MSNBC rolls out new graphics…
MSNBC rolled out a new graphics package today, ahead of Monday’s HD launch. It may be my imagination but the crawl appears smaller (yay!)
An oddity of the graphics is the way wipes are skewed. As you can see from the above stills the part of the wipe that points back away from the viewer has an off center vanishing point. This is obviously due to the graphics being set up for HD broadcast. But I can’t draw any firm conclusion as to what it means. One of the big unanswered questions regarding MSNBC’s HD conversion is how it will do HD:
1) Will it be full HD video ala CNN, and FNC with no text boxes on the side?
2) Will it be either upscaled SD video with a bunch of vertical text/graphic boxes on one side of the screen like CNBC does or HD video with vertical text/graphic boxes on one side of the screen?
The answer, based on what I’ve seen so far, points to one of the options for #2. The fact that when you look at the wipes there doesn’t appear a lot of extra video space on either side, which you should see during the wipe but then dissapears offscreen when the wipe is completed…because it is an HD wipe occuring on an SD screen, suggests text/graphical boxes will be used (if they are, the position of the “vanishing point” suggests they’ll be on the right side of the screen since the “vanishing point” is right of center). But this is just a theory and could very well be wrong. Obviously we can’t yet tell if the video itself is HD since HD hasn’t launched. We’ll find out Monday.
Still some kinks in the system however. The date/time bug has black text which starts scrolling bottom up and it starts scrolling below the white bar at the top of the screen and scrolls off well within the top of the white bar, though you really can’t see it from this cutout. But I spotted it right away. The scrolling text ideally should only scroll within the confines of the bar. As it currently exists the scrolling date/time bug looks out of position.
Update: What I didn’t spot right away, even though it was staring me right in the face, was that MSNBC has changed logos to match the MSNBC.com logo.
June 27, 2009 at 7:34 am
Can’t wait for “Countdown” in HD… although, I’m not sure my television contains enough HD-Orange to really get KO’s “complexion” correct.
June 27, 2009 at 10:09 am
Those graphics would be good if they didn’t have that bar on top.
June 27, 2009 at 10:32 am
Great just what we need, screen porn at the top and bottom. All they have to do is bring back that retarded side portion now. It’s amazing that every news channel, after moving to the bigger hd image, has less actual picture space.
June 27, 2009 at 10:38 am
Can’t wait for “Countdown” in HD… although, I’m not sure my television contains enough HD-Orange to really get KO’s “complexion” correct.
So even though there are a multitude of site dedicated to bashing Olbermann, not to mention a multitude of threads on this very site that are perfectly acceptable places to discuss Olbermann, you decided that a post about MSNBC graphics was the perfect place for dumbassery?
June 27, 2009 at 12:17 pm
Dumbassery respects no thread.
June 27, 2009 at 1:10 pm
Dumbassery=douchebaggery? Ah, wordplay.
June 27, 2009 at 1:39 pm
Actually Laural, douchebaggery is on a much more higher (or lowel) level than dumbassery. You can commit dumbassery with moronic commits, but not necessarily commit douchebaggery.
However, when committing douchebaggery, as some on this board often do, they’re usually committing dumbassery at the same time.
Douchebaggery is more all-encompassing.
In this case, however, joe committed neither.
sviscusi was wrong to attack his post, which was both relevant to the topic, factually accurate, and amusing.
sviscusi, in fact, committed mild douchebaggery (and dumbassery) for attacking joe, who in fact is an Olbermann supporter most of the time.
June 27, 2009 at 2:00 pm
Love ya, Red, but you might want to put the bong down and reread the thread. You’re complimenting Joe for no reason, and you know how he gets.
June 27, 2009 at 6:48 pm
…and you know how he gets.
Love ya, Laural!
June 27, 2009 at 7:36 pm
Actually, I put the bong down years ago. Maybe that’s my problem.
June 27, 2009 at 8:54 pm
sviscusi Says:
June 27, 2009 at 10:38 am
WAAA!
Uh-oh… someone get sviscusi a tissue you, the tears are a-flowing.
Oh, and while you’re up… if you have an extra sense of humor, I think he/she needs one of those too.
June 28, 2009 at 5:47 am
Olbermann’s fans are not noted for a sense of humor where their idol is concerned. P.S.: The new graphics suck.
June 29, 2009 at 10:39 am
[...] blows HD… Well, I called it. And unfortunately I was right. MSNBC blows a golden opportunity to do HD right and instead [...]