Reduced to 10,000 because of the cricket on the other side of the North stand, which somewhat ironically, was completely washed out by the weather anyway.

As far as HD not looking much different to SD, you need to look at your set up

Changing the contrast, colour, Brighness and sharpness (even the back light for those TV's that have them) makes a massive difference to the quality of the picture. Most people dont realise and just leave it at the factory settings meaning they dont see HD in its full quality.

As for the games its self, if you go the big screen will stay on the correct channel all the time meaning you dont have to reach for the remote. Also the 1st half, although on BBC1, will not be shown in HD. The BBC have yet to show a game in HD and I cant see them doing it in the near future. Even the final last year just looked like upscaled SD.

That attendances for the CC regular rounds are embarrassingly low.

Only the CC Final itself generates a decent attendance.

Feel free to list a litany of excuses like... it was pouring with rain, it was cold, it's in the afternoon, it's on the BBC (despite almost everyone hating the BBC's coverage), it's due to the amateur RL masses not being able to attend because they are all playing on a Saturday... in order to back up any claim that the CC hasn't lost it's appeal during the regular rounds.

Evidence suggests otherwise.

Well it's on BBC One HD. So they're lying for a start!

It's a well known fact that older Sky+ boxes allow your television to upscale the picture while the Sky+ HD box takes responsibility for upscaling the picture. Sky+ HD boxes set the picture to 1080i... HD channels are therefore output at 1080i, but they also output non-HD broadcasts or SD channels at 1080i which is unnecessary and results in a downgraded picture on all non-HD channels, hence the difference in SD picture quality between the two boxes.

If you want to watch a SD channel, it's best to watch it using an older Sky or Sky+ box.

Sky ain't stupid - by operating in this manner, the Sky+ HD box gives the comparative impression of just how much better HD is over SD when in reality, it's better but not that much better.

HTH

So is everything else thats on BBC1... It's called a simulcast.

Not everything shown on BBC is filmed or sent in HD. All they do is slightly upscale it but it doesnt look too different. Sky are the same. The Madrid masters has been on SkySports for the last week but hasnt been shown in HD once.

Oh, and while we are at it (and since we havve moved massively OT), why does American made HD content for sports look so much better than the UK stuff? Football on CBS looks loads better than the soccer shown on Sky over here and I watched a golf docu on ESPN a few weeks back and it looked amazing. Baseball from ComCast always looks brilliant too. I just dont get how compared to ours when it's supposed to be filmed by the same quality of camera.

Comparative attendances V Wigan at Headingley with no reduced capacity of 10,000

2008: Challenge Cup: 10,129
2008: Regular SL Round: 18,769
2008: SL Play Off: 13,212

2007: Challenge Cup: 8,582
2007: Regular SL Round: 16,465
2007: SL Play Off: 16,112

I think there's definitely an evidential trend there.

My point stands.

I'm not entering that debate. If I did I'd be joining your 'No' campaign.

I was merely answering Soprano's question.