At WTHR Indianapolis, the switchover to HD news last November was an engineering version of hurry-up football: The NBC affiliate had only 70 days to start broadcasting in HD after owner Dispatch Broadcast Group made the call.

WTHR made the deadline, but only because it had been preparing for the transition since it installed a new set for news 10 years ago. And, over the past decade, each technical upgrade was made with the thought of one day originating HD programming.

In its highly-competitive market (DMA 25), the station's management felt making the move to HD was essential.

"We believe it's just smart business," says GM Rich Pegram. "You can only be the station that is first once, and we think there's a marketing and strategic advantage to doing so."

That move may have something to do with the fact that Indianapolis viewers seem to have embraced HD more than most other markets. Penetration of HD sets may be as high as 30%, according to one estimate from the station.

Its HD-savvy market notwithstanding, WTHR is not jumping in with both feet.

"It's definitely a phased-in process," Pegram says.

Phase one was the studio origination of HD in November. Phase two is getting news from the field in widescreen HD. That will come in the second quarter this year. Crews are still shooting news in SD 4:3, which the station is upconverting for air.

In-studio HD editing will follow sometime in 2008, Pegram says, adding that the station's coup de grace will be an HD helicopter camera in late 2008 or early 2009.

All of which means a fairly hefty price tag. Pegram says the studio cameras alone—three Ikegami HDK-790s and one jib camera—came to $1 million. Add in the switchers, audio board, lighting, graphic equipment and planned camcorders (20-26 of them, ultimately), and you can safely tack on another $2.5 million-$3 million.

But Pegram says the privately-owned company is able to handle the expense. Having no private stock and no debt means "more cash around for more things," he says.

The acquisition of HD-capable gear began in earnest about three years ago, according to Al Grossniklaus, the station's director of engineering. "The thing that made it all work was a lot of pre-planned and careful purchases," he says.

Those purchases began with a Sony MVS8000 switcher (upgradable to HD) along with HD/SD hybrid cards. Last year, the station added a Wheatstone D5.1 audio board capable of six channels of surround sound.

WTHR then added two Avid Deko 3000s and an Avid Deko 1000 titling and graphic character generators to the arsenal, also purchased as hybrids "with a short throw to upgrade them to HD," Grossniklaus says.

Add to the mix a smattering of HD Sony DXC390 POV cameras for the top of the news tower, the previously-mentioned Ikegamis, two Quantel hybrid graphic paint boxes and two hybrid Discreet non-linear editors for post-production.

Grossniklaus says the station's learning curve was shortened by fact-finding visits to several of the nation's few HD newsrooms, including WKYC and WJW in Cleveland and WRAL in Raleigh, N.C.

"We are really indebted to those folks," he says. "We could not have done it without their help."

The conversion has been proceeding with few hiccups so far, Grossniklaus says.

The station's relationships with at least a dozen vendors that facilitated the transition are largely good.

But Grossniklaus allows one caveat: "The biggest thing we found with our legacy HD equipment that we purchased over the last two to three years is that the vendors really underestimate the amount of processing power and memory that you need."

Working in both SD and HD has presented its own challenges. Grossniklaus says that the station needed to acquire an abundance of up-conversion and down-conversion equipment. "We needed that because we still had a lot of standard-definition things around the plant."

WTHR did get to save a bit in one area—the news set. While other stations have had to reach deeply into their pockets on that front, WTHR found that its 10-year-old set, which has gone through three separate face lifts over the years, was ready for its HD close-up. Well, almost. The station had to give it a $30,000-40,000 touch-up.

The costs, Pegram says, have been well worth it. He cites the Super Bowl, in which the home team Colts were triumphant, as an example of how HD can give a station a ratings boost.

Since the local CBS affiliate had the game itself, WTHR was coming into the 10 p.m. time slot with a 0.8 rating. But with the market's only HD post-game show, the station grabbed over a 16 point share by 10:45 p.m.

"We believe a large part of that was that people wanted to see the high-definition post-game," Pegram says.

Pegram is enthusiastic about the technology's aesthetics. "It's extraordinarily vibrant," he says. "The colors look richer. We think it looks terrific."

But he has a  word of caution for other broadcasters about a hidden cost. "We had to buy lint rollers for our anchors because you see everything."