(I'm told that pictures are a good idea, even if they don't seem to add much to the post itself. Here you go.)
I've noticed something different with CTV News lately. Maybe you have too.
Any reports from overseas - London, Afghanistan, Myanmar, wherever - but not from anywhere in North America, simply look different than they used to. In fact, they have for a few months now - I think it was back in February that I first noticed it.
I can't quite put my finger on exactly what is different about this footage. Upon noticing that people/things in the background seemed to be sharper than in the past, my first guess was that perhaps this footage was being shot in High Defintion - but now I'm not so sure about that. CTV News is not currently broadcast in an HD version; and more importantly, I cannot find any record of CTV announcing plans to air the news in HD in the near future. So why would they invest in HD equipment if they have no reason to?
A while later, I noticed that the audio wasn't always syncing up with the video 100%, there was often a noticeable split-second delay. Combine this with the fact that the video reminds me of something off Youtube (nothing in particular), and a new theory was born: perhaps CTV had just moved to a fully-digitalized method of shooting video and/or transmitting it overseas.
Part of this latest theory still seems plausible to me - perhaps CTV is exercising some budgetary belt-tightening, and video reports from overseas are now being compressed quite a bit before being sent to Toronto, losing some quality in the process.
I'm entirely willing to believe that this is wrong; anybody with a better theory, let's hear it.
--Ryan
No comments:
Post a Comment