EuroVision Song Contest 2025 - UPLINKs

[Spc..]

Example:
Croatia has resolution of 1920x820 when they apply black bars on top and bottom.

Because image is still interlaced with odd and even lines this means 820/2 = 410

So effective resolution for croatia is 1920x410, almost SD quality.
1920x410 x 25 fps.

 

[Spc..]

No allocation DRAW for 1st semi finalists today ?
No press conference ??

7°E = down
10°E = down
100.5°E = down
13°E = up, TOC BARS with CEST clock.

That's wierd.

 

[Old Satterhand]

Be aware that uplinks could use H265/HEVC for this kind of 1080 interlaced signals.
As HEVC does not allow interlaced signals, the signal is split up in 2 progressive frames of half the vertical size.
But these frames still contain the original interlaced fields.
After correct reconstruction, the signal contains the original interlaced frame, its a 100% match.

If you receive such pictures, it could explain the reduced vertical resolution and judder.

Footage recorded with 25 fps frame rate is called Progressive Segmented Frame.
It is 25p in an interlaced "jacket". No (vertical) resolution is lost!!
All 24/25 fps movie broadcasts are 25 PSF. We do so since the beginning of television.

(I'm a retired television engineer and have worked 45 years with broadcast video)

 

[mapperuo]

Certainly something odd with the pictures, watching Semi 2 rehearsal just now, first two acts have been full frame no black bars but they are all very soft.

 

[Defile5506]

Be aware that uplinks could use H265/HEVC for this kind of 1080 interlaced signals.
As HEVC does not allow interlaced signals, the signal is split up in 2 progressive frames of half the vertical size.
But these frames still contain the original interlaced fields.
After correct reconstruction, the signal contains the original interlaced frame, its a 100% match.

If you receive such pictures, it could explain the reduced vertical resolution and judder.

Footage recorded with 25 fps frame rate is called Progressive Segmented Frame.
It is 25p in an interlaced "jacket". No (vertical) resolution is lost!!
All 24/25 fps movie broadcasts are 25 PSF. We do so since the beginning of television.

(I'm a retired television engineer and have worked 45 years with broadcast video)

This year is definitely some weird mixture of 25psf (postcards and other pre-renders, like GFX), 25i (performances themselves) and 50i (audience/hosts/stage shots), last year it was just 25psf for everything but GFX (hence why slates mentioned 1080i25), GFX were 50i, 2023 and everything before was 50i for everything but postcards & prerenders). Seems like this is either an artistic choice or effect of moving from CuePilot to LiveEdits (liveedit.app), that is also why the majority of performances are filmed in 2.35:1 aspect ratio rather than normal 1:78, official YouTube ESC clips and various broadcasters' uploads on VODs/any platforms also only feature 25p shots no matter what, there's certainly no blame to be put on H265 compression

 

[Defile5506]

Certainly something odd with the pictures, watching Semi 2 rehearsal just now, first two acts have been full frame no black bars but they are all very soft.

Estonia, Spain, Ukraine, Italy, San Marino, Switzerland and Cyprus looked the same yesterday unfortunately

 

[Spc..]

It is 25p in an interlaced "jacket". No (vertical) resolution is lost!!

Well if i set my renderer to display whole image and doesn't deinterlace, i should be able to see full resolution, not odd and even lines.

This time ESC are just setting vertical resolution to half so it is really bad.

Full resolution at 25p is only present when they show postcards.

All 24/25 fps movie broadcasts are 25 PSF. We do so since the beginning of television.

Yes and full resolution is only present when postcard is shown, performances are all blocky with resolution halfed at 25p

So it's more like 1920x400x25i as they're also giving us upper and lower black lines.


Footage shot with alexa 65, if you look at film at 25psf resolution is amazing at 1920x1080 and it does not show odd or even lines.
Example: Marvel Avengers: Endgame

Even at 1920x1080 you get full progressive scan with avengers, full resolution 25psf, not like esc 2025 where you get odd and even lines even on progressive footage.

Look how blocky this 25 "progressive" footage is:



When they switch to 50i , 50fps image is super smooth, no blocky pixels are visible:


Full progressive scan 25p:


1pixel is 1 pixel, full resolution at 1920x1080.

 

[Old Satterhand]

@Spc.. thanks you for your explanation, it is clear to me what happens.

Yes TV producers use "dramatic" 25p effects all the time in documentary's and interviews.
They like it because it reminds them of the old days when all outside broadcast was shot on film.
It's even hard to find real 50Hz Interlaced video content nowadays.

I think you call this 25i compared to 50i, that's o.k. to me, but I prefer 25psf.
The EBU published a document years ago how to write it down, but nobody uses it.

Technically spoken 25i/25psf and 50i uses the same Tv frame, only the content differs.
If you analyse the content of a 50i signal field by field, you will find that every field is shifted by 20 ms in time.
A 25psf signal has a 40 ms timeshift for each frame, but the segmented fields 1 and 2 show no delay compared to each other.
Because, as you all know, field 1 & 2 contains the complete frame, no resolution is lost and no complex de-interlacing is necessary.

But in a life TV show, where the production standard is 1080i/50Hz the 25psf signal is obtained by routing a 50i signal through a frame buffer. Because this frame buffer doubles the first field to prevent inter-field jitter, the vertical resolution is halved.
So why don't they use a full frame buffer I hear you ask.
Well, for proper de-interlacing a 50i camera picture, some frames delay is needed, and there is no time for that.
Especially for a music event like ESC.

