Local News Doing Cinema (Huntsville, Decatur: home, service, art)

[java85]

The Huntsville market is getting technological with its local media translating real-time news into actual cinema while reporting across the region. I thought it was another one of the crazy concepts that some stations were pushing to convert to digital, but I actually like it. MTV, Bravo, and other stations are all doing it on their programs and it looks really cool. I like how Newschannel 19 uses this type of format to give it a bit of edginess that stands out from the news that WAFF 48 and WAAY 31 present. The only problem is 19 uses it in the Shoals and have done so since November last year and have since expanded to the mountains of northeast Alabama and south of the Tennessee River over the past couple of months. It seems like they always skip Huntsville when presenting a news story. I would actually like to see Huntsville take on a Hollywood-feel too. We suppose to be the center of news! Who else in here likes this edgy format they use on 19?

[Southlander]

I have no idea what you're talking about. Maybe you can explain a little more and add a few links?

[java85]

It may be hard to justify to the question because Newschannel 19 is the only news station in the market to take on this concept. The crew film the news across the area and then the newsroom receives the tape and digitally edits the video to make it look like a movie instead of a real-time news clip when they air it on the news. So for instance you watch other programs on cable channels and you notice how you're watching a movie and not much of a live broadcast. I hope I answered your question in detail. You just have to watch 19 throughout its first 10 minutes of its newscast to have an idea of what I am talking about.

[Charles]

I just checked out the news clips online

WHNT-TV, Huntsville, AL: NewsChannel 19 Home

and they appeared to be what one would see on TV. I guess this edgy version isn't online??

[java85]

The cinematic type clips are not going to be available online because depending on whether you use dial-up service or broadband internet some of the computer graphics will interfere with the quality of the video; therefore it will just look like a standard broadband video. The news when you're watching it on tv will of course be much higher in quality if you switched over to HD. But if you are watching 19 you will see that the news clips look like as if you're watching 20 second commercial clips on other stations. The "edginess" comes from that 19 is showing cinematic-type version news clips that you can't find on the other three local news channels. I am sorry that I got folks confused on this topic but I thought it was interesting to bring up if everybody else notices a difference in how Newschannel 19 covers the news to its viewers.

[Southlander]

Oh, OK, thanks java! I learned something new today. I'll check it out. Is it on every newscast, or just the 6 p.m. version?

[java85]

It's on every newscast. 19 started with this in their mobile newsroom in the Shoals in October and then it expanded into the northeast parts of Alabama like Fort Payne and Albertville. Then it started to expand back into the Huntsville-Decatur metro region, but 19 is taking its time to do the same for Huntsville. We suppose to be the center of the news and I thought it was kind of weird to do so in the Shoals first and then out of the metro. But I am glad that you finally got through to what I was saying. I just knew I wasn't the only one who saw that change months ago.