Darren Alline, chief engineer of WPLG in Pembroke Park, FL, has two tips for his peers in the industry who are planning to transition to HD local news: HD ENG is worth the effort and expense, and closed-captioning and working in a 720p environment are harder than one would think.
In this, the second part of the podcast interview with Alline, the WPLG chief engineer discusses these ups and downs. Alline still remembers how impressed he was seeing the detailed images of bees fly through the air in HD during one of his station’s first live HD shots.
He also remembers the problems associated with supporting closed-captioning in an HD production environment as well as the limitations of some 720p equipment when working with 1080i signals.
Despite the issues, WPLG has been successful in putting its local HD newscasts on air since spring when it went live from its new HD studios.
