4K HDR will be available for home games this season.

DIRECTV, DISH and Xfinity have specific receivers for 4K content. If you already have one of these services, you may need to upgrade your receiver to one that supports 4K.- I know Xfinity sent me a box at no charge.

For other providers you will need to contact them



 

Time to Mo Vaughn

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Mar 24, 2008
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Would love this to come to FiOS as well. They've have a few channels reserved for 4K/HDR broadcasts.

Very curious whether this is true 4K or just upscaled.
 

SumnerH

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I am not jealous. The difference between 1080p and 4k is fairly small even on my 120" screen with well-edited movie masters under ideal lighting conditions. It's not like going from DVD-quality SD to full HD. It'll be an incremental improvement in a few years when the kinks are ironed out, but not a huge change.
 

Time to Mo Vaughn

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Mar 24, 2008
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I am not jealous. The difference between 1080p and 4k is fairly small even on my 120" screen with well-edited movie masters under ideal lighting conditions. It's not like going from DVD-quality SD to full HD. It'll be an incremental improvement in a few years when the kinks are ironed out, but not a huge change.
How about the difference from 720p, which is what everything is currently broadcast in to 4k?
 

bluefenderstrat

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Co-signed.

I don't know whether NESN or YTTV is more to blame, but I hate not being able to watch the B's, and it will be the same with the Sox.
Why not switch to Fubo? Yes, you pay a bit more and don't get TNT or TBS (a problem for NBA playoffs if that's your thing). YouTube decided the RSNs were not worth carrying, even with a surcharge option. You can put your YTTV account on suspense for up to 6 months if you want to keep your history there, I think including your DVR recordings. Also check your credit card promotions--if I recall correctly, my AmEx had $20 off Fubo for the first 3 billing periods. Finally, when I threatened to cancel Fubo after last baseball season ended (I don't watch the Bruins very much), they gave me another discounted month. You have to figure eventually NESN and other RSNs will be able to offer a direct to consumer product, but who knows what contractual knots they'll need to untie to do that.
 

tims4wins

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Why not switch to Fubo? Yes, you pay a bit more and don't get TNT or TBS (a problem for NBA playoffs if that's your thing). YouTube decided the RSNs were not worth carrying, even with a surcharge option. You can put your YTTV account on suspense for up to 6 months if you want to keep your history there, I think including your DVR recordings. Also check your credit card promotions--if I recall correctly, my AmEx had $20 off Fubo for the first 3 billing periods. Finally, when I threatened to cancel Fubo after last baseball season ended (I don't watch the Bruins very much), Fubo gave me another discounted month. You have to figure eventually NESN and other RSNs will be able to offer a direct to consumer product, but who knows what contractual knots they'll need to untie to do that.
Yeah I needed TBS and TNT for the NCAA tourney, unsure what channels the Celts will be on in the playoffs. Bottom line is that it's sad that there is so good solution other than returning to cable, which I'm not doing.
 

BaseballJones

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Yeah I needed TBS and TNT for the NCAA tourney, unsure what channels the Celts will be on in the playoffs. Bottom line is that it's sad that there is so good solution other than returning to cable, which I'm not doing.
Same here. I like YouTubeTV for a lot of reasons and don’t want to deal with switching. The whole thing is just a giant PITA.
 

Max Power

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Yeah I needed TBS and TNT for the NCAA tourney, unsure what channels the Celts will be on in the playoffs. Bottom line is that it's sad that there is so good solution other than returning to cable, which I'm not doing.
Why not? I don't understand going through all these hoops and frustrations just to save like $30 a month. I get way more entertainment value from a month of baseball games than that.

I'm interested to see what the 4k feed looks like. Back in the very beginnings of HD, NESN always had the best looking picture of anyone. They seem to hire people who know what they're doing.

The only drawback I've seen with Comcast's 4k feeds is that they tend to be 30 seconds behind the regular HD channel. So phone notifications and gamethreads can spoil things.
 

