HD Local News (1 Viewer)

[Jacinto]

I can't express how much I've enjoyed watching the local news on KUSA in Denver since they started broadcasting it in HD a few weeks ago. Sure there's plenty of wasted space on the sides since they're still framing the newscast for 4:3, but the clarity and colors are simply amazing in the studio environment. I'm pretty sure that their advertising has said that they are the first in the country to be doing this, but maybe I misunderstood exactly what they were touting. Are there any other local stations out there doing news in HD? If not, anyone else in the Denver area enjoying this as much as I am? I rarely watched the news until recently, but now I tune in almost daily just for how good it looks. Supposedly they'll be outfitting their traffic copter with an HD camera in the next few weeks, too!

 

[Jason Seaver]

There was an article in the Boston papers about a year or so ago about one local station having actually built a new set so that the news would look better on a 16:9 TV in hi-def, but I'm not sure which it was.

 

[Ken Chan]

Well, in L.A., where overwrought local news is a feverish arms race between the major stations -- StormTrack 2004 with Live! Doppler Radar 7000! -- they are still just upscaled (although it looks really clean).

 

[Wayne Bundrick]

They are not the first HD local news in the country and it's foolish of them to claim they are. At least two stations have done it earlier. I believe WRAL in Raleigh, NC was the first, according to their website they did their first all-HD newscast in October 2000 and have been doing all their newscasts in HD since 2001.

WRAL has been a test bed for just about everything involving HDTV in the US. They had HDTV on the air for testing before the HDTV standard was even finished.

It doesn't take that much to make a set look good for HD, it just takes the realization that the camera will no longer forgive you if you use cheap cheesy materials.

 

[Jacinto]

Wayne,

Very cool info. Like I said above, I may have misunderstood what this station was claiming as I only caught the last part of the station ad about HD. They are definitely claiming to be the first to do SOMETHING in HD, but I'm not sure what that something is. I'll watch for the promo again and report back here with the relevant info.

Okay, I saw the promo again. KUSA says that they're the first HD newscast in the Denver market, but that they are the first station in the country to shoot HD from their helicopter.