“We’ve never been broadcasting in High Definition before, this is our first show ever, and we did research, did some focus groups and it turns out that 1 American in like 500,000 has high definition TV… so for you couple of folks watching tonight…”
Well Dave, I must be that one in my neighborhood and you guys did a fantastic job with your first HD show! CBS went with 1080i HD, rather than 720p. I personally prefer a progressive 720p rather than an interlaced 1080i, but can live with it. I took a few screen grabs this morning for anyone interested in seeing what they are missing with regular television. They were captured via Windows Media Center using the sophisticated “Print Screen” button, then pasted into Paint, and saved as PNG (lossless). I then brought them into Photoshop and cropped to their proper aspect ratio and saved as JPEG (100%). Check them out… you will be amazed at how much more detail and lifelike the HD grabs are compared to the SD ones.
A few more details about my setup… The SD version we are comparing to is from KIRO-TV, our Seattle CBS affiliate, the signal was pulled down via a Squareshooter HDTV antenna (100% signal strength). The SD content was broadcasted over HD, that’s why the SD content even looks this good — you won’t see any cable system noise in these SD grabs! The HD version is using the same setup, instead the content is sent down in pure OTA High Definition.
Enjoy!
– Screen Grab 1 — David Letterman SD/HD
– Screen Grab 2 — Paul Shaffer SD/HD
– Screen Grab 3 — Rupert Jee (via handheld camera) SD/HD