I have been getting the question a lot lately…”Hey Chad, what’s with this whole 929 thing I keep seeing on TV?” Looks like our folks back in the promotions and marketing department have done a great job of getting everyone to ask the same thing! Well…if you have not heard yet…starting on September 29th, 2008 WCSC will become the first and only television station in the Charleston market to broadcast our newscasts in High Definition. Its going to be a remarkable experience (unless you are one of us on the air…more to come on that!) WCSC has been broadcasting our signal in both Analog and Digital formats for some time now, but starting next February…the “Big Switch” takes effect and all television stations in the U.S. have to cease analog transmissions and convert to the HD digital format. Live 5 has been working for more than a year now to get ready for this change. We had to change everything….cameras, lights, graphics, equipment, cable and more! It’s really like building a brand new T.V. station all over again from the inside out…and did we mention its expensive!!! It may be pricey, but belive me, when you see the difference it will change the way you watch the news.

So how do you get it? Thats a common question and the answer is different for all of us, depending on how you watch us right now.

• If you watch us on cable or over Dish Network and DirecTV, you don’t have to change a thing…we will send our new HD feed directly to them. Check with your local cable and satellite provider to see when they will start distributing the new HD signal (Comcast already carries our HD feed and DirecTV will be adding it to their local channel lineup in October).
• If you watch WCSC with an old fashoned antenna, you will have to make some changes. You can either buy a new TV that has a HDTV tuner built in, or you can buy a HD converter box that will take our new digital signal and decode it to work on older “analog” television sets. The U.S. Government is offering a Coupon Program to help you purchase one of these boxes. Click Here for more info on how to get these free coupons for $40.00 off the price of a converter box.

The benifits of High Definition television go on and on…better picture, more than twice as sharp and clear than what you see now in what we call “Standard Definition”. The sound will be CD digital quality and in full surround sound on most of your CBS programming including sports! More options…with our new digital channel we can break the signal apart. Our current analog signal has one channel…VHF channel 5. However, our new HD signal can have up to five sub-channels, 5.1, 5.2, 5.3, etc… That allows us to offer you more than one line of programming, such as news and weather updates on 5.2 while you watch your favorite CBS shows on the main 5.1 channel.

I thought you might like a few “Behind the Scenes” pics of what it takes to make the number one news station in the Lowcountry HD ready…

Make sure you are ready for the “Big Switch”. Again its coming to Live 5 News on 9/29/2008!

See you then in High Definition!

Chad Watson
Live 5 Meteorologist

Trackback URI | Comments RSS