'snl' Goes High-def

[Gregg Lengling]

"Saturday Night Live" is the latest NBC late-night show to undergo a high-definition revamp. Studio 8H, where the long-running sketch comedy show is filmed, will be completely refitted with high-definition equipment by next October.

"SNL" follows "Late Night with Conan O'Brien," which began

telecasting in HD format last night. For viewers who don't yet own a pricey high-definition television set, "Late Night" appears on standard televisions in wide-screen letterbox format just like some of the network's other popular series, including "ER" and "The West Wing."

"It's part of our commitment to our viewers to stay ahead and introduce new technologies," says NBC Universal's president of Technical Operations and Integration. "We believe the rate of change in the number of homes that have HD sets is going to just explode."

It is estimated that of the 105 million TV homes in the U.S., little more than 6 million have HDTV sets. But that number is expected to grow to around 16.2 million by 2008, according to the Consumer Electronics Association, an industry trade group.

All of the major networks offer the bulk of their prime-time programming in HDTV format, with the exception of reality shows like "Survivor" and "The Apprentice" — the editing process for these shows is too fast and intense for HD processing so far.

 

The growing popularity of HDTV is simple. The picture is wide, razor sharp and shaped like a movie screen. The signal is CD quality, five-channel surround sound and uses 10 times the number of pixels as the average TV viewing experience.

Meanwhile, CBS is planning to offer the "Late Show with David Letterman" in HD format in the near future. "It'll be sooner rather than later," says CBS executive vice president Martin Franks.

Sports, says Franks, has been the true catalyst for the new format.

"Two years ago, there was just one NFL on a Sunday in HD," he says. "Last fall, there were 11, and that may have been the tipping point for the technology, given the importance of the NFL to people's lives."

Every blade of grass on a football field or baseball diamond is visible in HDTV, and you can see the pores on a player's face and the texture of the uniform.