This week’s History Channel series “WWII in HD” offers mezmerizing color HD footage from World War II, most of which has never been seen in color, let alone HD.
It’s incredible how the color and vivid images suddenly make that war seem so much more real and contemporary as opposed to some old battle from an other time when the world was fuzzy and in black-and-white.
Equally visually eye-catching in a different way is the lack of HD on so many channels and programs, including the NASA channel, shows like “The Colbert Report” and “The Daily Show,” and the ongoing lack of the HD feed of local PBS stations on the DISH Network satellite system which appears will not change until 2013. I’ll address the latter issue further down.
Stephen Colbert made a reference on his Monday show to being in process of building a new HD set for his program on Comedy Central. While the network is available in HD, shows such as “The Colbert Report” and “The Daily Show” are mystifyingly not shot in HD as yet.
A spokesman for Comedy Central, senior vp Steve Albani, confirmed the “truthiness” of Colbert’s comment for HollywoodInHiDef.com. Both “The Colbert Report” and “The Daily Show” are gearing up for HD broadcasts in 2010. They will be the final two original shows on the network to go HD, following “South Park,” ” The Sarah Silverman Program,” “Important Things with Demetri Martin,” “Tosh.0,” “The Jeff Dunham Show,” “Michael & Michael Have Issues,” and the original stand-up comedy programs. Any new series will also be in HD.
Meanwhile, the launch of the space shuttle Atlantis Monday looked spectacular on the ABC HD channel I was watching until the network had to switch from its own camera feed to that of the NASA channel, which was not in HD. Suddenly the spectacular images became murky and much narrower until ABC cut back to its own vivid, widescreen cameras again. The contrast was striking and quite disappointing.
It’s not clear how much, if any, of NASA’s programming is available to carriers in HD — I’m awaiting a response from the network — but the shuttle launch must not have been in HD or I would assume that ABC would have picked up that feed. Spokesmen from DirecTV and DISH Network told me they have no plans at present to make any HD upgrade to the NASA channel.
Finally, although most cable systems and DirecTV offer the local PBS affiliates in HD, the DISH network does not, which is immensely disappointing to subscribers in general but particularly when a series like the recent Ken Burns documentary “National Parks” is broadcast featuring stunning new and archival shots of nature and landmarks in HD.
DISH Network subscribers will be chagrined to learn that the satellite service, which has no official comment on the matter, recently sent a letter to Congress (below) stressing that the company does not have the satellite capacity and will not be able to meet any accelerated deadlines to offer PBS stations in HD prior to the previously-mandated deadline of February 2013.
For a company that brags in ads that it carries more HD channels than their competitors, this is one big hole in their HD line-up.