BaseballJones

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How much money could NESN make if they just had their own streaming service? I wouldn't want to pay $70 a month for FuboTV just to get NESN, because I like what I currently have. But I'd happily pay an extra $20 a month just for a stand alone NESN stream. I bet I'm not alone.
 

Doc Zero

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I mean no chance the NESN app will have it in 4K right?
Yeah, this app is brutal. I spent all of last season using it and very early on it became clear that the feed was just naturally going to dip into weird, pixelated goop every 45 seconds.
 

Hendu for Kutch

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Why not switch to Fubo? Yes, you pay a bit more and don't get TNT or TBS (a problem for NBA playoffs if that's your thing). YouTube decided the RSNs were not worth carrying, even with a surcharge option. You can put your YTTV account on suspense for up to 6 months if you want to keep your history there, I think including your DVR recordings. Also check your credit card promotions--if I recall correctly, my AmEx had $20 off Fubo for the first 3 billing periods. Finally, when I threatened to cancel Fubo after last baseball season ended (I don't watch the Bruins very much), they gave me another discounted month. You have to figure eventually NESN and other RSNs will be able to offer a direct to consumer product, but who knows what contractual knots they'll need to untie to do that.
To further this, I have a few Chase cards and almost every single month one of them has a $20 off promo. So I pay $45/month most months. Fubo does have some 4K streaming options, hopefully NESN will be one of them.
 

jayhoz

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How much money could NESN make if they just had their own streaming service? I wouldn't want to pay $70 a month for FuboTV just to get NESN, because I like what I currently have. But I'd happily pay an extra $20 a month just for a stand alone NESN stream. I bet I'm not alone.
I don't think many people are going to pay $20 per month to just watch baseball games from one team. HBO MAX, Disney +, and Apple TV offer a full catalog of entertainment for less than $10 per month.
 

dynomite

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Why not? I don't understand going through all these hoops and frustrations just to save like $30 a month. I get way more entertainment value from a month of baseball games than that.
Personally I find YTTV to be a far superior service at less cost than cable in just about every way. Unlimited DVR, phone app is dynamite, love the interface. It's just about perfect... except for the lack of NESN.

My solution is to bum the NESN app and login from someone who does still subscribe to cable. It's definitely annoying but worth it. I will add the NESN app was garbage last season -- constant quality issues, logged out of account multiple times daily, etc. Fingers crossed it was improved in the offseason.
 

begranter

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I will add the NESN app was garbage last season -- constant quality issues, logged out of account multiple times daily, etc. Fingers crossed it was improved in the offseason.
Still garbage. Frankly unwatchable when I would try for the Bruins. Ended up that I stopped watching hockey all together. Looks like I will be watching more out of market than in market baseball games again this season.
 

SocrManiac

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This would have me ecstatic if I had access to it. NBC’s 4H HDR soccer broadcasts have been absolutely incredible. More than the resolution or color, it’s the frame rate. The ball doesn’t judder in flight and player movement is smoooooooth. There were a couple of occasions where the TV wouldn’t switch to HDR mode, likely a signal issue on their end, and the color would wash out. Other than that, it was a significant upgrade.

The Olympics were similarly gorgeous.

But! I don’t have access to NESN anymore, so sad violin noises all around.
 

Murderer's Crow

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I am not jealous. The difference between 1080p and 4k is fairly small even on my 120" screen with well-edited movie masters under ideal lighting conditions. It's not like going from DVD-quality SD to full HD. It'll be an incremental improvement in a few years when the kinks are ironed out, but not a huge change.
The difference between 4K HDR and 1080p is enormous, however. I’m also slightly unwilling to commit to a non-noticeable difference between 1080 and 4k but I think my opinion is skewed because anything I watch in 4K is also either on Dolby vision, hdr or reference quality material.

The real issue to me is that cable and fiber compress their signal so much that my regular sports watching is pretty awful on Fios. So when I’m watching 4k and they commit to it’s own channel without nearly as much compression, it’s crazy how much better the image looks. I’ve actually called Verizon to complain about how bad the regular image looks.
 

