Where Are All the HD Broadcast Spots?

Feature: Page (1) of 2 - 04/28/06

Where Are All the HD Broadcast Spots? Post houses say they're in the pipeline, and an onslaught is inevitable By Frank Moldstad

To eager new HDTV owners, even a commercial is exciting in Hi Def. But so far, these moments are sporadic, except for bursts on special-event programming such as the Super Bowl or the Olympics.

Nevertheless, a growing number of commercials is being posted in HD these days, whether or not they actually air in hi def on broadcast television. Executives at leading post production houses are sold on the HD workflow and the flexibility it gives clients for any resolution they should need. In this transition period, most post houses give their clients two copies of an HD-mastered spot -- one on DigiBeta in standard definition and another in HD D5.

Michael Cioni
So where are the HD spots ending up? Some are going to broadcast, but a major venue right now is theatrical exhibition. Movie theaters have no technological issues with showing commercials in their full high definition glory, and there?s just no comparison between an uprezzed SD spot on the silver screen and a native HD spot. But, after premiering theatrically in HD, many of these commercials still appear in standard def on broadcast.

The reasons why there aren?t more on-air HD commercials are many and varied. For one, there?s the FCC?s repeated deadline extensions for all-digital broadcasts (currently, Feb. 17, 2009 is the analog shutoff date). While big-city stations are upgrading now, those in smaller markets are waiting until the last possible minute, says Michael Cioni, director of post production at Plaster City Digital Post in Los Angeles, which has a unique Final Cut Pro to film HD pipeline. ?Little TV stations don?t have a lot of money to upgrade to digital. I think this has a lot to do with HD?s saturation. They?re just going to skip directly from Beta SP to HDCam. They?re not going to settle for DigiBeta, because it?s already outdated. They?ll run those SP decks until they catch on fire.?

Other factors include a lack of HD programming, hesitancy among agencies about perceived higher costs, and low client demand.

But momentum is building toward the inevitable. At Milagro Post in Detroit, a Quantel-based HD facility which does a large volume of automotive commercials, co-founder Michael Suggs says he fully expects that by next year, things will be much different for over-the-air HD commercials. ?It seems to be on a logarithmic curve,? he says. ?And I think what?s really going to drive that demand is more and more HD programming. That?s really going to drive what our clients do.?

Michael Moncreiff
One big incentive will be when broadcasters start requiring HD deliverables, notes Joe Bottazzi, co-founder and vice president of engineering at Nice Shoes in New York City, which has been HD-capable since 2000, and recently purchased new Grass Valley Spirit 2K DataCine and Specter 2K telecine systems. Bottazzi sees encouraging signs, such as ESPN?s recent decision not to accept HD commercials in anything other than D5 by summertime. (SD spots will played back as 16x9 from ESPN's server.)

?When the rest of the stations come in line with that, when they start to demand that, then there?s no choice,? Bottazzi says. ?The advertising agencies are going to have to do it whether they like it or not, because that?s what the broadcaster wants, and that?s the ticket. Saying no to your broadcaster is like saying no to your client, you know??

Advertising agencies seem open to the idea of creating and finishing their spots in HD, especially since the increasing affordability of the high-def pipeline helps cover their bases, says Michael Moncreiff, producer at Post Logic?s Hollywood facility. With offices in New York and LA, Post Logic does a high volume of film and television work in addition to commercials. Film transfers are handled with a Spirit and sent to a Discreet Inferno or a Quantel iQ, with Baselight and Da Vinci 2K for color correction.

Joe Bottazzi
?A lot of times what happens with commercials is, they?ll post them, they have a great run on TV and they become kind of a hit in the commercial world,? Moncreiff says. ?Then they want to go theatrical. If you?ve got a standard def start, your theatrical release isn?t that great. So if you?re thinking ahead, you?re prepared for anything that can be thrown at you.?

But agencies also need education to get up to speed on the new technologies. ?They?re not going to go out and push it, because they don?t know, and if they don?t know, they?re afraid,? says Joe Bottazzi at Nice Shoes. In an effort to overcome the fear factor, Nice Shoes periodically holds half-day seminars for agencies, presented in layman?s terms.

?We go out there with an HDTV, and we even take an HD deck with some tapes made from an HD TiVo of actual commercials on TV,? Bottazzi says. ?We show what it looks like when it?s SD uprezzed, when it?s a bad uprez, when it?s a good uprez, and when it?s native HD. And the results are very interesting. People just don?t know, and the thing that surprises me the most is when you go to any agency, maybe two people out of the group have an HDTV and the rest of them are all looking at 36-inch -- or whatever -- 4x3 screens.?

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