The ability of HDTV (especially at 1080p resolution) to deliver detail is a creative issue for video content creators that goes beyond the talent’s makeup to the very sets, desks, backgounds, and furniture used in every scene. The better we can see the scene, the more work has to be done to create the best image.
The holiday shopping season was expected to sharply boost the number of U.S. homes with high-definition televisions to nearly 33 million. In the eyes of a growing number of image-obsessed on-air personalities, that’s 33 million clear reasons to be concerned.
Besides spectacular vistas and shockingly real playing fields, hi-def clarity puts any and all wrinkles, pimples and pores on display in well-lit bathroom-mirror detail.
Some TV types say big-screen HDTV could lead to the end of the extreme close-up as we know it. Others predict hi-def fears could soon be reflected in artists’ contracts.
When “Good Morning America” debuted in high-definition last year, host Diane Sawyer, 61, noted that viewers will now know when she’s stayed up too late the night before. “They will see it right there,” Sawyer said, indicating the puffiness under her eyes.
This continues the ongoing debate about style over substance. Will HDTV lead to even younger, perkier, on-air personalities?
“Will HDTV lead to even younger, perkier, on-air personalities?”
We can only hope!
Just think what it will do for the porn industry.. lol
It’s only an issue until we have Pixar animated newsreaders.
Porn will go that way too. With the amount of manipulation going on, Playboy is practically computer generated already.
Well, funny thing about new technology and porn…
DirectTV is dropping the Spice channel because there are not enough viewers…
Which to me, if you can’t get the porn hounds to look at it…
HDTV is DOA.
Oh sorry, DirectTV dropped Spice HD almost a year ago, my bad. Still think that it is ominious for HDTV’s future if you can’t get the porn users to look at it.
Remember that Batman movie where the Joker poisoned all of the cosmetics and the TV people couldn’t get made up?
This will be just like that… get ready for a dose of ‘reality’!
HA!
You’re right about Playboy…I should know, I used to do the retouching at a color pre-press shop in Chicago. I didn’t do it full time, we only got some of the overflow when the main shop didn’t. This was quite a while ago, so who knows who does it now.
But I’ve read many places where Playboy will say they don’t do any manipulation…don’t believe it. When I was doing it, it was right on the cusp of Photoshop taking away the high-end retouching and color correction away from Scitex and Linotype-Hell machines. This was around 1993-94…around there.
But wow, there’s hardly anything left of the real model’s skin after what we did, so I can’t imagine what they do now. I retired out of the business 5 years ago. Ah…memories…
Well I hadn’t looked at it like this, i thought HDTV made them look fat, but it seems maybe its just too real, for all the pretty stars to handle. Though making some of these people look better would never hurt smartalix.
Why would anyone need HD news anyway? I don’t need to see Diane’s pimples! And most news footage is shot with portable cameras and occassionally phones anyway, no HD there. News readers (anchors, yeah) will become talking heads anyway – Max Headrooms. Heck, Walter Cronkite could be reading the news forever, if someone spends enough time on the animation and voice synthesis. Bring back Huntley/Brinkley! Assuming anyone can write like that in the future.
#8:
HDTV only makes people look fat when users insist on displaying 4:3 material at 16:9 because they “paid for the whole screen and are going to use it.”
And the old saw about how people look in HD was long ago was proven to be a myth as makeup people learned what they needed to do and HD Video Engineers learned how to maintain sharpness while simultaneously minimizing harshness and edgyness. The newer HD cameras have also helped by allowing improved video processing, greater latitude, and more control over the image creation.
Tom
3,
It’s very enlightening to look at the playmates over time… The one’s before 1980 were absolutely stunning natural beauties. Once boob jobs and shavers came into style, they all look like http://www.realdolls.com.
Sorry, only non-nude these days… Playboy killed all the good centrefolds…
http://www.freejose.com/playboy/
i’m likin the word “perkier”
I wouldn’t be surprised if we would see software in the future that would spot things on the fly and give comments on it. Just imagine watching Paula Zahn on CNN… arrows pointing here and there to show where she had Botox™ injected, where the facelift scars are located and what kind of bleaching she’s using on her teeth. We would probably see a trend of newscasters using brown paper bags over their heads…
This could usher in a new era of openness; little or no makeup for the on camera types. Kind of like old people walking around naked. After all, not everybody can be beautiful, some of us just have to settle for being fk’n perky.
#9 — the only problem with handheld HD cameras for news photogs is getting one. Panasonic can’t keep up with demand.
#11 — I chuckle over comments from folks who apparently aren’t watching what’s available in HD, right now. Mark Cuban has cornered the HD market in buxom blondes barely in bikinis — and they show up on several programs on HDNet.
My wife works for an ABC affiliate, and I can say that in HD her coworkers do look more like what they look like in person… and in most cases that’s not a good thing.
Who wants to see Brittney getting out of a cab in HDTV? OK, just about every guy and half the gals! 😉
Seriously… will HDTV be like the advent of the “Talkies” when some big stars lost their careers because they had unsuitable voices?
Heavy makeup isn’t a solution, if HDTV is really all-that clear, since you can always tell in real life. (I haven’t seen it, myself)
Only the very young look genuinely good in extreme close up — the rest of us need a little blurring!
PS… I just noticed that in the above — very low rez — photo, you can tell she has a thick spread of makeup on.
Do the news channels want spokespeople who are a clear VISUAL lie, to be their voice of credibility?
How about this for a radical idea?: We accept the human body for what it is!
AWWW You mean we have to endure REALITY and not some fantasy people of media?
What a shame, americans will have to take the good with the bad and not live in a media dream world where everyone is twiggy skinny, beautiful and rich!
A little dose of REAL reality, not the manufactured reality of realityTV, will do everyone some good.
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One of the problems has to do with lighting. When shooting a movie in HD, you can adjust the lighting exactly so as to minimize these problems. But on, say, a news show set, you need to evenly light the whole set so anyone on it everywhere looks the same everywhere which, unfortunately, isn’t always that good. Also, on a movie, anything about the image can be adjusted in post. You don’t think King Kong really looked that good in the mornings? He was a partier after each day’s shoot!