directv/dn/analog different from HD broadcast

[lumis]

i was watching the colts/jaguars last week at a friends house on his HDTV, we were watching it in HD with his OTA antenna.. i walked to another room to get a soda, in that other room he had a directv reciever (SD) tuned to the same channel.. oddly, there was a different game on, the browns/bengals game was on.. i found this pretty odd.. so when i went back to the living room with the HDTV, the colts/jaguars game was still on.. so we changed channels to the analog channel (of the same network), they were showing the browns/bengals game.. so i called a friend who has dish network, they were showing the browns/bengals game too.. it was late in the game, and the colts had taken control.. so i figued maybe the network had switched games.. but it made me wonder why they didnt switch it for the HD feed too.. after a while they switched the HD feed to the browns/bengals game, but it wasnt in HD..

so basically it was;

directv: browns/bengals
dishnet: browns/bengals
analog: browns/bengals
OTA HD: colts/jaguars

i would have thought all 4 would be showing the same thing at the same time..

[edDV]

Each TV station gets multiple regional feeds from the various networks. The one they show is determined by their contract with the League. Many home games get blacked out etc.

Sometimes they have a choice and show the game that is of interest to their local market. Since the analog channel and the DTV channel operate in parallel they can air different games on the two channels. Dish and DirecTV would be just repeating the analog channel.

Weirdest one I saw was a baseball game covered by one of the networks, ESPN and InHD all with separate announcers and different camera switching. Adding to the fun was different time delays from each.

[lumis]

i've actually seen your 3-in-1 thing before.. it's been quite a few years.. but it was FSN, WGN, & ESPN.. i think my cable company forgot to blackout espn..

one thing i do find weird about dish is that they blackout FSN sometimes when an out-of-market game is playing.. but the game is broadcast on cable without a hitch.. i guess the dish guys are a bit more advanced at what they can black out that the crappy cable provider (charter).