Winter Olympics 2018

ARD / ZDF have a long history of being joint rights holders and alternating coverage between them on a day by day basis. ARD broadcasts coverage one day, ZDF the next, ARD the day after and so on. They work that way at Olympics, World Cups etc. I believe it dates back to when they were the only two channels in Germany (they didn't get private commercial television until the 1980s) to ensure that there was always a choice for viewers who didn't want to watch the major sporting event. This deal continues that pattern.


It also shows just how good a deal the BBC got.

In Germany, Discovery will also be showing Olympic coverage on TLC of all places.
https://www.eurosport.de/olympia/pyeongchang/2018/olympia-live-im-tv-und-im-livestream-bei-eurosport_sto6047150/story.shtml

EDIT: Eurosport 1 HD will be FTA on German DVB-T2 for the duration of the Games. In Germany SD is free-to-air, but DVB-T2 is an HD-only platform where commercial channels are encrypted.

Spain's DMAX is showing it too - https://www.vanitatis.elconfidencial.com/television/2017-12-19/dmax-emitira-juegos-olimpicos-invierno-pyeongchang_1495435/



Time for some studio photos

Canada's CBC
- http://www.cbc.ca/mediacentre/program/olympic-winter-games-pyeongchang-2018


http://www.cbc.ca/mediacentre/content/images/_largesrc/Set2.jpg

It's like a..... What's it like?


And the American NBC studio is a "state-of-the-art 3,500-square-foot geodesic dome", for no reason other than they can.


http://www.newscaststudio.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/ncs_nbc-winter-olympics-studio_0005.jpg

Also a Canadian trailer:




(Posted on GamesBids.com forum)

Indeed -- and it wasn't just the Olympics back then. This is what Timothy Green wrote in his 1972 book The Universal Eye: World Television in the Seventies:

"At the Olympics, ARD covers one day's events live, while ZDF has summaries later; next day it is ZDF's turn for the live broadcasts."

"Apollo moon-shots have been covered alternately; ARD did all the live televising on Apollo 12, ZDF took Apollo 13, ARD Apollo 14. When Apollo 13 ran into difficulties on the way to the moon and made its dramatic return to earth ZDF had the splashdown exclusively, although ARD were permitted to show it later on the regular news. That crisis caused some hair-tearing across Germany as ARD program directors argued unsuccessfully with their coordinating office in Munich that they, too, should carry the splashdown live and to hell with contrast programs for viewers. Normally, it is accepted that in the best interests of the viewer he should have an alternative."

Not overly keen on the CBC set, but the CBC Olympic theme is one of the best around.

Not quite the case. There are 960x540/50p 'SD' (i.e. quarter 1920x1080/50p HD) channels on DVB-T2 (QVC for instance). Germany decided against allowing 720x576/50i on their T2 platform, but had to accommodate an SD-equivalent resolution - which is 540p.

http://digitalbitrate.com/dtv.php?liste=1&live=18&lang=en&mux=FREENET-TV-3 shows QVC, HSE24 and Bibel TV are all 'SD')

However I think the switchover means all T is being shutdown, and all broadcasts will be T2. As a result all the SD FTA / HD Pay-TV stations end up being pay-TV only on terrestrial once the SD version on the T muxes have gone.

if you look at digitalbitrate.com for Munich you can see all but one mux is now T2. The services that don't have listed resolutions are encrypted.

The announced that "The interactive Eurosport Player will be the only place fans can watch every minute, every athlete and every sport... ". https://www.broadbandtvnews.com/2017/11/20/key-olympics-role-for-premium-eurosport-player/
So I'd say yes they will put the OBS feeds on the Eurosport player, as they are not going to do coverage for every single event. But I'm also surprised that they don't seem to utilise the Eurosport 360 Red Button service they have on soem pay-TV services in Europe (like Sky in Germany and Canalsat in France).



That, and in the UK they had to sell the 2022 and 2024 rights to a terestrial channel because of the Ofcom Crown Jewel rules, anyway.