B H Kim

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The real issue to me is that cable and fiber compress their signal so much that my regular sports watching is pretty awful on Fios. So when I’m watching 4k and they commit to it’s own channel without nearly as much compression, it’s crazy how much better the image looks. I’ve actually called Verizon to complain about how bad the regular image looks.
4K streaming can be done well and provide a better picture than regular HD, but in my experience, the FIOS 4K channels are still pretty badly compressed. I watched a lot of the Winter Olympics on the FIOS 4K channel and it was virtually indistinguishable from the regular HD NBC channel.
 

tensux

New Member
Apr 1, 2022
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show or filmed and broadcast in 4k? the NFL was filming in 1080 then upscaling it to 4k. It looked terrible. The only sports i have seen actually filmed in 4k HDR are European soccer games and they look amazing.
 
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jtn46

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4K streaming can be done well and provide a better picture than regular HD, but in my experience, the FIOS 4K channels are still pretty badly compressed. I watched a lot of the Winter Olympics on the FIOS 4K channel and it was virtually indistinguishable from the regular HD NBC channel.
4K Olympics were upconverted 1080p HDR. NBC broadcasts in 1080i SDR.
 

fieldslikebuckner

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Take it FWIW, but Fenway on the Bruins forum at hfboards, who I believe does tv production for Bruins games, posted the other day that YouTube TV and NESN are close to an agreement.
 

jayhoz

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Just received an offer from Fubo to renew my account so that I can "Watch the Red Sox All Season Long". $55 off the first month.
 

h8mfy

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The difference between 4K HDR and 1080p is enormous, however. I’m also slightly unwilling to commit to a non-noticeable difference between 1080 and 4k but I think my opinion is skewed because anything I watch in 4K is also either on Dolby vision, hdr or reference quality material.

The real issue to me is that cable and fiber compress their signal so much that my regular sports watching is pretty awful on Fios. So when I’m watching 4k and they commit to it’s own channel without nearly as much compression, it’s crazy how much better the image looks. I’ve actually called Verizon to complain about how bad the regular image looks.
I worked for VZ FiOS before it launched, and they crowed about how they passed on the HD signals from the satellite without any compression. Because it was "fiber" it was in their minds unlimited, so they allocated the bandwidth liberally, to channels like WealthTV HD, despite my warnings that was not sustainable.
 

Murderer's Crow

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4K streaming can be done well and provide a better picture than regular HD, but in my experience, the FIOS 4K channels are still pretty badly compressed. I watched a lot of the Winter Olympics on the FIOS 4K channel and it was virtually indistinguishable from the regular HD NBC channel.
I think it can vary by your set top box. I’ve got those new one mini wireless systems and they are significantly worse in picture quality but also, my uncle who has the identical oled and same setup gets a great signal in Queens.
 

B H Kim

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I think it can vary by your set top box. I’ve got those new one mini wireless systems and they are significantly worse in picture quality but also, my uncle who has the identical oled and same setup gets a great signal in Queens.
I'm using a cable card in a TIVO, so I'm not sure if my 4K FIOS channels are actually 4K.
 

YTF

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I don't think many people are going to pay $20 per month to just watch baseball games from one team. HBO MAX, Disney +, and Apple TV offer a full catalog of entertainment for less than $10 per month.
I was just thinking the same thing. I would pay separate streaming, but $20 seems high when you can get MLB Extra innings for $130
 

Bosoxian

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Aug 17, 2021
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Take it FWIW, but Fenway on the Bruins forum at hfboards, who I believe does tv production for Bruins games, posted the other day that YouTube TV and NESN are close to an agreement.
I would think they need to get it going soon as people are making their Red Sox streaming decisions now
 

TDFenway

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Aug 21, 2016
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I don't think many people are going to pay $20 per month to just watch baseball games from one team. HBO MAX, Disney +, and Apple TV offer a full catalog of entertainment for less than $10 per month.
Hard to say

From 1984-2001, NESN used to be a $10 a month ( $24.73 today) add-on like HBO or $15 ($37.09) if bundled with the old SportsChannel.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/sports/2014/05/22/years-nesn-has-gone-from-nowhere-everywhere/ijxQgsdHlc3xKLZQaQdD8L/story.html

That reaction may be hard to fathom now in a world in which you can watch what you want when you want on the device of choice, but there was natural skepticism regarding cable television in general during NESN’s early days. That particularly applied to premium cable.

