National Geographic grabs up more HD content
By Steven Kim 
posted Sep 23rd 2007 9:47AM
posted Sep 23rd 2007 9:47AM
National Geographic's Digital Motion unit, which is essentially the digital media distribution arm of National Geographic, has just given its HD materials a boost of more than 170 hours of content. The bump comes from a combination of acquisition and licensing deals. Amongst the HD footage are: sky footage from Bernd Pröschol; 70 hours of underwater footage from Pawel Achtel; 12 hours taken from "more than 10,0000 scenes around the world" from BlackLight Films; more than 60 hours of natural vistas and time-lapse images from Glusic; and 13 hours of nature and cultural film from J Michael Media. No word on when we can expect to see the new goodies showing up in National Geographic content, though.
Nice to hear - Natl. Geographic has been the most disappointing HD channel in my HD lineup in terms of content. Most of it looks like badly upconverted SD.
How much of that is actual finished media? When I read "footage", I understand it as raw material that needs to be cut down and assembled to be made into a show. Ten hours of footage might make an hour's worth of a documentary, or even less. In one extreme case, I've heard of an hour documentary coming out of 160 hours of footage.
To bad there HD DVD's don't play in the 360 HD dirve. That's a large market to exclude.
Too bad there HD DVD's don't work in the 360 HD Drive. That is a large market to exclude.