Posted by Joshua Zyber on 01/18/07 00:34

"Barry Watzman" <WatzmanNOSPAM@neo.rr.com> wrote in message
news:45ae37e6$0$5741$4c368faf@roadrunner.com...
> 1. I think that NBC advertises that their nightly network news cast
> is now in HD (although I have to admit that I can't find it).

I'll be honest, I don't even watch the NBC Nightly News. Luckily for
you, I just so happened to have left my TV on NBC-HD and I'm at a point
where I can backtrack on my DVR to the end of the program. So here comes
Brian Williams and... sorry, buddy, that's clearly upconverted SD. The
footage in the studio looks good, mostly because it's a very simple,
clean set with a ton of light being pumped onto it. The cleaner the
image the better it scales. However, fine object detail is far from HD
quality, and you can make out a ton of jaggies in diagonal lines, a
visible fault of the upconversion. There are also obvious scaling
artifacts all over the place.

I will say again, if this were a true HD broadcast it would be 16:9.
Although the ATSC standards allow for some weird resolutions that no
networks actually broadcast in, there are *no* HD video cameras that
shoot in a 4:3 ratio. They simply aren't made.

Later this evening, turn on The Tonight Show With Jay Leno on the same
network and see if you can't tell the obvious difference in quality.

> 2. It's inconceivable at this point that NBC's major corporate
> studios at Rockefeller center in NYC are not fully equipped with
> digital HDTV cameras as the origination imaging devices.

NBC is actually pretty far behind the curve in the quality of their HD
channel. They broadcast the fewest primetime shows in HD of any of the
major networks, and their picture quality usually leaves a lot to be
desired.

Also, there's a very limited usefulness to having the Nightly News in
HD. Their correspondents in the field don't carry HD cameras, so other
than the anchor in the studio none of the rest of the broadcast would be
HD anyway.

> Of course, any form of digital or analog signal could then be
> produced and transmitted from their output. But the cable system here
> has two distinct channels for NBC (and all of the other major
> networks), and the channel in question is the HDTV digital channel.

Every network has separate SD and HD channels. You can't combine the
signals onto the same channel. Just because you're watching an HD
channel doesn't mean that 100% of the content on it is actual High
Definition. Stay home from work one day and see how few of the daytime
soap operas, game shows, and informercials are HD. The answer: damn few,
if any.

> My guess is that they start with a digital signal, and DOWNCONVERT
> when analog is required, rather than starting with an analog signal
> and upconverting.

You're confusing the SD/HD issue with analog/digital. The Nightly News
may very well be shot in digital SD rather than analog. "Digital" does
not necessarily imply High Definition.

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