Germany's Crown Jewel rules on the other hand only say that the channel broadcasting has to be available to two thirds of all households, which Eurosport 1, DMAX and TLC easily manage (all three are FTA on satellite and cable, which already gives them 85% availability).
So they acually could have done it exclusivly and even anounced coverage plans back in 2016 for them broadcating it alone, without ARD/ZDF (which also incorperated DMAX as a third channel). https://twitter.com/Eurosport_DE/status/864424951805358082/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.eurosport.de%2Folympia%2Folympia-bei-eurosport-die-umfangreichste-berichterstattung-aller-zeiten_sto6168122%2Fstory.shtml

I personally think Germany actually profits from Eurosport having some exclusice rights, as the ARD/ZDF coverage has acutally gone more NBC-like in the last years sadly, with tons of human interest stories, tape delay, to much studio chit-chat and simply far too little actual live sport (if you for example compare it to the BBC coverage). I just hope Discovery won't overdo it with the commercials and will do coverage as great as the one they did in 2012 (where they had the rights for the las time here and actually won the German TV Awards for the best sports coverage of the year).
Also pressure from the VPRT (the lobby organisation of the German commercial channels) forced ARD/ZDF to move the extra coverage, which happens outside the main channels, to online only since 2012. And even there it was limited to 6 streams tops.
Now you have 2 chanels (sometimes 3) broadcasting on regular TV and for every body who want'S more there is Eurosport PLayer which only costs 7€ for a month.

Just wish Eurosport player was 50Hz not 25Hz - or is it 50Hz in Germany. Once you've seen 50Hz iPlayer and BBC Sport online streams - the 25Hz judderfest that is Eurosport on Amazon is unwatchable...

And not actually widely available - even for viewers with Eurosport via Sky or Cable with just two Eurosport broadcast channels and two from the BBC it's the least TV coverage in a couple of decades, and they don't seem to be pushing the fact they have the games at all. I guess though it's always been about the resale rights - the BBC have basically paid for the UK rights and Eurosport's coverage comes out of the profit. As such still convinced the IOC would have made as much money selling directly to the PSBs, and then optionally to the pay-TV market as well.

They have 50fps on AppleTV and the Windows 10 App, but not via Amazon Channels, apparently.

All the encrypted channels including Eurosport 1 are HD and form part of the perhaps misleadingly named "freenet TV".

What they call qHD channels are carried by freenet (Media Broadcast), but aren't part of the freenet subscription package. As you can see from this press release, they get still marketed under the HD umbrella, https://www.infosat.de/digital-tv/dvb-t2-hd-zwei-privatsender-neu-im-portfolio , with some outlets acknowledging they're not Full HD but qHD in their reporting. You will note from Digital Bitrate that the channels have HD in their name.

PSB channels market themselves entirely under the original "DVB-T2 HD" brand, which predates freenet TV, with the green DVB-T2 HD logo.

German DTT:
PSB: free HD;
commercial: pay HD; shopping/religious/local: free, at least qHD.

Legacy DVB-T (closing down region-by-region) are PSB SD free only. Commercial SD was only available in some areas; typically areas that were the first to convert to T2. Separate arrangements apply to local TV multiplexes.
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A number of cable operators in Germany have announced they are making Eurosport 1 HD free to basic tier subscribers or for those who get cable TV as part of the rental costs for the duration of the games. So that it seems satellite viewers are the only ones who won't have free access to Eurosport 1 HD for the Winter Olympics, where an HD+ card is required. Still they have free SD.

Anyone describing 960x540 as 'HD' is being deceptive...

They aren't 1080/50p (as now used on DVB-T2 for HD services in Germany), they aren't 1080/50i, they aren't 720/50p (as used on DSat for many German HD services).

960x540/50p is an SD-equivalent format - designed to remove the requirement to handle interlaced 576i, and also to avoid the use of non-square pixels. 540p is also a format that allows a nice downconversion from 1080i/p.

Even the 'HD Ready' licensing requires a minimum of 720 display lines to describe a display as 'HD'...

I think anyone stating that DVB-T2 in Germany is 'all HD' when it has 540p services is being a bit disingenuous...