“When I got this job in ’95, first thing my dad said was, ‘Isn’t that 15 bucks a month?’ ’’ said Caron with an exaggerated growl. “ ‘I’ll see what I can do,’ I told him.

“He wasn’t much of a hockey fan. There were years where we subscribed to NESN in the summer and got rid of it in November. ‘You want the Bruins, you pay for it,’ he’d say. And he would wait until June to see if the Red Sox were going to be worth his investment.”

It all changed when NESN went to basic cable, completing the transition in July 2001 with the move to AT&T Broadband in Massachusetts and New Hampshire. It was something many around NESN believed for years to be necessary, particularly Nate Greenberg, the longtime Bruins public relations director and executive.

“We were late to that game, frankly,’’ McGrail said. “The old [Red Sox] ownership group wasn’t in love with that idea. They just didn’t understand it and hadn’t really embraced that as a transitional method for NESN to really expand our reach.

“It really allowed us to become a player in the marketplace. With half-a-million premiums, you’re not going to garner enough audience to support anything but the core telecasts.”


On average roughly 30% of people who had cable signed up.

I don't know anybody who had NESN that first year (1984) but the old Warner Cable north of Boston picked it up in 1985 and Cablevision in Boston proper finally added it in 1986.

Roger Clemens would provide the first unforgettable NESN moment, striking out 20 Seattle Mariners on April 29, 1986.

“I remember [Montgomery’s] call, and Ned Martin, who was still the voice at that time,’’ said Rose Mirakian, who was part of NESN’s crew that night. “It was such a special feeling to be a part of that, one of the first big moments.”

Mirakian, who began working at NESN as a receptionist in 1984 and is now the senior director of Bruins hockey, knows how things have changed — on the air and behind the scenes — as well as anyone. But it’s a subtle memory that helps her illustrate the evolution perfectly.

“I just remember these really bright blue graphics during the Clemens game,’’ she said. “Cyan was the color of choice that year.”

Back then, that was high-definition.


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WTM3YBzfxw
 

Scott Cooper's Grand Slam

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Take it FWIW, but Fenway on the Bruins forum at hfboards, who I believe does tv production for Bruins games, posted the other day that YouTube TV and NESN are close to an agreement.
Just received an offer from Fubo to renew my account so that I can "Watch the Red Sox All Season Long". $55 off the first month.
I would think they need to get it going soon as people are making their Red Sox streaming decisions now
My Youtube.TV account pauses in 8 days, at which point I'll switch to Fubo. I can't imagine that Youtube.TV will carry NESN this season, but if they do it needs to happen by April 7.
 

Jerry’s Curl

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I wall mounted my TV recently and went with a DIRECTV wireless Genie so I wouldn’t have any cords hanging. The installer said I would need a hard mounted connection that would require a handy man going up over the ceiling to run a line to get 4K at an additional cost. They only have like 4 channels in 4K so it wasn’t even worth it. Hopefully the wireless Genie will eventually support 4K.
 
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Doc Zero

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Just as an aside, I've had much better luck with the NESN app on my Roku Ultra this year. Namely, it doesn't turn into a wacky mess of mixed-up, pixelated garbage every 40-80 seconds. I'm definitely not pulling a 4K/HDR signal (unsurprisingly), but it's hugely improved over last year's iteration.
 

JBJ_HOF

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Sounds like DrecTV and Fios will have 4K NESN channels starting tomorrow, but Xfinity will not, brutal.
 

staz

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The cradle of the game.
The only drawback I've seen with Comcast's 4k feeds is that they tend to be 30 seconds behind the regular HD channel. So phone notifications and gamethreads can spoil things.
I'm trialing Fubo this week and went down the 'delay' rabbit hole. I was able to receive last night's Jays/MFY game via...

