It appears 2008 will be the year that 3 local station will finally turn the HD faucet on in this market.
With the HD transition though some jobs will get chopped. According to one of our regular readers, Brandon who had a chance to visit NBC6 recently and had a chat with Bob Mayer, by March WTVJ should have completed their HD overhaul. The station recently added new cameras that will be controlled from the control room, as well as automating the newscast – things like microphone on/off, camera positions, graphics etc… will be done by computer which will result a lot of jobs getting cut. Brandon says when he was there they are already rehearsing with the new system.
I get the feeling with all these HD news recently we’re bound to have at least one local station with an HD newscast in time for the May sweeps hype.
And just think, only a year ago NONE of the West Palm or Miami stations were in HD yet. Now we’re finally starting to enter that era, and somewhat rapidly at that. Eh?
Would’ve be cool to see TVJ, SVN and PLG’s yearly promos of February sweeps in HD.
All the stations need to be HD by 2009. I’m sure they’ll introduce new graphics and promo packages when they do convert. I’m looking forward to what SVN does seeing that they go all out on the flashy graphics.
No, all stations need to broadcast _digital_ by 02/09. “HD” is not the same as “digital”.
Again I say, let’s have a telethon to raise money so these poor stations can afford the technology they need. Cheap skates. What’s the matter, not enough plasmas sold in this market to “justify” the cost?
thanks for the clear-up. the earlier post of the hd by 2009 is incorrect.
The news system is not working well for NBC. They have been doing rehearsals for months and cameras take off running on their own, music doesn;t play right, graphics don’t work. It’s a great idea to have this new technology run the place, but it doesn’t work for large markets. NBC wasted millions. The day Castro dies, don’t watch NBC….the new system won’t be able to handle the breaking news. There are only two people in the control room when it’s running and they won’t b able to keep up with everything. R.I.P NBC
WFLA in Tampa did the down-grade (my judgement) when they automated the station. Their so called conversion to hd and this automation has riddled them with miss cues, mistakes, black, wrong if any gfx, etc.
It is better now, but it is still a joke.
Welcome to advancement.