HDTV: A LATTER-DAY CHRISTMAS MIRACLE

As a business trade reporter, you don’t get to witness many significant events on the beat. In my case, there have been a few, most notably the launch of the Cable New Network in Atlanta on June 1, 1980, with Ted Turner presiding and a marching band playing.

Another came just a half a year later. In February 1981, CBS’s Joe Flaherty organized the first U.S. demonstration of NHK’s prototype HDTV system at the SMPTE winter conference in SanFrancisco. I wrote about it for Broadcasting, quoting Francis Ford Coppola who declared that it was the future of cinema.

I suppose I recognized at the time that it would be awhile before HDTV came to my living room. Nearly 26 years later, it finally did.

Over the holidays, Best Buy delivered a Samsung 720P 50-inch DLP set that my daughter and I easily set up and then hooked up to a DVR-equipped cable box with the help of a Cablevision CSR.

HDTV was worth the wait. It truly is the second coming of TV. (Okay, the third. The second was color, but that transition happened when I was a teenager and not paying much attention.)

We’ve had the set now for a couple of weeks, but I’m still enthralled. As others have said, you will watch programs in HD just because they are HD.

Before the novelty wears off, I would like to offer some observations about the new medium.

HDTV is not that expensive. With the Samsung 720P DLP, I think we get about as much resolution as our cable can deliver for $900. Adjusting for inflation, that’s actually less than the $500 ($1,011 in 2008 dollars) I paid for our first VCR in 1984 or the $600 ($1,150 in 2008 dollars) I spent for a top-of-the-line Mitsubishi 26-inch color TV in 1986.

Old movies are new again. I had never seen the Wizard of Oz on the big screen until the first night with the Samsung. Somehow, all the detail didn’t destroy the illusion of Oz; it enhanced it.

Same with It’s a Wonderful Life and A Christmas Story. I look forward to revisiting other favorite films to see what I’ve been missing, particularly in such epics as the The Godfather, Patton and Spartacus.

Cable cheats on the bits. I’m no expert, but I would say Cablevision is short-changing TNT and TBS on resolution. Their movies do not look anywhere near as good as they do on HBO or the primetime shows do the broadcast network. Turner may want to talk to Cablevision.

The HD commercials have tremendous impact. The Geico Gecko is even more charming (why does he have an East London accent?) and the car commercials are irresistible. You can now read all the fine print in the car lease ads—-if you can read 500 words in 1.3 seconds.

SD commercials look really cheesy. Sorry, I’m not going to buy a fuzzy Honda, when I can get a crisp, shiny Mazda. I’m just not.

Football is a whole new ballgame. You can make out what each of the linemen is doing—who’s blocking (or not blocking) whom. Now that they can be recognized as actual individuals, I expect them to up their salary demands.

Given all the detail, I don’t see why directors don’t provide longer shots on some of the likely pass plays so we can see them unfold in the defensive backfield. That’s where the action is. That’s how I watch the games when I’m in the stadium.

Of course, Washington beating Dallas looks good even on the radio.

TV stations can’t wait for the old gear to wear our before they go to HD news. I cannot imagine watching any local newscast in SD if an HD newscast were available. Broadcasters tell me that they don’t seem to get much of a ratings lift from HD. It can only be because HD reception in their markets hasn’t hit a critical mass yet.

SD and HD don’t mix. Most HD news stations, including the ones here in New York, still shoot SD in the field and weave it in with the studio HD. I understand the economic and technical reason for it, but, boy, it is disconcerting to be toggled back and forth between the two. And the best video—the most dramatic images—are in the field.

They can now allow Life magazine to rest in peace. There’s no need to bring it back ever again. Growing up, I saw a lot of things on TV. But I don’t think that I really saw them until I studied them on the big pages of Life. So much of the story could be told in just one of two clear, well-composed pictures. HD has the same power, if producers would just hold shots longer than two or three seconds.

Graphics become TV’s third dimension. They were there in SD, but as a kind of a bit player behind sight and sound. Now, they often leap to the forefront. ESPN uses graphics brilliantly to present scores and stats. I suspect local newscasts will too, once they know that most of their audience has upgraded to HD and can handle them.

What’s with Cablevision’s HD programming? I’m no cable basher. And I don't hold it against Cablevision that Jimmy Dolan has destroyed the Knicks. But I’ve got to say that its 44-channel HD lineup is something of a fraud. It’s filled out with a bunch of worthless, generic channels like WorldSport HD, Family Room HD and Monsters HD.

If Cablevision dumped some of these channels and added Discovery HD and HDNet, I’d be a completely happy subscriber and would maybe even pay my cable bill on time for once.

The Honeymooners holds up in HD. One of great delights of my early HD viewing came on New Years Day when I watched a few episodes of Jackie Gleason’s classic sitcom during WPIX’s Honeymooners marathon. They looked great. It turns out they were among 39 episodes filmed during the 1955-56 season using DuMont’s Electronicam T-V Film System.

I managed to capture a couple of my all-time favorite episodes on the DVR, including the one about Ralph's ill-fated infomercial venture. (“Ohhhhh. I am the chef of the future. I have heard your wish and come here to answer it.”)

So, I’m sold on HDTV. The only question is can I last another 26 years for Ultra HDTV.