Delay
00:00 sec. FM radio with antenna (WTMM 104.5 Albany)
02:41sec. Spectrum Cable box (MLB Network)
08.90 sec. Apple TV (MLB.tv)
10.30 sec. Apple TV (Fubo)
10 sec. doesn't seem like a lot, but considering all the gamethreadding I do, it's annoying a.f.
 

TDFenway

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Aug 21, 2016
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NESN and Xfinity are in a bitter dispute on a new contract and the reality is NESN could vanish entirely from Xfinity if it is not resolved.

Xfinity wants to pay less a month and NESN wants an increase.

If Fubo offers Red Sox and Bruins in 4K I will finally cut the cord.
 

soxhop411

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Here is the press release



BOSTON — NESN announced that all home Red Sox games will be broadcast in native UHD/HDR (“4K/HDR”) format beginning Tuesday for viewers on DIRECTV and Verizon Fios and coming soon for fuboTV customers. The 4K/HDR schedule will feature all home game matchups for the remainder of the 2022 season. These games mark the first time that an RSN is broadcasting MLB games in native 4K/HDR.

“We are proud of our history of innovation and excited to be the first RSN in the country to produce home games in native 4K/HDR,” NESN President and CEO Sean McGrail said. “With the introduction of 4K/HDR, Red Sox fans will be able to experience the game in stunning clarity and color and have an unprecedented view of the action.”

“We’ve been planning for this achievement for several years,” NESN VP of Engineering Kenny Elcock said. “This is no small feat, but rather a technical marvel. It’s been fantastic working with Game Creek Video, Imagine Communications, Lumen, Programming Production, Inc. (PPI) and The Switch.”

NESN has a history of leading the cable programming industry in adopting new innovations. The network was the first regional sports network to fully automate studio production in 2015 and the first to deliver all professional MLB and NHL games in HD.

Recently, NESN moved all satellite transmission to fiber and IP transmission in order to better position the network for 4K capabilities. In addition, NESN upgraded and completely renovated its state-of-the-art pre and postgame studio, Salem Five Studio, to be fully 4K/HDR compatible.
https://nesn.com/2022/05/nesn-to-televise-red-sox-home-games-in-native-4k-hdr/
 

TDFenway

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Aug 21, 2016
53
Waiting for this on Xfinity, seems like a lost cause.
Back in April, I corresponded with Kevin Casey who pretty much runs the Xfinity Northeast Division

He replied


Casey, Kevin M
Apr 18, 2022, 9:37 AM Reply
to me

The games will be on the NESN app in 4k so you can find them using your Comcast credentials once they put them on.

https://corporate.comcast.com/news-information/leadership-overview/kevin-m-casey

Sent: Friday, April 15, 2022 4:47 PM
To: Casey, Kevin M
Subject: [EXTERNAL] NESN 4K????

Hi Kevin

I am a little disappointed that FIOS is now showing Bruins and Red Sox in 4K but not Xfinity.

For the money you charge for the 'Regional Sports Fee' every month this is an unconscionable move by Comcast. Of course, I have to assume NESN wants to charge more for the service.

So what is the real scoop?


Based on that I don't expect to see it this season.
 

Senator Donut

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Back in April, I corresponded with Kevin Casey who pretty much runs the Xfinity Northeast Division

He replied


Casey, Kevin M
Apr 18, 2022, 9:37 AM Reply
to me

The games will be on the NESN app in 4k so you can find them using your Comcast credentials once they put them on.

https://corporate.comcast.com/news-information/leadership-overview/kevin-m-casey

Sent: Friday, April 15, 2022 4:47 PM
To: Casey, Kevin M
Subject: [EXTERNAL] NESN 4K????

Hi Kevin

I am a little disappointed that FIOS is now showing Bruins and Red Sox in 4K but not Xfinity.

For the money you charge for the 'Regional Sports Fee' every month this is an unconscionable move by Comcast. Of course, I have to assume NESN wants to charge more for the service.

So what is the real scoop?


Based on that I don't expect to see it this season.
If the games were on the NESN app in 4k, that would be amazing. However, if that were correct, I'm sure we would have found that out in the press release.