High-definition television shows everything — from the tiniest birds in the sky to the tiniest blemishes on your face. From Al Thompkins of Poynter Online comes this word of makeup specifically designed for the HDTV world.

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	Email this	Posted at 11:10 am (23 Apr 2008)

As of this morning, CBC is broadcasting all its French and English news and current affairs programming in the 16:9 widescreen aspect radio.

The move means that every viewer with HDTV through Bell ExpressVu, Starchoice, other various cable suppliers (or off-air in Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, Quebec City and Vancouver) will be able to see widescreen programming without the distraction or interruption of segments formatted for standard definition (SD) 4:3 screen size.

The switchover will not affect SD viewers (i.e. regular TV sets).

About three million Canadians currently have widescreen sets, and that number is growing rapidly.

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	Email this	Posted at 8:48 am (11 Sep 2007)

So this morning, I was poking around the CBC web site, punching in random URLs like cbc.ca/beta and cbc.ca/admin trying to find something to fool around with. (Several years ago, for a piece I produced for DNTO, I asked a white-hat hacker to try to break into the CBC’s web site. He found it in less than an hour. Username: remote, Password: control. Nice.) I digress.

Anyway, poking around putting random URLs in, I found cbc.ca/hdtv - a nice little site detailing CBC Television’s movement to high-definition.

CBC’s High Definition Schedule

Turns out, we publish a weekly PDF schedule of our high-definition offerings [this week’s HDTV schedule pdf].

That’s this week, to the right. Shows in orange are available in high-definition. Shows in blue are in standard-def, but widescreen.

Not many shows, sadly.

What We Broadcast in HD Now

I asked around internally to find out more about what we offer in high-definition and here’s the current state-of-the-HD-nation at the CBC (news and current affairs programming only; I still haven’t heard back from other divisions):

1. The Nature of Things: In HD now
2. the fifth estate: Moving to HD with the next season
3. CBC News: The National: Studio shots (with Peter) are in HD; news footage is not
4. Documentaries: Some documentaries are in HD now.

Here’s a scoop: An inside source tells me all News/Current Affairs (in both French and English) switches to 16:9 format in September. (That’s 16:9, but not necessarily high-definition.)

So for those viewers who are watching on SD (standard definition — read: normal TVs), an adjustment has to be made. Here’s how the different media lines plan to handle it:

• French TV: Letterboxing (black bars on top and bottom)
• English TV: Centre-Cut (extreme left/right edges of 16:9 signal will be cut off)

What do you think? Is HD a big deal for you?

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	Email this	Posted at 2:26 pm (13 Aug 2007)

For the first time this Saturday, Canadian hockey fans will be able to see both games of CBC’S Hockey Night in Canada Saturday night doubleheader in High-Definition (HD), with the launch of Encore - CBC’s second HD mobile production truck. CBC’S Hockey Night in Canada will double its HD broadcast schedule for the remainder of the 2006/07 regular season as well as for the 2007 Stanley Cup Playoffs.

Encore joins Hockey Night in Canada’s first HD mobile production truck, Premiere, and will be based in Toronto to handle the eastern broadcasts. Premiere will be based in Calgary to produce the western broadcasts.

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	Email this	Posted at 11:42 am (30 Mar 2007)

This is a little old-news, but just catching up… CBC/Radio-Canada president Robert Rabinovitch has told the CRTC that the broadcast industry “does not have the financial wherewithal” to fund the transition from the nation’s analog transmission infrastructure to one suited to over-the-air delivery of digital HD in a “timely and effective manner.”
     Rabinovitch said it would take “another 12 years to achieve full digital/HD conversion of our English and French TV services” based upon ad revenue projections from PricewaterhouseCooper.
     The CBC chief told regulators that no one questions whether conventional broadcasters should keep pace with developments in digital communications. The questions that must be answered are “how best to do this, how it is to be funded and how quickly” conventional broadcasters should make the digital transition, he said.

Broadcast Engineering

Okay, so… I know you want HDTV if you own a HD TV and receiver. But what’s your call: Should HDTV be higher up on the priority scale? Remember, CBC has limited dollars to spend. How important is HDTV, really.

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	Email this	Posted at 8:01 pm (05 Dec 2006)