Chronicle Goes HD

[Chris Beveridge]

Tonight was the kickoff night for a show called Chronicle here in New England to go HD. Chronicle is a nightly show on the local ABC affiliate, Channel 5, and has been running for over twenty years now. The show is basically all sorts of stories to "chronicle" what New England is like, from its people to its locales. Since 1999, they've produced 40 shows in HD using every new HD camera as it came out. Their first show was likely seen by almost no one back in 1999 because the penetration of HD sets was so small.

Tonight's episode was all about their shift to HD while showing off a lot of gorgeous pieces of imagery. It's a purely educational show, one that shows the staffs complete enthusiasm about going HD, while also reassuring non HD viewers that their experience won't change much. It was an illuminating episode as they showed some of how the insides of the studio had to change as well as some of the challenges of shooting; one of the early cameras that they were waiting to use wasn't available for a particular show because it was still on the space shuttle.

What amused me greatly is that they provided a look at the camera they are now using. The obvious angle was saying, "We don't use tape anymore" and they pop it open and I was honestly expecting a mini hard drive of some sort.

Nope.

it was a blu-ray cartridge disc. Designed for exterior use and recording so it needed a caddy obviously and it's a non-issue for that particular market. But suddenly tonight, thousands of local viewers learned that the gorgeous visuals they're seeing on Chronicle were recorded on blu-ray discs.

Very amusing.