Morning Buzz

Last year, I wrote about my shock and horror at having to watch the Stanford game in standard-definition TV. It became one of my biggest-drawing posts ever, as people around the nation realized they could watch every game in high-definition except the ones involving their home teams, i.e. the ones they actually cared most about watching.  This year, I’m happy to note, CBS believes the situation has been addressed and we’re going to be all-HD all the time.

To meet the needs of home markets (a team from the area playing) and the unaffiliated (who just get zipped around to the best action), CBS has “flex” and “constant” feeds. The “constant” feed ensures that folks in Lexington, say, won’t get switched away from the Kentucky game under any circumstances. But up to last year, the only way to ensure the constancy of that constant feed on the first weekend was to send the signal in standard-def only. It was hooorrrrrible, and that’s even without Bill Walton calling the games. Fortunately, we only had to endure one Stanford game with this malady.

This year, CBS spokeswoman LeslieAnne Wade said yesterday, “It’s cleared up much better than it was last year.” She said CBS has more capacity to do more HD to more audiences. There was a caution — in a particularly hectic time, CBS might need to go to the standard feed for a brief spell — but it shouldn’t be anything that will make you want to throw things at your brand new LCD screen.

It’s a big investment from the network, and it’s good for viewers and better for CBS. Mostly because of the lack of complete HD coverage of NFL games, CBS has been getting a bad reputation on the HD front, and this wasn’t going to help.

Now about Stanford not looking so awful in any viewing format …