Waiting for HD syndication on your local affiliates? CBS, Warner and Ascent Media can fix that
By Richard Lawler 
posted May 6th 2009 9:31PM
posted May 6th 2009 9:31PM
We've seen your complaints about many of the syndicated shows that have switched to HDTV broadcasts lately, wondering why they don't show up like that in your area. The fact is, many local affiliates can't / haven't spent the cash on equipment capable of handling all the syndicated programming out there in HD, but Ascent Media, Warner Bros. and CBS are creating a joint venture to fix that, ensuring their hard work creating all that HD (& HD ads, lets not forget) doesn't go to waste. We spoke to Senior VP of Ascent Media Rich Fickle and he broke down the plan where the joint venture will pay for and distribute the equipment to more than 800 affiliates (Which ones? Expect major network affiliates, top 100 markets and many others with a list out before the service launches) that will allow them to receive one MPEG-4 HDTV formatted copy via satellite -- instead of the dual SD and HD feeds distributed currently -- that can then be downconverted for SD broadcasts at their location as well as broadcast the way they were meant to be seen. The equipment will start shipping out in the coming months but it's likely the service will launch around the beginning of the fourth quarter of this year. Who's ready for some remastered Star Trek: TOS, Jeopardy & Seinfeld?
That is great news. This issue is the biggest hold back for networks and will solve alot of problems. By next year I would expect to see everything in HD, not that I watch stuff if it's not now!
Was Star Trek TNG shot in HD....lol
yes star trek every star trek was hd, because they were shot on film, now with those shows though to air in hd they need to redo as special fx because those were done on video and not film
Actually, "Enterprise" was the first Trek show to be filmed digitally in HD and has been broadcast that way. The article mentioned TOS - The Original Series, which of course has been remastered for HD already with new effects (the old effects in the 60s were also produced on film, they're just very primitive with things like a translucent Enterprise). I'm sure Paramount will eventually provide HD versions of Next Gen, DS9 and Voyager at some point but if they do have to re-do the effects they could be a long time coming, not to mention expensive.
Great! The more HD the better. Now if only our CBS affiliate would get with the times and start broadcasting ANYTHING in HD! I'm calling you out, KSWT!
The shows and makers of these programs just need to tell the station, upgrade to carry or it will go to a channel in your market that does have it in to place to broadcast in HD.
The Raleigh Fox affiliate shows Seinfeld reruns in HD already.
gamedude360, sorry dude. Only TOS and ENT are HD ready. The others were products of the '80s and '90s when editing on to video tape was acceptable. So while the raw live action was filmed in 35mm, the rest of the editing and effects were done onto video tape.
So I'm an idiot. I read your comment wrong you said basically the same thing I said :-/