Red – White - & - Boom in HD

[geneo3]

WCMH-DT is going to broadcast Red – White - & - Boom in HD this year on July the 3rd. I spoke with Greg Peerenboom “yes Fritz’s son” this morning and he says that it is going to be a challenge because there lack of in-house equipment, but they would get the job done. There will be no HD helicopter shots this year during the fireworks but by next year it all would be there. Regardless they are going to have a lot of HD cam’s downtown.:hdlove:

[Scott]

That's good news---hopefully the macroblocking won't be too bad!

[Robbiee19]

I think I am going to record and see how it comes out.

[scgalena]

Lyon Video has been contracted to supply the 53' HD expando and technical crew for this year's Red White & Boom on TV4.

Lyon's truck will not be very far from home base for this event.


http://www.lyonvideo.com/main.html

http://broadcastengineering.com/hdtv/lyon-video-qustream-hd-truck-0608/

[geneo3]

I agree Scott at 1080-I the macroblocking can be an unknown variable depending on weather they send it back to the station mpg2, mpg4, or uncompressed, which the latter is probably the most unlikely, not to mention the environmental challanges. I hope that it is an achievement instead of a disaster. Robbiee19 I plan to record the show as well in hopes that is done really well.

[Scott]

Will record too... Unfortunately, I think that between the flash of the explosions and the smoke, much blocking will be seen. I remember when NBC had the national broadcast of the NYC fireworks in HD last year, it was pretty bad. I have the NY national NBC feed of the event as well and it was HORRIBLE with DirecTV's "HD"

[geneo3]

Scott I had forgotten all about that. I had the New York feed until Mar of 07 to, and had watched the Macys show last July, it wasn’t very pretty. In fact it was really bad. I know it is a stretch but I am hoping that just maybe this might be a better year. There is allot that they can do to make it look good, I have watched several firework displays in 1080i that were really effective and good, so it can be done. But the big question is will it be done. The equipment that NBC used for the N.Y. fireworks last year was really crap, even for the stage shots.:hdlove:

[Maurice Clarett]

I just saw the commercial for it. I'm not sure what they are going to be doing, my guess just rent some for the event. They are probably going to use this as a test run for when they really go HD. Or maybe they are just doing it without making much of a big deal since WBNS already went HD, and it was going to happen sooner or later so they could compete.


I hope the helicopter camera is HD, becuase thats like half the shots.

[matthewt24]

Did anyone catch this morning's 6am news? Andy Dominianni was talking about this year's RWB in HD, and stated something to the effect that in 2009 ALL TV would be in HD. You hear this all time, and it is quite confusing to much of the TV viewing population that there is a distinct difference between HD and Digital. Someone needs to educate the media sources to stop sending out erroneous information.

[Maurice Clarett]

Did anyone catch this morning's 6am news? Andy Dominianni was talking about this year's RWB in HD, and stated something to the effect that in 2009 ALL TV would be in HD. You hear this all time, and it is quite confusing to much of the TV viewing population that there is a distinct difference between HD and Digital. Someone needs to educate the media sources to stop sending out erroneous information.

Well odds are most channels by 2009 will be in HD even though its not required. It seems like every week a few new channels announce plans to go HD by the end of the year or by next year.

[jorr]

Did anyone else catch the audio from the NBC network feed of Law & Order in the surround channels of DTV feed? Engineers, good job getting that corrected quickly.

Other than that, kudos and a job well done to all of the staff (especially the forgotten engineers!) of WCMH. The broadcast looked amazing!!

[JayPSU]

Did anyone else catch the audio from the NBC network feed of Law & Order in the surround channels of DTV feed? Engineers, good job getting that corrected quickly.

Other than that, kudos and a job well done to all of the staff (especially the forgotten engineers!) of WCMH. The broadcast looked amazing!!

LOL...yeah, I caught that. Broadcast was OK, the problem I had was with the wide shot from far away. Either they used a SD camera, or it just can't look good from far away because that shot looked really bad compared to the other shots, ESPECIALLY the finale. Looked like one big blotch of white! The other shots, though, looked outstanding! I'm sure it's a learning experience, though, and hopefully next year will be better.

[dweber]

WCMH did a fantastic job with the HD video but the dolby audio was horrible. Why didn't they patch the audio from WNCI into their audio feeds? You kept hearing people talking in the background. It was horrible to listen to people talk during the Star Spangled Banner. Was there anyone in charge of audio mixing? Also the volume level was very low. I had to turn my surround sound amplifier way up and the sound only came out of the front channels. Last year I tuned my receiver to WNCI and listened to the audio via the radio while I watched the video on my tv muted. The whole room rocked last year. This year you heard faint explosions and the music was very subdued. I listened to the broadcast OTA and DVR'd it on my DISH 622. Unfortunately, I wish I could of recorded the video from WNCI.

[dorcole1]

Yeah, missed the National Anthem that they made a big deal about just minutes before due to Law and Order and a couple of other audio interruptions during the broadcast. I was really excited to watch it in HD...and the 6% of the fireworks that were in HD looked very good, but the main camera was not HD and made things look quite compressed. I hope this was a learning year and that it WILL be in HD next year. The shots on the streets of the anchors did look good.

[DublinDoodah]

Red, white, and flop. After all the buildup about it being HD, it was pretty disappointing. They should have saved their money and stayed with SD until they could figure out how to do it right.

[geneo3]

Well there were quite a few mistakes; Some of the early shots had a lot of noise, and the worst thing was the audio from the network feed for several few minutes. But I was amazed that it went that well. When NBC sold the station they left nothing behind. These guys are working with almost nothing at the station. WCMH had a local company to bring in the equipment and do the production to send back to the station. But once they got everything pulled together I was really impressed, the colors were brilliant, the sound clarity was very good, and almost no pixeling. I felt it was far superior to the NY HD broadcast last year. In-fact I don't think that their even going to do a HD broadcast from NY this year. I would like to hear what Scott's thoughts were because he also watched the NY show last year.:D

[zelig2]

The HD shots looked fantastic. I really wish all the cameras could have been HD. That far away camera was understandably SD since an additional microwave link was probably out of the question in terms of budget. Hopefully next year will have all HD cameras.

The audio on the other hand was a bit messed up. I tried calling the station since the first chunk of the show had people screaming from L&O:SVU. Not really good to have that playing while you're saluting men and women from our armed forces. I'm not sure if the show was produced in 5.1 or not but next year it should be. I would recommend piping WNCI through on the main fronts mixed with some directed shotgun mics pointed toward the sky. The rears could the be pointed towards the crowd but be located a ways off so as not to get people clearly talking during the national anthem. Then finally I'd try to add a mic that can reproduce the explosions and pipe that to the LFE channel. I'd love to have some rumble next year during the finale.

Those are just my thoughts.

[scgalena]

Thanks for the nice comments about the HD video on this year's Red White & Boom. I should also say the two roof-top camera operators did a tremendous job of remotely adjusting their iris and paint by cell phone.

Shaun would have really enjoyed seeing the show produced in HD for the first time as he had headed up engineering this CH4 event for nearly twenty years.

[zelig2]

I agree that shaun would have loved to have saw the fireworks being broadcast in HD.