TV Answer Man, what will be the ESPN 4K game of the week this week? I love ESPN’s native 4K productions. Perfection. — Oliver, Big Spring, Texas.
Oliver, ESPN this Saturday (September 17) will broadcast the Michigan State-Washington college football game in ‘native 4K’ on participating pay TV services. The game will begin Saturday at 7:30 p.m. ET from Husky Stadium in Seattle and it will be simulcast in high-def on ABC.
The sports network does one game per week in native 4K during the college football season. If you’re not familiar with the term, native 4K means that the game is produced in 4K on site as well as transmitted to the home in 4K. (In contrast, Fox produces a live sporting event in 1080p HD on site and then upscales it to 4K HDR for the home transmission. ESPN’s 4K games do not include HDR, also known as High Dynamic Range.)
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The ESPN 4K broadcast will be available on special 4K channels from select pay TV providers, including DIRECTV, Verizon, Comcast and YouTube TV. (Unlike Fox, ESPN does not provide a 4K stream on its app, ESPN+.)
Mark Jones, Robert Griffin III and Quint Kessenich will handle the call for the ABC/ESPN broadcast. ESPN’s ‘Matchup Predictor’ says the 11th ranked Michigan State Spartans, who are 2-0, is a 53.4 percent favorite to beat the Washington Huskies, also 2-0.
In other 4K college football news, the Fox Sports app this Saturday will stream another college football doubleheader in 4K HDR. See this story for details.
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Have a question about new TV technologies? Send it to The TV Answer Man at swann@tvanswerman.com Please include your first name and hometown in your message.
— Phillip Swann
@tvanswerman
I have watched both Fox in HDR upscale and ESPN native 4k football game. ESPN native by far the best quality to me. Great colors and it just seems like there has been no alterations to the video like Fox upscale. Watching with Xfinity on a Sony A80H oled 55” so comes in perfect 👍🏻 Wish ESPN would do more games like this