As rumored for well over a year, as hinted here more times than we can count…
Porcine creatures are officially airborne over Reserve Square, and the temperature in Hades is under 32 degrees and holding.
Raycom Media Cleveland CBS/MyNetworkTV combo WOIO/19-WUAB/43’s “19 Action News” is now broadcasting in HDTV format.
We don’t know when exactly it happened, but based on the flurry of E-Mail we received from our ever vigilant readers, “19 Action News HD” would appear to have debuted with the 6 PM(-ish) newscast Sunday evening on WOIO.
By the time we were able to check it out, we confirmed it – and that the 10 PM edition of “Action News” on WUAB/43 “My 43” was also in HD.
As far as we know, this makes Cleveland the only market in the nation with all four of its major full-market TV news operations in HD. (We’re not counting WKYC/3-Time Warner Cable’s “Akron/Canton News”, or WMFD/68 Mansfield’s “Newswatch”.)
First observations?
Of course, the studio video itself is in HD format, which is what you’d expect. We don’t know if they’ve an exterior camera up that can do any outside live shots as of yet.
(“Scorcher’s Cam”, anyone? They could string the cable up from downstairs…)
Other than Scripps ABC affiliate WEWS/5’s “NewsChannel 5”, which was supposed to start airing HD video out of recorded stories in the field starting this weekend, nearly all local news video outside the studio of each station is in some form of SD.
Exceptions, of course, are WJW/8 “FOX 8″‘s helicopter (“SkyFOX HD”), and WKYC/3’s HD cameras as part of the WKYC/STO arrangement at Jacobs Field.
WOIO appears to be shooting new field video in 16×9 SD format, as WKYC has been doing. Outside 4×3 video is NOT being stretched into 16×9 format.
“Action News” weather forecaster Jeff Tanchak is standing in front (virtually) of the same 4×3 SD graphics he’s been using, complete with the sidebars on the side.
We believe “FOX 8″‘s meteorologists had to do the same in the beginning of their HDTV newscast era.
Other than the addition of “HD” to some graphics, there were no other graphics or set changes that we can see.
By the way, clicking on any of the images will bring up a larger picture – about twice as large as the shots used here on the item itself.
And now, there’s no more non-HDTV news in Cleveland. Our long, regional nightmare is over…
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