Can anyone see the yellow ball on red clay on TV?

I'm watching the matches from the Masters Monte Carlo and I can't see the ball at all because the yellow ball just blends in with the orange colored court. All I see are two guys swinging their arms and hearing the thud of the ball when it hits their racquets but I can't see where the ball is going. I have the same problem with all the European red clay tournaments, not just this one. Very frustrating.

Who else thinks they should change the color of the ball to purple or a dark blue or maybe even black so they it contrasts the color of the orange colored clay on TV much better?

 

Hmm, I can still see it although it's rather awkward.

 

I can see the yellow ball here, I get Eurosport and maybe their quality is better.

Anyhow they make tennis balls in many colors, being yellowish green the official which i think is quite allrigth for the visibility from the players point of view

 

The ball becomes visible later on in the day.

But I agree, the color of the ball should be changed.

 

The fact that the camera's are up so high doesn't really help either

 

Rome is usually better with camera angle... Monte Carlo has this problem... but if you look at Court des Princes it is better there.

 

I'm watching downloads of Estoril and altho I can make out the ball, its not so clear and that makes it less interesting. What's worse is that the camera is quite high up which makes the players look small, and all the fun's gone.

I've had similar problems watching recordings of old FO's.

 

In last years RG it was basically impossible for me to see the ball, I actually bought DirectTV just to see the ball, let see how it end up.

 

i have to see the ball
if i cant i cant watch it
were you watching on ttc

 

anyone has a good link that is working please?

 

They should change the colour of the CLAY.

 

I think the problem also lies in lcd/flatscreen televisions. They, or some of them, are to slow. The ball disappears when its moving to fast, appears again when its slower, being tossed etc.

 

Actually if TV has a slow reaction time like 8ms then the ball shoud be more visible. I choose to watch on 44" lcd with 8ms rather than on 32" with 5ms, the ball leaves a trail just enough that I can see it perfectly on the bigger slower one.

 

that's the only good reason for U.S. Men's Claycourt Championships.

The camera is like BAM right there.

 

I have a plasma so no problems with the moving objects here, LCD TVs on the other side have those problems.

 

I usually can't see it until it actually hits the ground on the other side of the court, but flying through the air: no. I switched to the plasma TV though in the LR so that did help a lot. If the camera angle was lower, I think that would help more.

 

I got an old fashioned cathode ray tube, and could not see the ball during the Murray/Lopez match. Sometimes, after the bounce in the court nearest the camera the ball is visible. Otherwise, they could just as well be playing phantom tennis.

 

Yeah same here. I was watching Ferrero vs Llodra and I couldn't see the ball. It just blend with the court color. It is so frustrating! I think watching them play at night will be better than in the afternoon.

 

murray v lopez was hard to see..it was impossible to see the ball during flight..i have a plasma as well

 

What colour might ones suggest as an alternative if one could? I was thinking green. White wouldn't be much better I guess.

 

So you cant see the ball and you want them to make the ball darker? That wont help you see it any better...

I can see it absolutely clearly, do you wear glasses or need glasses?

The ball will get dirty with the clay so it will start to have bits of orange in it, which I am sure doesn't help your cause.

 

I am sure that given the speed of the balls and their size no colour will help make them visible on a sunny day on red clay if you set up a wrong camera angle. If it was a bit cloudy or later in the day it would be ok.

 

Well the players come first, they wont change the colour to suit some viewers with eye problems. Yellow is by far the best colour to play with. Everybody I know, can see the ball fine, on tv, it is only sometimes on the internet it is difficult to see the ball, for me, anyway.

 

I was watching Monte Carlo this morning (TTC, 50 inch plasma). I couldn't see the ball until after the bounce. Very frustrating!

 

I realize that, and know well about speed and size of tennis balls. (?) I don't understand this comment. I've watched many matches in stadium on red clay both in Germany and France. It's what I grew up playing on.

I was just asking an opinion question for those who happened to be watching on TVs at the moment and complained of the low visibility.

Why would one make the comment that one has an eye problem because one can't see the ball well on TV? "The universe is full of dead people who lived by assumption." As mentioned above, its the type of TV that's giving the problem, not eye problems by the viewers. Of course directors wouldn't change the colour of the balls to suit viewers...who suggested that? One merely asked a question.

 

i cant beleive how ridiculously slow the clay at monte carlo is

 

you better get your money back then because I watching on the lowest quality on atpmastersseries.tv on like a 14 inch screen and i can see the ball before it bouces

 

Has anyone tried adjusting the color settings on the tv? I wonder if that'd help.

 

I lower both the brightness and the color saturation, and that helps some, but seeing the ball from Monte Carlo over the Tennis Channel has always been a problem. I've seen video from other sources where it's not so bad. It's that high camera angle that's the real issue. From cameras closer to the court I have no trouble seeing the ball.

 

I can see the ball fine. Obviously, it is not as easy to see as on the courts of the US Open or the Sony Ericsson Open, but I can still see the ball clearly on all of our TVs.

 

Welcome to Clay Season. Monte Carlo looks the slowest to me as well. Slower than Hamburg with a higher bounce.

 

It's not the TV. Trust me.

 

It is hard to see.

 

It seems like the problem is that the camera angle is too high up. They switched to the Santoro match with a lower angle and I could see the ball fine. They even went to the low angle for a game of the Murray-Lopez match and I could see the ball but then they went back to the high angle and it was hard to see. The only problem with the low angle is you can't see both players but seeing the ball is more important.

 

The problem is that TTC always has poor video quality for the clay season.

 

I have Tennis Channel in HD, and I can barely see the ball. The color of the court and ball should be very contrast to each other. The easier thing to do is just to change the ball.

 

Tennis Channel doesn't broadcast in HD to my knowledge. Do you mean you have an HDTV and TTC?

I have an HDTV but Tennis Channel is in standard format.

 

TTC does have HD, but it's only for certain events and shows. MC is simply a feed from Europe, so no HD. I think they'll be doing RG in HD this year.

 

Same here.

 

I'm not sure if DirecTV will help since it's the same broadcasts from ESPN or NBC or Tennis Channel using the same cameras and feeds.

 

Yes, I was watching it on Tennis Channel and it was basically a waste of time as I just couldn't see the ball at all (Ferrero vs. Llodra match).

 

Same here. I was also watching it on an old-fashioned 27 inch CRT TV.

 

On the color spectrum chart, purple is supposed to be the opposite of orange so it should provide the most contrast.

 

Have you read the others posts in this thread? It seems most people here also CANNOT see the ball on TV. You seem to be one of the very few people here who can. If I have eye problems then how come I can see the ball fine on every other surface except red clay?

 

For now anyway, TTC in HD is a Directv exclusive. The US Claycourt Championship was on a reddish (but not as red as European) clay, and it was incredible. The best HD tennis I've ever seen (at least technically; too bad Blake folded like a cheap suit)-and needless to say, no problem picking up the ball. The broadcast from Monte Carlo has historically been the worst of the clay court season. Older SD cameras + bad camera position + standards conversion (PAL to NTSC) could be the problem(s)...

 

Yes I know what you mean, I just thought that i could not see the ball because bad quality in the "cable" transmision, in turned out that now I can "clearly" not see the ball :-?

 

I'm watching it right now and have no idea where the ball is.

 

What if it was a deep blue, or even black?

 

For me, I think it's a matter of my eyes adjusting. At the beginning of the clay court season I can almost never see the ball, but after the first few tournaments my eyes get trained and all is well!

 

HD pays off. Lol.