Posted by Richard Crowley on 11/28/05 17:25

"Steve Guidry" wrote ...
> That's true. Their mandate is to go digital. There's NO mandate to go
> HD.
> When HD happens, it will be when there's an economic reason for everyone
> involved to do all the expensive stuff that it takes to produce,
> transport,
> and air the program in HD.
>
> In fact, the only revenue model that will probably work for most stations
> is
> for them to go HD for a few hours a day - - Sports, "big" movies and
> "important" series shows, and a few other things that the networks make
> them
> use HD for.
>
> The rest of the time, we'll see them show multiple streams of digital SD,
> much of which will be - - at least initially - - upconverted analog
> material.
>
> There are several reasons for this :
>
> 1) There is no real reason to go HD for game shows, soaps, and news.

Some would think that there is no real reason for sitcoms and half
the dramas and TV-movies, either! :-)

> 2) Old material is already on analog, and there is a cost to migrating it
> to digital. Only the most valuable stuff will get any real re-mastering.
> The rest will just get dumped to digital.

They've been shooting 1-hour dramatic shows, and even 1/2-hour
sitcoms (not to mention even the lousiest made-for-TV-movies) in
35mm Panavision for years, just in anticipation of some kind of HD
standard finally being established.

> 3) Multiple signals will mean multiple revenue streams for the station.
> You will likely see news, shopping, an old western, and a ladies talk show
> (or some similar mix) airing at the 6 PM and 10 PM slots.

A last attempt at competing with 500 channels on your satellite
dish or 200 on your cable.

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