NAB-HD: HD Really Isn't That Easy

In a post show letter to those involved in NAB-HD, project director Nigel Spratling had to apologize to project partners whose interviews never made it to air. Due to technical difficulties, about 10 hours of unedited material never made it to air, according to Spratling.

NAB-HD was created to demonstrate a fully-functional example of what can be achieved at a local broadcast station, with a comprehensive view of all the technical, operational and management elements required to broadcast DTV signals of all formats.
But as it turned out, putting together an HD station, even with the support of 62 partners, isn't the easiest thing to do.

"Our volunteers worked long and hard to overcome some early technical difficulties that almost prevented us from getting to air at the start of the show. Unfortunately, instead of having three operational editing systems up and running on Sunday morning, we were only able to get one system running by Sunday evening. As a result we had to ignore the published schedule and hastily cut together enough material to broadcast on Monday morning," said Spratling's letter.

NAB-HD's output for hotel viewing was also delayed a day until Tuesday.

To Spratling's credit, NAB-HD did produce all of the programming originally planned as well as collecting more exhibitor and guest interviews than expected. But the reduced editing capacity meant that NAB-HD could only broadcast a little over 30% of its total production.