When will any Rochester station take the plunge into HD newscasts?

[rochestermediawatch]

Will it ever happen or will Rochester always be a blast from the past?

 

[SirRoxalot]

Somebody's likely to go HD in the studio, but shooting in the field is extremely difficult. It's hard to focus properly in HD through an eyepiece, or even on a flip-out viewfinder. Add the extremely large file sizes, and data transfer in HD adds time to the production process.

Throw in the move towards one-man band/backpack journalists, and the fact that viewers have a growing acceptance of crappy cell-phone/Skype video, and I don't see any serious need to spend $50K on pro-grade field cameras.

 

[dustintv]

Doubtful anytime soon...and for the upstate TV markets for that matter. Most of the upstate TV owners are too much in the gutter and looking for the bottom line these days and HD is expensive. However, I do foresee it happening with a couple stations in the near future, mainly for stunt purposes if anything.

 

[BobRoss]

Somebody's likely to go HD in the studio, but shooting in the field is extremely difficult. It's hard to focus properly in HD through an eyepiece, or even on a flip-out viewfinder. Add the extremely large file sizes, and data transfer in HD adds time to the production process.

They do it just fine in NYC. Granted, it's the #1 market and everyone's an O&O. But I was down there last weekend and everything from the studio shots to the field pieces were in HD... or at least shot in 16x9. Not sure what kind of cameras they're using in the field, but they didn't seem to have any difficulty shooting widescreen video. It's actually kind of simple, considering you just keep the bulk of the action in the middle as if you were still shooting 4x3. Many of the viewers are still watching in 4x3, so anything seen on the extreme left/right edges of the screen is basically a wasted effort anyway. All of the graphics and studio shots are the same way -- everything important is closer to the middle of the screen so it doesn't get cut-off on 4x3 TVs.

 

[SirRoxalot]

There are lots of cameras that shoot in 16x9, but not necessarily in HD. The other option is to upconvert - shoot in standard def, and have the upconvert processor generate the missing pixels.

I've definitely seen HD coming out of the studio at some stations. Those cameras feed big monitors, and focus is pre-set. I've yet to see actual HD from the field.