After being sick a week, I’m playing a bit of catch-up here, so I’m going to post this and five more posts in rapid succession today. I was reminded of this/last week’s whine last night while watching Wheel of Fortune. Regularly, on this and many other primetime television shows, I find myself annoyed by networks’ ability to have…

Inconsistent HD Switching

If a TV show is available in high definition, I watch it in HD. In fact, I try to avoid standard definition whenever possible. At least once a week, however, the choice between SD and HD is out of my control as a show that is supposed to be aired in HD is inexplicably broadcast in SD. Sometimes there will be a message scrolling across the bottom of the screen letting viewers know that there is some technical difficulty that is preventing the network from displaying the HD feed, and I can live with it in these situations. However, more often than not, it’s obvious that someone at the local network office has simply forgotten to flip the magic HD switch.

Last night’s episode of Wheel of Fortune was the one that I attended a SeaWorld Orlando taping of back in December. There, I had a chance to interview Pat Sajak and Vanna White and walk amongst the camera crew for the duration of the taping. I had a wonderful time at the taping and really looked forward to seeing the final product on TV. Unfortunately, WFTV, the local ABC affiliate, forgot to flip the HD switch last night, even after Jeopardy was shown in HD. It left viewers like me stuck with watching the SD feed instead. It even said that the show was in HD at the beginning of the show, despite the truth. Very frustrating. 

Even more annoying are times when part of a show is broadcast in HD, it goes to commercial, and then returns in SD, only to flip-flop between SD and HD throughout.

Some day, all programming (including commercials) will be in HD and this won’t be a problem anymore. But until then, if anyone out there works for a television station, can you please stop forgetting to flip the HD switch?