Local ads on national broadcasts in SD

[Rick_EE]

I don't watch a lot of network TV.  I do watch football.  Who is telling these local advertisers that it is a good idea to run their spots in SD?  Even worse, I have seen some that mush have been shot in least widescreen so they are letterboxed.   They look awful and distract from the message.

All the national spots are HD.

Are SD commercials cheaper?

[mrschimpf]

Pricing doesn't matter, it's just how the agencies send them out that's the final call as to how they're viewed; it's either a file or a tape converted to a file, and with HD standard now, there's no discount for an SD ad.

In a perfect world all of them are in 1080i HD as that's how all six local stations take them now (outside of WITI and WCGV bumping them down to 720p at the MC level), but there are companies out there who are perfectly happy to run their SD ads recorded years ago until the tape breaks (yes, some advertisers still prefer analog Betacam) or who do it themselves and use cheap encoding software which isn't conducive to broadcast; I remember a ghastly situation a few years back where a college literally sent the local cable company and I think a couple broadcast stations their ad in a compressed to death .WMV format with tin-can audio and that's how they had to run it.

For WCGV and WVTV they just did a studio move a month ago, so they still have some ads in SD widescreen as that's how the old master control could air them, but with the new MC, expect them to get all-HD-optimized inventory pretty quickly.

I think I know which one you mean though, the WI Ford Aaron Rodgers series of ads in 4:3 widescreen; no excuse for them to air it that way at all.