State Fair HDTV Photos

[Kevin Arnold]

I finally got to the State Fair on Thursday and managed to drag the digital camera along. I thought I'd stop at each exhibit that reatured HDTV and take some shots. That took all of 2 mins. (as others have pointed out) because there isn't much there.

DirecTV had an exhibit in the new exhibit hall featuring they're standard far but did have a widescreen that was playing HDNet. The guy manning the booth had some knowledge but naturally wanted to sell me a subscription. Here's a pic:

http://www.milwaukeehdtv.org/photos/Directv.jpg> The DirecTV demo

Trundling on over to one of the older exhibit halls I ran into this interestingly worded sign that drew me right in:

http://www.milwaukeehdtv.org/photos/HDTVDemo.jpg>  HDTV! Come In!

Inside were the various montiors tuned to TMJ and HDNet. When I was there it was manned by a fellow from Wisconsin Public TV from Madison who knew a little about what was going on here. I gave him this website to visit. Here are some shots:

http://www.milwaukeehdtv.org/photos/WBA.jpg> WBA Exhibit


http://www.milwaukeehdtv.org/photos/WBA1.jpg> More WBA

But the best picture had nothing to do with HD. I found this Faux 6 truck. Take a look and come up with a caption. Just what do you think they were doing here?

http://www.milwaukeehdtv.org/photos/foxandtmj.jpg> Fox 6 looks for news!


[Note: This message has been edited by Tom Snyder]

[MesaV]

Pictured here is FOX 6's new mobile HDTV broadcast antenna.  Today it's supplying high quality pictures for their display inside this State Fair exhibit hall.  Tomorrow it'll be in the South Ridge area, so plan to have your antennas facing south...

[MesaV]

Now this late breaking story...  TV antenna rotors have been flying off of store shelves since FOX 6 started broadcasting from their new mobile HDTV antenna truck...

[RobbQ]

I must say that I am glad that they have this display at the fair.  Seemed like pretty good traffic.  It looked pretty much the same as their exhibit last year.  I did notice more problems with the HD pictures but then, I've gotten a whole lot fussier of the last year too!  

My only real problem was that the front projector was not HD and washed out while the rear projectors were set up horribly when I was there on Wednesday.  The two that you see in kjarnold's pics were grainy and had bad contrast to name a few things.  The direct views seemed OK but I didn't really take a close look.  One gentleman from Sound Investments thought that the grain in TMJ4's picture was in the broadcast.  I told him no, it is perfectly clear on my TV.  He was also aware of the contrast and other problems but thought that the TV's would have to be "taken apart" and mini-calibrated (my word) to get a better picture.

The guys at this booth, including the engineer from MPTV, were all very nice and put a friendly face on HDTV.  They admittedly said that any shortcomings in picture quality were because the guys there do installs and not TV adjustments.  

My question to the group is whether we might volunteer to be involved in next years show on some limited basis?  Even a few hours a day by different members might help to increase the base of knowledge about digital TV.  I would like to think that this would not be necessary but frankly selling of HD and digital TV will still be needed in the coming years and I don't know any greater sales people for HDTV than the people we have right here.  

[Matt Heebner]

I agree. It aint much, but it is something! I figure any exposure at all is better than hiding the fact it even exsists. When I was there the other day, that little room was quite packed with people...mostly looking at that awesome Pioneer plasma. I heard a wife saying to her husband about why they couldn't get HD signals, even though they had a HD ready Tv. He looked at her, with his mouth agape, and said, "You said we couldn't afford the whole system". I just sorta smiled and figure they would be on their way to getting a HD tuner now!

Matt