HDTV Forum

From CTV website ...

Live Earth: The Concerts for a Climate in Crisis will be CTV's most ambitious television project ever.

In an effort to galvanize people from across Canada to "answer the call" about the global climate crisis, the broadcast will be a marathon, 29-hour broadcast on CTV.

In what will be the world's largest High Definition concert broadcast of all time, CTV's coverage will be the longest, single program ever broadcast by the network. Live coverage begins in less than 7 hours, when the first artist takes the stage in Sydney, Australia, and continues until 11 pm ET/8 pm PT on Saturday, July 7, when the historic event concludes at Giants Stadium in New Jersey.

Watch all of the Live Earth events on CTV Television, MuchMusic, MuchMoreMusic, MuchVIBE, Bravo! and Star! beginning TONIGHT at 9 pm ET/6 pm PT.

Huge KUDOS to CTV for making this concert available in HDTV ... LIVE for all 24 hours! From watching the Concert for Diana I am confident about the HD quality from Wembley Stadium. It should also be good from New York and Japan. How the other cities will do time will tell. Enjoy the concert and help SAVE the WORLD ... no super heroes required!

The concert will be available in Canada on Star Choice, Bell ExpressVu, Shaw Cable (in the West) and Rogers Cable (in the East).

http://www.ctv.ca/mini/liveearth2007/

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/s ... /20070604/

Over all I have to say CTV HD did a fairly good job covering LIVE EARTH. They were on live for 28 straight hours ... at least CTV West was. CTV East went to a highlight version at 5pm PDT/8pm EDT. CTV West (available in BC & Alberta and on Bell ExpressVu) continued live to the very end of the New York concert.

The Good ...

1. PQ was excellent from Australia, London, Hamburg and New York, Video from Rio, Johannesburg, Washington was widescreen, but almost acceptable. Because I did not watch all 28 hours I did not see the other 2 venues.
2. There was a good balance of music and message spots which very little advertising.
3. The only major/regular network in North America to cover the entire concert live. NBC only gave 2 highlight hours.A big thank you to CTV!

The Bad ...

1. At times they did too much switching between venues, sometime right in the middle of a performance. However, they did stay with the main artists from start to finish.
2. Prologic sound. Unfortunately there was no DD5.1. The sound quality varied between venues. New York was actually quite good ... I turned the volume way up for the Police!

Good or Bad? ...

Whether you are for or against any censorship during these live concerts, CTV HD chose to air the entire concert unedited. That is to say they did not bleep one swear word (there were some Aussies who seemed to like the F word!). CTV instead posted a viewer warning at each break that this is a live performance and as such some of the language may not be suitable for all viewers.

Canada has always had a different standard to the US when it comes to language and nudity. The whole Superbowl flap was a big laugh up here in Canada. You will hear swearing on Canadian television. And I have seen nudity on some CBC programs. The attiitude is ... if you don't like it, don't watch it ... you have been warned.

The Concert ... the highlights for me were ...

1. Madonna in London ... she had the whole stadium shaking
2. Roger Waters had Giants Stadium shaking
3. The Police were amazing and a very fitting closing act. They gave us 25 minutes of great music, joined by John Mayer and Kanye West for the finale.

As for those who complain about the message "being shoved down their throats". The whole purpose of the concert was to educate people about a serious problem. To those I say ... don't watch it if that some how offends you, but if you do, don't complain about the messager ... those artists gave up their time to be there for something they strongly believe in. Don't insult them.

Although I live in the US, I watched Bravo [Canada's] coverage of
Live Earth which was exclusively from Hamburg, Germany. Bravo [US]
was almost un-watchable, with commercials every 5 minutes. Kudos to
Bravo, Canada, for showing hours of programming in German with hardly
a commercial interruption. They also had the most complete coverage
of Enrique Iglesias' set of any network.