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The Amazing HD Race (and about time too!)

Like a couple running to the pit stop in last place, The Amazing Race will finally discover the joys of HD in 2011.

And about bloody time too.

Next year’s Amazing Race will finally be filmed in HD.

“Yes, yes, yes,” said ABC entertainment president Nina Tassler told the Hollywood Reporter.

“We are doing Amazing Race in HD next year. I just announced it, there you go.”

Fans of the show have been gagging for this for an eternity -along with seeing the thing in widescreen.

“I would love to see the show in HD,” Phil Keoghan told RealityBlurred in September.

“I think it makes sense for the show to be in HD. I don’t really know all the reasons why it isn’t. But I would love to see the show in HD, and I do hear it a lot from fans. And I do think it is something that needs to come to the show.”

Producers have previously cited the cost of converting a worldwide production crew to the more expensive HD gear, plus concerns about the portability and durability of HD cameras.

Source: Hollywood Reporter

22 Responses

  1. But ofcourse that waste of a channel known as ‘7mate’ means we will almost certainly miss out on the HD experience. Too bad. 7 mate has turned out a massive dud, shows that should be HD are only upscaled. Lift up your Game Seven!!

  2. David, my understanding is that 7mate is only upscaling HD and not showing native HD, due to a limitation in Seven’s playout system. 7HD could play native HD because it was simulcast of the main channel, however because 7mate isn’t, it can’t.

    Presumably Seven will eventually fix this.

  3. The reason Australia hasn’t got HD channels is because the government wont let the stations have more than two SD and one HD channels. And even after that there’s not much bandwidth left to have more because Australia uses the older and worse MPEG2 compression instead of the newer, less bandwidth hogging MPEG4 used in New Zealand.

    But it will still be excellent to watch the show in widescreen instead of having black bars taking up 2 quarters of the screen

  4. 7 did have a choice for the Cup at least – they could have simulcast it on 7mate – a one off. Instead we are treated to Magnum PI – I wonder how that rated.

  5. @ Kylie. Channel 7 does not have the bandwidth for 7, 7TWO and 7Mate all in SD + a HD Channel 70. They have no choice until 2013 but to do what they are currently doing. Unless they were to shut 7Mate and have 7HD instead.

  6. I agree HD is no longer that expensive when you can buy a home HD video camera for less than $1000. Yes I know equipment used on TV shows is generally of a higher quality/expense but still wouldn’t the studios have upgraded their equipment already, including the editing facilities?

    And yes the question is will this also air on 7mate to actually be in 1080 HD?

    No having shows shot or aired in HD is only holding back those consumers not seeing the point in upgrading their TVs

  7. I agree, I have a cheap camcorder that even films in HD… I don’t see why this can’t be done. Alas though… unless this is on 7mate, we will never be able to see it in full HD anyway!!

  8. The portability and durability of HD cameras couldn’t possibly have been a concern ever since smartphones could shoot in HD, and that was a couple of years ago. The only real difference with pro TV cameras is they have nicer lenses, which has always been the case. Even video storage, though it has to be much larger than for SD, isn’t as big a deal when multi-terabyte HDDs can now fit in your pocket.

  9. @Lewis. Moving to HD is a big deal in terms of the cost and the post-production aspects. Almost every digital ‘asset’ (like intros, titles and overlays) has to be remastered in widescreen and then HD, and then there’s the cameras and other recording and processing equipment, so there’s a huge/expensive hump to get over to do it. That said, it’s the way of almost every show these days, so good to see they have been able to get there. Remember how long it took for Survivor to go widescreen. Seemed like forever!

  10. I figured it was something to do with worldwide crews/different countries/constantly being on the move. But I also figured it was something they could overcome.

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