Does anyone else find it silly that Inside Sooner Football is shown in glorious letterboxed standard definition on KWTV?
Clearly, the show is shot using HD cameras for the show, but apparently the producers aren’t intelligent enough to either zoom in on the frame when encoding for broadcast or to actually show it in high definition on KWTV’s HD channel.
Before my Cowboy friends try to revoke my Cowboy card, they should be aware that I only stumbled upon Stoops’ show and that that I really don’t care about football at all because it’s a sissy sport decided by judges in the media instead of on the field by players and coaches.
13 Comments
Just because KWTV transmits in HD and can pass through HD content from the network doesn’t meN THt it has the capacity to record or play back HD content. It’s the ame with KOTV, Griffin’s other station here in Tulsa. They delay Craig Ferguson by a half hour so we still haven’t gotten a chance to see his show in HD!
Thanks to KXII for craig ferguson in HD!!!!!!!!!!!! Channel 9 get real and take off old reruns of old crap!!!
A $300 PC can record HD, why can’t TV stations do it?
There have been many articles in television trade publications about how expensive it is for stations to record, store, and play back HD syndicated programming. Same thing with producing, storing, and playback of locally originated programming. I guess for example, it must cost millions for the commercial hardware to record a 5 gigabyte file of Jeopardy in HD off the satellite feed at 9 AM every morning, store it all day and then play it back at 4 PM in the afternoon. I just don’t get it. When terabyte hard drives are available for $100 and as servicetech says a $300 computer can play it back, why is it so horrifically difficult for a TV station to do the same thing and insert a local commercial once in a while. Most stations show 10-15 syndicated shows per day, which doesn’t add up to all that much storage space, one hard drive would do it.
GGore,
All of that may be true and I’m not really the one to defend the local TV stations, but storage at the enterprise level is still very expensive.
It’s one thing for me to have several hundred hours of HD recordings recorded with a cheap Mac-based DTV tuner, spread across four or five hard large, cheap drives. It’s quite another to save several months of recordings spread across a redundantly backed up collection of storage devices, potentially much of it being shuffled offsite for the ultimate in protection of the corporate crown jewels. Most of the stations also aren’t in a position to drop in HD commercials, which is just as sad.
Still, I think that once the other stations start realizing that we are only watching the shows that are in HD or have Dolby Digital sound, they’ll either step up to the plate or sell out. Also, once KFOR starts showing HD commercials and the advertisers start demanding it on the other stations, things will change.
KFOR started this process 10 years ago at the State Fair and they’ve an HD newscast just a few weeks. They started broadcasting regularly in HD just about seven years ago. I’ll bet by this time next year that KWTV and KOCO will have upgraded to HD newscasts or been sold yet again.
Change takes time.
Dennis
HD local ads, now that would be interesting. HD camcorders aren’t that expensive these days.
Dolby Digital sound is going to be awhile, not many people use it for watching TV.
Why do TV stations need to save recordings for months? Seems like the cooperate people are shooting themselves in the foot by effectively killing the “HD goose”.
Seeing as almost all TV’s sold today are HD it won’t be long until the public demands HD programming.
I’m sure they keep stuff around for a while for legal reasons, to get highlight packages of football games, all kinds of reasons.
Dennis
Im not trying to be rude here but you guys are missing the point and the true facts regarding HD playout. Yes the servers do cost and yes the stations should pull there heads out and upgrade the technology. But the cost isnt all in the servers, encoders and and decoders, the server must be able to communicate with playout automation. yes a 300 dollar pc can play HD but not at a broadcast qaulity level with external reference. One drive is playing with danger as most servers are RAID 6. A thirty minute SD show takes about 4-5 gigs so I could imagine an HD file would be larger. The main issue is the surrounding technology needed to support the HD server.
Most syndicated programs are fed 2-3 days out so at any given time 2 or 3 days worth of programming are being stored and most are deleted the day after it airs.
Please take my message as trying to be informative. Im not defending the spending practices of the station owners, just saying that ownership dosent see HD syndication or spots as a benefit since it wont increase revenue.
I dont like it either and believe it or not I think HD spots and syndicated programs is closer than you realize..
I agree, Dennis, it is much different for commercial entities to download/store/stream HD content. It’s just that when I go to Kansas City I see that EVERY station does ALL their syndicated programming in HD, all their local news is in HD, and has been for a long time. Same in Wichita, Dallas, Little Rock, Amarillo, etc, so market size has nothing to do with it.
There’s a different situation here for some odd reason and it manifests itself in three ways:
1. KFOR, previously WKY, was the first to do color, stereo, and now HD, so they are the innovator in OKC. No big surprises.
2. The only DTV channels that viewers have had trouble receiving are two major network stations. KOCO refused their DTV UHF assignment and asked for channel 7, despite there being a full-power station in Lawton on that same channel less than 100 miles away. The idiotic FCC allowed it. We all know how well that worked out. KOCO has no plans to move their transmit antenna up to the top of their tower, so now they don’t cover nearly the area they did before the transition due to problems with DTV over VHF frequencies.
3. KWTV wanted to move back to their original channel 9 after the transition despite have a perfect UHF 39 signal that was available in the far reaches of the state. I’m sure this was done because of money, but that doesn’t wash with me since all the independents are still on UHF and I’m sure they don’t make as much money from ads as KWTV or KOCO do.
As I see it, OETA was the first in the market to time shift their HD network programs like Nova and Nature. If OETA with their limited resources can do it, why not the major network affiliates?
I certainly choose what I watch based on if it’s in HD or not. 38yr old male with kids is a prime demographic and I think many in my demographic DO care about HD.
Has KWTV initiated a change back to 39?
Checking the web I found this site http://www.rabbitears.info/index.php . Check out their VHF Nightmares button:
“KWTV 09 39 09 CBS Oklahoma City, OK (Griffin)
08/03/09: KWTV has requested to light up DT-39.
Channel 9: 1525′ 62.2 kW ND
Channel 39: 1568′ 383. kW DA”
I live in Ada, about 70 miles from the towers, have outdoor antenna and get all OKC UHF stations great. Since the switchover, VHF – OETA good most of time, KOCO and KWTV basically not at all, usually no signal but occasionally get an image and a bit of sound for a few seconds, just enough to recognize the program.
Does this mean that I may hope to one day be able to actually watch KWTV? And since I see nothing about KOCO, is ABC out of the question for my area?
Thanks for any replies.
Wesley
As I recall, KWTV-DT is broadcasting with about 62,000 watts of effective visual radiated power. Analog 9 was 316,000 watts. KFOR-DT (27) should be at 1,000,000. High powered analog UHF was up to 5,000,000 watts. In these numbers may lie the difference.
My research tells me that 7-13 is still the best and most desired range for DT, just as it has always been for TV.
In the beginning, all broadcasters wanted low VHF. Late comer ABC had to “settle” for ch 7′s all over the country, and ABC turned out to be the runaway winner.
ch 7 ABC’s in Lawton, Salt Lake City, Denver, L A, NYC, Little Rock, Chicago, Boise, Seattle, et al have always been the best reception and far reaching in their markets.
Many UHF assignments were waived because broadcasters wanted the more desirable 7-13. KSWO in Lawton sought a new assigned ch 11 instead of their original ch 23 assignment.
Lawton KSWO sister KXXV in Waco now has syndicated “The Insider” and “Entertainment Tonight” in HD. Local news is still SD, but with HD promos and HD still pictures of the three anchors. I assume KSWO, being corporate to KXXV, has the same capability. Does anyone know? KXXV says more HD programming coming soon. I assume they’re talking local news.