Red, White & Boom! HD?

[gruxx]

I'm driving to dayton this year for the 3rd, and won't be on top of the OSU medical center garage to watch the fireworks this year. (FYI: free parking, small crowds, great views)

Is nbc4 going HD for their broadcast coverage of them? If so, I'd tivo it to watch once I got back.

Does NBC4 even have a portable fujinon hd camera to use for this kind of event? I figure at about $10K a camera, if they did, we would see it used daily on their newscasts.

I expect NBC4ENG has the inside details on this one.

[zelig2]

It won't be HD this year (or probably for a while). Last year they attempted to "enhance" the screen for the HD viewers by croping the image to fit a 16x9 window, but since the show was framed and shot for 4:3 it ended up cutting out lots of information. A number of people on here got all up in arms (and I think people called the station to complain) so they said they're sticking with SD in the normal 4:3 ratio for both the SD and HD broadcast.

As for NBC4 going HD it'll be a while also. HD cameras in the studio are fairly simple to replace but things get costly when you try to replace all the cameras they use in the field. Add to that the major cost of upgrading the infrastructure to support HD video and the near zero income derived from the upgrade makes it not likely to happen for a while.

[Timcredible]

i think wbns is still the only local station with hd cameras. they've had them for 6 or 7 years - they used to have osu football games on in beautiful hd, but then espn bought the rights ;-(