Portland's channel 13 - (CBS - WGME) has a very strange definition, to me anyway, of High Definition.
It started a few weeks back with some promos during commercial breaks. WGME touted their new and upcoming HD weather capabilities that would be something "Maine has never seen before".
Then, last evening I was watching something on my DVR that I recorded yesterday afternoon. The weather here was sketchy. Massive, violent thunderstorms, trees down, fires started by downed power lines, just all around chaos. So WGME broke into regularly scheduled programming for a weather updates.
For the first time I heard Charlie Lopresti use the word "HD" as in "HD Doppler". Hmm, HD huh? Well the picture was still in 4:3 aspect ratio (non wide-screen) and the quality of the picture didn't look any different that it usually does (not HD quality).
So what exactly is "HD" about what they are doing. High Definition television is a subset of Digital Television. You need to be in digital format before you can be in HD format. So if your picture is in HD, it is digital; but just because the picture is digital, doesn't mean it's HD.
High Definition means a full 16:9 aspect ration (wide-screen) picture, with full picture resolution at 720p or 108i. Additionally the sound should be in Dolby 5.1 Surround Sound.
I don't know what WGME has planned for the future, but what I saw being touted as HD by WGME was not even close.
It has been long assumed, and I agree, that the first broadcast television station in any particular TV market (in this case the greater Portland/Lewiston/Auburn market) would take the lead in ratings and revenue by the simple fact the people are craving HD programming. And the last piece of the HD puzzle is locally producing HD programming including the local news. So the first one to do it will get the biggest piece of the pie. In the case of WGME, using the term "HD" seems premature. For those of us with HD television sets, you can't fool us. We know what is and what ISN'T high definition.
Don't try and fool us please, it insults our intelligence.
1 comment:
The doppler HD thing is a bunch of crap. I actually think the old style radar was better. The "Doppler HD" is chunky like an old 8 bit video game. It's just amazing that it's almost 2009, yet none of the 3 network affiliates in Portland are broadcasting news in HD. It's almost painful to watch a show in HD for an hour, and then the news comes on and it just looks horrible.
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