 

[Spc..]

@Spc.. thanks you for your explanation, it is clear to me what happens.

Yes TV producers use "dramatic" 25p effects all the time in documentary's and interviews.
They like it because it reminds them of the old days when all outside broadcast was shot on film.
It's even hard to find real 50Hz Interlaced video content nowadays.

I think you call this 25i compared to 50i, that's o.k. to me, but I prefer 25psf.
The EBU published a document years ago how to write it down, but nobody uses it.

Technically spoken 25i/25psf and 50i uses the same Tv frame, only the content differs.
If you analyse the content of a 50i signal field by field, you will find that every field is shifted by 20 ms in time.
A 25psf signal has a 40 ms timeshift for each frame, but the segmented fields 1 and 2 show no delay compared to each other.
Because, as you all know, field 1 & 2 contains the complete frame, no resolution is lost and no complex de-interlacing is necessary.

But in a life TV show, where the production standard is 1080i/50Hz the 25psf signal is obtained by routing a 50i signal through a frame buffer. Because this frame buffer doubles the first field to prevent inter-field jitter, the vertical resolution is halved.
So why don't they use a full frame buffer I hear you ask.
Well, for proper de-interlacing a 50i camera picture, some frames delay is needed, and there is no time for that.
Especially for a music event like ESC.

Exactly, that's why whole show should be:
- Recorded live at 25 fps FULL progressive scan.
- Recorded live at 50fps interlaced.

Not this what we have this year.

 

[Old Satterhand]

Exactly, that's why whole show should be:
- Recorded live at 25 fps FULL progressive scan.
- Recorded live at 50fps interlaced.

Not this what we have this year.

But that would limit the producers creativity to mix 25p/50p wouldn't it?

In the first place, 25p is not supported in HD television production, it is used only for Blu-ray production. These are two different worlds. The only correct way of producing live combined 25p and 50p content is by the use of EBU's UHD TV standard.
This is a broadcast standard that allows 1080p50 production.
But all on site OB facilities must support it. My guess is that SRG/SSR does not have such facilities.

 

[mapperuo]

But that would limit the producers creativity to mix 25p/50p wouldn't it?

In the first place, 25p is not supported in HD television production, it is used only for Blu-ray production. These are two different worlds. The only correct way of producing live combined 25p and 50p content is by the use of EBU's UHD TV standard.
This is a broadcast standard that allows 1080p50 production.
But all on site OB facilities must support it. My guess is that SRG/SSR does not have such facilities.

The OB trucks for Eurovision have been UHD for years this purely has to be a creative decision and I’d love to sit down with them and listen to the reasoning

 

[Spc..]

The OB trucks for Eurovision have been UHD for years this purely has to be a creative decision and I’d love to sit down with them and listen to the reasoning

Reasoning is that they can sell you DVD in SD format.

 

[Old Satterhand]

I watched a few songs but I must say it looks normal to me, apart from the 25p during the performances.
The lights in the background form a perfect test-card to reveal vertical resolution problems, especially in wide-shot.
But no stepping is visible, it looks perfect here.

This is a frame from a 1080p50 capture of the HDMI output of my receiver.

 

[Spc..]

I watched a few songs but I must say it looks normal to me, apart from the 25p during the performances.
The lights in the background form a perfect test-card to reveal vertical resolution problems, especially in wide-shot.
But no stepping is visible, it looks perfect here.

This is a frame from a 1080p50 capture of the HDMI output of my receiver.
View attachment 162649

It's also not satellite source but re-compressed on few encoders after satellite source, so it is more soft because of compression.

 

[Channel Hopper]

The OB trucks for Eurovision have been UHD for years this purely has to be a creative decision and I’d love to sit down with them and listen to the reasoning

I would suspect there are a few individuals that won't be brought back for next year's fiasco.

 

[Old Satterhand]

It's also not satellite source but re-compressed on few encoders after satellite source, so it is more soft because of compression.

Excuses, forgot to mention, my screenshot is not from satellite but from cable.
It's quality is quite good actually, a.f.a.i.k. the signal path is:
Eurovision fiber -> HDSDI over fiber -> Ziggo encoder H264 11,6 Mbit average.

The softness of the wide-shot is also a creative decision, it's normally done by a filter in the camera filter wheel.
It gives us that nice glow around the highlights.

 

[Spc..]

VOTING UPLINKS:
7°E

AZERBAIJAN: 10982MHz | Horizontal | 4397
MALTA: 10998MHz | Horizontal | 4397
SAN MARINO: 11018MHz | Horziontal | 4937



More votings:

 

[Spc..]

Slovenia: 11000MHz






Netherlands 10994MHz

 

[Spc..]

 

[Spc..]

1st wave

AZER = 10982
MALTA = 10988
NETHERLANDS = 10994
SIRTVS = 11000
ARMENIA = 11006
LUXEMBURG = 11012
SAN MARINO = ITA72ENC2 = 11018
AZER = 11096 = DUPLICATE of 10982
UKRAINE = 11102

---**FIBER**--

2nd wave

CROATIA = ??
LATVIA = ??
IRELAND = ??
POLAND = ??
MONENTGR = ??
GREECE = ??
RTS SRB = ??
CZEH = ??

---**FIBER**--

3rd wave

Albania = ??
Lithuania = ??
ICELAND = ??
GEORGA TBL = ??
CYPRUS CYCB = ??
ESTONIA = ??