[Lindsay649]

Looking foward to the news in HD. Have started watching the 5:30 newscast and like the way the material is handled. No dumbing down of the news such as CTV is now doing.......leading off with entertainment tonight stories for example. So far Global has stayed away from gearing its news to the lowest common denominator....the pre-teen and teenie market.

 

[jakethesnail]

Global News In HD?

Well, the end of August has come and gone, so I emailed Global EDMONTON on when Global will convert National and Local news to HD. They want to do it simultaneously across Canada so they may not be all ready to go or they are waiting until the launch of Fall programming!

RESPONSE:

We don’t have a particular date as of yet, but please keep watching. We are very excited about our HD and I am sure that we will launch with much fanfare.


Thanks for your inquiry.

 

[downbeat]

@jakethesnail: Please see Post #18 in this thread

 

[MAXAM]

I wonder what they are going to do with the three very expensive robot studio cameras that they purchased just a few years ago? Apparently, one person in the control booth can operate them by just using a joystick thereby eliminating the camera operators. I guess the new HD cameras will be controlled the same way.
Thanks tvguycanada for posting the link re:Global BC's new HD set! Wow,the actual HD camera is really small and is dwarfed by the built-in teleprompter housing.

 

[tvguycanada]

Yep...Global National, as well as local news in Calgary, Edmonton, Toronto and of course Vancouver are all launching in HD on Sept. 20 with an updated graphics pack as well. Look on Global National's Facebook page and you'll find a video with Dawna Friesen giving you a tour of the new set.

Correction: According to this video, only Global National is going HD on the 20th, with the Global BC going in HD on the 27th. However, I'm not too sure whether or not Calgary, Edmonton and Toronto are still going HD tomorrow, but I'd think that Global would roll out the HD newscasts in those cities all on the same day, so my guess is that Global Calgary, Edmonton and Toronto are all going HD along with Global BC on the 27th.

 

[Random Dude]

New Graphics but didn't look HD to me. What did everyone else think? Also Global Toronto local news wasn't in HD. Supposedly Global BC news will be HD tonight, but we'll have to see what happens... the guide (which probably wasn't updated) didn't have anything listed as HD.

 

[s40]

Global News BC as well as Global National were in "HD" here in BC. I didn't think the picture looked very sharp though, and any away from the studio stuff had the black bars.

 

[Random Dude]

^^ Ah so it wasn't just me. I tuned into the BC news hour a couple of times for a few seconds during the ad breaks for "The Event" and I thought the picture wasn't very sharp looking either. Perhaps (hopefully?) this will change once they work out a few kinks...

 

[trekkie604]

Global BC is still using the fake newsroom background behind the anchor, and the same tiny desk from the temp studio. It looks so fake and unnatural. I'll be sticking with ctvbc for news.

Edit. Nevermind, according to wesla the local news will still be operating out of the temp studio until the 27th

 

[downbeat]

Global Calgary was stillin SD in their temporary set when I checked at then end of News Hour Final.

 

[JamesK]

I didn't think the picture looked very sharp though

I've often noticed the same on the CBC and CITY. I suspect there are a lot of SD cameras still out there. On the CBC they appear to still use SD in the studio when the weather guy is on.

 

[ghostrider06]

@trekkie604: Most people don't decide which newscast to watch based on the sets background...Also CTV tries to use a natural Vancouver background and IMO does not look very nice because there is nothing to look at... Not sure about you but I choose quality of content which is why I tune into Global for my news. There is a reason why Global BC owns the BC news market.

According to reports fields cameras will go HD in the next few months...

 

[JamesK]

^^^^
You choose according to which has the cutest anchor. ;-)

Actually, some news seems to be better in certain areas than others. CITY has good Toronto area coverage, but lots of fluff. CBC has better national coverage, but not so good local. I haven't made a habit of watching CTV or Global news for years and CNN lost me when they brought in fluff such as the "Situation Room", where looking "cool" became more important than content. I often watch CP24 news, while getting dressed in the morning (if only they'd get rid of that "Breakfast TV" nonsense). Sometimes they also have too much fluff (Please get rid of that George Lagogianes. Even when he does real news, he's full of hot air.)

 

[CHrisCHu]

Had a quick peek at Global BC News today. Newsroom not ready is one thing, but lack of HD field cameras means it's not ready enough for me to consider switching yet.

 

[ShawViewer]

They really slipped up on this one. Clearly they weren't 100% ready to go on September 20th and just went ahead with the HD broadcast anyway.
Live hits and ENG stories were all 4x3.

 

[faston]

Took me about 1 minute to see that it's not ready for primetime (everything other than graphics package and studio cameras in SD) and switch back over to CTV.

Pretty pathetic 'HD' launch.

 

[Random Dude]

Just chatted with one of the Global Toronto anchors (Leslie Roberts) and he informed me that Global Toronto is going HD after the thanksgiving holiday.

 

[ShawViewer]

if CHAN needed more time to complete the upgrades they probably could've postponed the 'full' launch instead of going partially HD. They are held to a high standard when they are the number one news organization in the province, and this was a big slip on their end. Something tells me they only wanted to get "The Dawna Friesen Show" in HD for September 20th, in their largest markets. Local news maybe was not so key to the 9/20 launch day.

 

[downbeat]

Actually, not even all their graphics look HD.
That said, compare Global National with their competitors.
On CTV National News, all the graphics are in HD, but for video only material from Toronto and Vancouver are 16:9 HD. Everything else is 4:3 SD with the graphical bars to fill out the screen.
For CBC's The National, it's the same, except they are doing 16:9 SD for everything outside of Toronto.
So really, Global National isn't that far behind.

 

[j0dest3r]

They keep saying soon on the newscasts. I'm getting a little tired of it. Global National looks not too bad, not a whole lot different than the others.