FOX Sports Ushers in HD Era

FOX Sports sprang to life on Sept. 4, 1994 , when the NFL on FOX premiered with doubleheader coverage of six games. Almost 10 years to the day later, Sept. 12, 2004 , FOX Sports HD was born, with the network nearly doubling the nation's HD event production capacity by successfully broadcasting six games in razor sharp 720p high-definition, accompanied by crystal clear Dolby 5.1 audio. It is the first time in history that six NFL games were televised in HD by one network on a single day, a practice that FOX Sports is continuing each week through the regular season and beyond.

In addition to the 97 regular-season NFL games FOX Sports is scheduled to broadcast this year, the network continues to roll-out its full-throttle commitment to HD over the next several months. This fall, FOX Sports' exclusive coverage of Major League Baseball's League Championship Series and World Series, also for the first time ever, will be presented in HD, as will FOX Sports' NFC playoff coverage, which includes the NFC Championship Game and Super Bowl XXXIX, followed closely by the Daytona 500 and the entire 2005 NASCAR on FOX Nextel Cup race schedule.

"FOX Sports is the first sports division to dive into HD in a big, big way, as opposed to just dipping our toe into the pool," FOX Sports Chairman David Hill. "Prior network efforts mostly fall into the experimentation category. We're the first network to turn the corner and make HD and Dolby 5.1 the rule, as opposed to a stunt or an exception. We're ushering in a new era in sports broadcasting, and for us there's no turning back."

Leading the team responsible for turning HD from concept to reality is Andrew G. Setos, President, Engineering, FOX Group, who is surrounded by many of the brightest, most creative engineering minds in the industry, including Richard Friedel, Executive Vice President & General Manager, Fox Networks Engineering & Operations; Paul Beeman, Senior Vice President, Broadband and Satellite Transmissions, Fox NE & O; Andrea Berry, Senior Vice President, Broadcast & Field Operations, Fox NE & O; and Jim DeFilippis, Senior Vice President, Television Engineering, FOX Technology Group . While FOX' initial planning for its eventual transition to HD began in 1998, it is the intense work of these executives over the last nine months, with Thomson Multimedia and a variety of other equipment vendors , service providers, engineers and technicians, that has achieved what had never before been done.

Added Hill: "The work by Mr. Setos, his colleagues, their staffs and our vendors is nothing short of Herculean, and we're fortunate to have such intelligent, creative and dedicated executives. I'm not shy to say that what they began on Sept. 12 is nothing short of historic, in terms of the future of sports television broadcasting."

"720p high definition pictures and Dolby 5.1 audio provides our viewers with the best television experience possible," said Setos. " The technology we've deployed and the operational approach that we've taken gives the analog SD and digital HD viewer top-quality production values , which was a benchmark we could not fall short of. Neither viewer is being short-changed as with other HD broadcasts using the ' side-by-side' production technique, and this total HD approach ensures that our advertising clients can be assured that each and every viewer is seeing the same message ."

Additional milestones:

• On Sept. 12, six new HD digital mobile production units at NFL game sites generated six simultaneous HD production streams.

• FOX is the first U.S. broadcast network to convert its center of broadcast operations , the FOX Network Center , to all-HD. It is at the Network Center that the SD analog broadcast is extracted from the HD production.

• FOX has built the highest- efficiency commercial digital capacity satellite distribution system to carry the HD and SD streams to its 184 affiliates in all 50 states.

• FOX used the largest ever fiber optic network specifically designed for HD transmission to bring the six games into the FOX Network Center in Los Angeles .

• FOX has introduced the first ever HD MPEG splicer which contributes to the quality and efficiency of its HD broadcasts while enabling its affiliates to layer and switch local content into the network feed.

-- FOX Sports --