The main event

Hard to believe given everything that is said about low engagement in elections and politics in general but CBS is gearing up for High-Definition (HD) not for a big reality final or sporting event but the conventions, as Frank Governale, vice president of operations for CBS News says

“The [political] conventions will be our first big event in HD and our new [HD] control room should be online by early June, then we’ll start doing some news in HD... Editing will be a challenge because of all the SD [4:3] source footage intercut with HD. Our Avids [Adrenaline Newscutters] output only one channel at a time, either HD or SD. For the HD newscast, all the SD footage will be upconverted and standards converted on the timeline. Our router outputs will all have upconvertors so that we can output everything in HD. The existing infrastructure for SD is huge, so we’ll start upgrading where and when it makes sense, but it’s going to take time for a complete HD roll out.”

Clearly they expect a lot of viewers who demand a perfect image of everything as it happens, is this due to interest in the campaign (perhaps an Obama effect) or that there is typically high interest in conventions