Lost Finale NOT Going to be in HD?

[Doug Mohr]

Information today was released at 5:54pm from NOAA. It was not shown on any channels then or during their entire news broadcast at 6pm, Jeopardy, etc. up through primetime programming. Primetime starts and suddenly no HD movie of the week on WISN and we've got weather garbage throughout.

You make an excellent point. It appears to me that the public responsibility is not treated as a responsibility but rather a marketing tool to promote themselves during prime time.

For instance, the Lost episode that started this thread had several commercials for the Channel 12 10PM news featuring something like "Will there be severe weather tonight? I'll tell you at tonight at 10."

Why couldn't they do a 15 or 30 second live weather update during that time? Give us full details of the current weather status so then you only need the logo during the show (and commercials, BTW), not a full marketing campaign shrinking down the programming. Replacing their own ad with a current weather report won't lose any ad revenue and will go a long way towards keeping the audience informed without driving them away.

Off topic, what I really hate is the way WTMJ will return from the commercial in SD so they can put the "You're watching WTMJ" banner and then make us suffer through the audio pop when the switch back to HD. Like I don't know I'm watching WTMJ. I can't get any other NBC affiliate in my area.  :bang:

Doug

[kjnorman]

Our family was also annoyed at losing the 3/4 of Lost to SD due to the weather warnings.

What I would like to know or see, and I do not know if this is technically feasible, is for the digital stations to have a sub channel for emergancy announcements.

Now I know that 4, has a dedicated weather channel on 4-2 that has a lot of people up in arms about starving bits away from their HD feed, but what if channels like 12 keep a channel like 12-2 online, but for the majority of the time they give it no "bits" (ie it is just a blank picture).  Then during a emergency - amber alert, weather warning etc, they can run a scrol at the bottom of their 12-1 HD feed, stating "WARNING: Severe Thunderstorm Warning for counties x,y,z.   Tune to 12-2 for details...."

Then on 12-2, which is now reallocating bits from 12-1 to make space for it, they could show a reduced quality version of the SD feed windowed with all the weather/radar/alert information they want.  That way viewers can still see the show and weather if they want, or stick to 12-1 and have a good HD picture and risk being sucked into a tornado.  Their choice!

Now I realize that this may reduce the picture quality of the 12-1 HD feed as bits are going to 12-2 but overall I would think that this is a fair trade off and would be a better compromise that what we have today.   As for the station's concern that they could lose ratings by directing viewers to their emergency channel, then Neilsen should add the ratings of both 12-1 and 12-2 together for 12-1.  Problem solved.

Anyway these are my ramblings and thoughts.  The digital platform offers a lot of scope in the way things can be run in the future.  Unfortunately at the moment, most are still be run as digital versions of the analog channels.  

Other possibilities would be technology built into the TVs themselves, to generate, say a, Java overlay on the TV image.  The overlay being constructed by metadata, bit information, sent in digital stream that is not normally shown.  On any new alert, the TV automatically pops up the warning, graphics etc, and the user can clear the information with a push of the button on the remote, or push other buttons to get further information.  The British digital TV platform has had these types of interactive information of 5+ years now.  Why can't the US get out of their analog mindset?

Kerry.

[Joseph S]

Right now there is an actual thunderstorm and warnings in effect. There's nothing on WISN. I don't think there's a point in having them for thunderstorms, but what's the policy? It's enough to interupt Lost when there's only a warning, but no storm. Here we have a storm and warnings and nothing.

[Doug Mohr]

Right now there is an actual thunderstorm and warnings in effect. There's nothing on WISN. I don't think there's a point in having them for thunderstorms, but what's the policy? It's enough to interupt Lost when there's only a warning, but no storm. Here we have a storm and warnings and nothing.

Simple. Its not prime time.

[oz]

I saw an Amber alert the other evening pop up in the info bar on TWC.  I would LOVE for weather warnings to be broadcast that way.  

It lets the viewer press EXIT to remove the warning bar and continue watching the show.

[gb4fan92]

I saw an Amber alert the other evening pop up in the info bar on TWC.  I would LOVE for weather warnings to be broadcast that way.  

It lets the viewer press EXIT to remove the warning bar and continue watching the show.

I agree! This would benefit everyone. You would be informed about a weather situation and if you choose to continue to follow it you could. If not, turn it off! What a great solution! Now how to we get the TV stations to implement it??  :cool:  :cool:

[Joseph S]

Wake me when the damn sirens actually go off. Yet another night of ruined local TV.

It's a f'n embarassment that WB and UPN have more advanced weather notification than NBC, CBS, and ABC.

[Milwaukee12]

Then you apparently weren't paying attention to what was happening to the northwest of us.  I was glued to my scanner hearing reports of tornadoes in Colombus with the storms moving into the viewing area.

This time I applaud them.  This could have been a very dangerous situation were it not for the lake and the sun dissapearing.

[Joseph S]

If there was a tornado bowling me over I still wouldn't applaud them. They cry wolf all the time and many of us are sick of it especially since they cry wolf during primetime exclusively.

WB and UPN kept HD going and still provided the updates. Thumbs up to them. Thumbs down to the frauds at the other affiliates.

[Milwaukee12]

I guess I watch too much satelite to care what's on network tv.

[Milwaukee12]

I don't know if I am offending or rude to anyone.  I don't mean to be.

[Absopo]

What's weird about this whole thing is, most of this "severe weather" is almost always well outside of Milwaukee. By the time it reaches the city or even Milwaukee County the storms are usually nothing major. So viewers in the city where the population is highest end up with ruined programming, so they can warn far fewer viewers out in the sticks? That seems kind of like a bad business move.

[Jimboy]

What's weird about this whole thing is, most of this "severe weather" is almost always well outside of Milwaukee. By the time it reaches the city or even Milwaukee County the storms are usually nothing major. So viewers in the city where the population is highest end up with ruined programming, so they can warn far fewer viewers out in the sticks? That seems kind of like a bad business move.

Stations provide a public service to the entire viewing area. The viewing "area" consists of ten counties. Milwaukee is just one of them.
There isn't a way in the ATSC or EAS standard to isolate "viewing areas" from seeing the alerts but there is a section in the standard that can reduce the strength of a storm before it reaches high population areas.   :rolleyes:

[Absopo]

Stations provide a public service to the entire viewing area. The viewing "area" consists of ten counties. Milwaukee is just one of them.
There isn't a way in the ATSC or EAS standard to isolate "viewing areas" from seeing the alerts but there is a section in the standard that can reduce the strength of a storm before it reaches high population areas.   :rolleyes:

Because the entire viewing area consists of ten counties, it is far less likely that the severity of a pending storm will be the same for all viewers. This is all the more reason to make the weather coverage less intrusive to the progarmming of all viewers.