Comments on: ‘Nightly’ debuts in high definition

By: Steve Safran

Steve Safran — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 16:02:32 +0000

Dan: I wasn’t for a moment questioning your chops. And I’m even more impressed by them now. I just wanted LR readers to grasp that there’s more to a signal than meets the eye - literally.

And we’re more than “just get it out there, who cares what it looks like.” I’d be disappointed if that was the message LR put out. I hope people appreciate we’re about quality content, first and foremost.

By: Steve

Steve — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 15:09:12 +0000

Worst DVE of the 1990s? Come on and name names! Is it a Pinnacle product?

By: no one

no one — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 05:26:35 +0000

Dan, if working with their sister station is any indication, its because engineering is using equipment that was probably purchased when Dorothy Bullitt owned KING Broadcasting.

By: Dan

Dan — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 03:59:54 +0000

As a broadcast engineer since 1972, believe me,
I know what I’m looking at. Even had a waveform
monitor on the KING output. Ringing all over the place.

Some medium markets are now completely HD for news, including helicopter, while in this market, number 11, Belo has studio cameras in HD and make awful switches between the rest of the show in SD. They call this HD and promote as such.
Also the way KING squeezes the talent camera up during weather to put info lower third instead of keeping aspect ratio is the biggest joke. They run the poor guy or gal through the worst DVE from the 1990s
and the video gets smeary besides making the talent
look fat. It’s like engineering took a powder and
no one at the station knows any better.

I know on this blog, it’s all about web and “just
get a picture out there, who cares what it looks like”,
but that thought process is going to kill affiliate broadcasters when the product
they are showing can now been seen on DVD
and soon on HD DVD or blue ray, and down the road HD on iTunes. People spending thousands on new HDTVs are starting to notice. My friends who are not engineers tell me how they they can’t stand the quality of this station or that.
They appreciate a good quality front projector or
plasma TV set up correctly. I thought I was the only one. But you sell your audience short if you believe
they are stupid when it comes to good picture quality.
Of course if it’s a “game” who cares.
But for dramatic programs and movies, and news
which by the way they can get on four stations here,
the average guy and gal are starting to notice
because their equipment is better now.

I guess I’m old school, but I still care about the customer, you know, the viewer !

Dan

By: Safran

Safran — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 03:19:20 +0000

The quality to the end user depends on many factors. I’m sure it looked gorgeous going out of NBC. What happens between the network, cable companies (which compress the hell out of signals some times), locals, and every step in the food chain right down to your TV is out of the network’s control.

At NECN, we’d hear the strangest complaints from viewers. “Why do you broadcast the sound from an FM station on your TV channel? Don’t you hear that?” Of course not. Because we didn’t - the signal leaked in along the way.

The viewer can’t be expected to know that, of course. Just something to keep in mind before assuming the network saw a lousy picture and said “Screw it - good enough.”

By: Jason Parker

Jason Parker — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 02:59:39 +0000

Dan, could that have been the affiliate? I thought SD looked fine here in Charleston, SC.

By: Dan

Dan — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 02:49:34 +0000

Looked really bad in SD here in Seattle.
WAY too peaked. Edges around everything.
Remember this is a VERY HIGH percentage
of the audience so someone should care about it.
It would have been so easy to prevent this.
It’s called testing before hand.
Oh, not what you guys want to hear?
Too bad.

Dan

By: R. Leu

R. Leu — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 02:17:30 +0000

I’m a little disappointed that the Nightly News podcast feed still includes the 4:3 cropped version. Other than that, it looks good.