The following has been issued by KGW...

"KGW TO HOLD HISTORIC PRESS CONFERENCE TUESDAY, DECEMBER 4 2007"

"KGW Northwest NewsChannel 8 announces its first press conference in nearly three decades. A demonstration will be presented by KGW president & general manager DJ Wilson and key members of the KGW management team."

WHEN: Tuesday, December 4, 2007
10am
WHERE: KGW Studios
1501 SW Jefferson Street
Portland OR 97201
WHAT: Announcement of a hostoric addition to KGW's news gathering operation

"The event is expected to last about an hour."

I spoke with Brenda Buratti, Director of Creative Services and Programming. She did a terrific job NOT spilling the beans or giving me the slightest hint what this is about. She DID say that it's the 3rd most important thing that's ever happened at KGW. #1: Sign on #2: Switching to color. #3: what COULD it be??

Local newscasts in high def...?

..A new studio ala KIRO and their ill fated, "Outside the Box" circa 1997?

Here it is:

“We’re in the process of purchasing Panasonic [AG-HPX500 HD] P2 camcorders with Apple Final Cut Pro laptops that have a P2 interface for editing,” Elser said. “Our field editors will be able to take their P2 card out of the camera, stick it into a slot on the laptop, and edit away. They can also bring it back to the station and ingest the data directly into an Avid, or relay it back via microwave directly into our Avid.”

Read the story here, it mentions Belo stations:

http://www.tvtechnology.com/pages/s.0082/t.7132.html

I am surprised they havent gone to this technology sooner. Its been around in large part for about 3 years or so. Its just the usual lag in technology and 'custom'. The sorry thing about all this is that somebody probably looses their job. The upside is the timely actuality of it all. And the 21st century marches on....

It also gives the rest of the world a chance to find and work all the bugs out of new gear, and also bring the price down a bit. That can be a bit costly for early adopters.

When I worked in the building, KNIX never was first with the "new" widget. Yet I was surrounded with all sorts of state-of-the-art goodies. As a Gear Geek, I was in heaven! Other stations got the bugs out before we brought them in our building.

Channel 8 will likely be another such beneficiary...

They're running promos about their HD newscasts today.

Wow...they ARE late adopters! Well, it DOES cost a bucketload of bucks to start it up.

We have four of five local TV news channels promoting HD here in Phoenix... The lagging one is Meredith's CBS 5 (KPHO), but they've come a long way in upgrading their station's news product over the past four years.

In addition to KGW-TV, Belo owns independent KTVK 3TV down here. 3TV made the HD news switch about six months ago, and if looks are anything, 8 will look pretty darned cool!

And I don't even own an HDTV yet!

Darn, I thought maybe they were going to buy a radio station and make it 24 hour news.

"8 will look pretty darned cool!"

Contents will remain the same though. Not much of an achievement. Kudos though to KGW for using tripods on live shots. I keep hoping the KPTV camera guys drop their cameras.

Preferably into a flooded leaf-plugged storm drain or onto the giant 2-inch snowdrift on the treacherous Sylvan overpass.

Or maybe just tripping on the curb in the dark in front of the latest live shots at the closed business or dark empty courthouse/shooting scene/Max stop/jail/meth house

Now there's a ""First-Live-Local" Ooopsie for ya!

I was hoping it would be to air the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer an hour earlier at 6.

Darn, I was hoping for a 3 stooges marathon. Or maybe a John Wayne movie every night.

Is it true that NO ONE broadcasts in 1080p? That the highest that any goes is 1080i?

I am looking at a new tv and the salesman told me that no one anywhere does 1080p except Bluray and hidef dvd players and xbox 360 player. He said that 1080p probably won't be out until 2010 or so.
Anyone heard?

Maybe those old monster movies like they used to air late night....Godzilla vs Mothra! Oh No Tokyo Godzilla.

Dodger:

Correct. There is currently no plans for broadcast television to make the jump to 1080p. Primarily this is a bandwidth issue as they only have about 19 mbps to use and this is only really adequate up to 1080i.

Most televisions this latest model year all support 1080p and the only 1080i televisions left are closeouts and clearances from the previous model year.

So, with that being the case, unless one has a bluray, there is no reason to pay for 1080p right?
I just don't want to spend what might not be needed.

Don't play any video games either? A lot more are 1080p now... Also don't forget about HD-DVD :-)

Honestly, the difference between 720p and 1080p is minimal unless your getting a screen larger than 50".

no video games, and I don't think the difference between my 1080i upconverter dvd player and the hd or bluray is that much different.
They look pretty close, close enough for me.
So really they are selling us down the river.
LOL