ive only seen a few. the allstate one with the crashes and one other one. i hear the super bowl will have them? it seems like a waste to do commercials in hd but its better to watch. anyone know if most of them be inhd today?

2/5/2006 4:16:00 PM

nothing like a superbowl in 720p and a five second delay.

2/5/2006 4:19:33 PM

is abc 1080i or 720p tonight

2/5/2006 4:27:18 PM

which is better and how do you tell?

2/5/2006 4:28:43 PM

Quote :

"ive only seen a few. the allstate one with the crashes and one other one. i hear the super bowl will have them? it seems like a waste to do commercials in hd but its better to watch. anyone know if most of them be inhd today?"

How is it a waste?

[Edited on February 5, 2006 at 4:31 PM. Reason : ]

2/5/2006 4:31:40 PM

using very expensive equipment to film for 30 seconds. is a better quality picture really going to sell you more products? then again, alot of things with commercials are silly.

2/5/2006 4:34:43 PM

I've seen a 'Sharp Aquos' commercial that was in HD.

Obviously it makes sense to film a television advertisement in HD, because it helps that TV look clearer. Indeed it was a crisp commercial.

2/5/2006 4:36:06 PM

you can assume they are already using nice equipment to film things. if that is in fact the case, it isnt that big of a deal.

2/5/2006 4:36:11 PM

^if thats the case sporting events in hd wouldnt be so rare. its a big jump for the hd cameras. all the major networks just started putting their stuff in hd in 2005.

and remember, the goal of a commercial is to increase profit.

2/5/2006 4:42:11 PM

^which is done by accepting technological improvements in the broadcast quality of the commercial itself. By your rationale, all commercials would still be in black and white shot on a Super 8 Handycam.

2/5/2006 4:47:42 PM

but color cameras are more readily availible than bandw. thats not the case with hd. hd also changes nothing about the product. another thing, the % of people who are actual watching in hd is small (even among people who own hd tvs). if youre selling something related to image quality (like tvs or cameras) or in a pop war like coke and pepsi it might directly help the view of your product but thats not the case for most things.

2/5/2006 4:59:51 PM

ad agencies invest in HD cameras once, use them for a long time
companies then pay the ad agencies to make them HD commercials

I don't follow the "waste"/"too expensive" rationale

2/5/2006 5:06:08 PM

wouldnt using the cameras still make the agencies charge more? i understand what youre saying but then whats the reason why so few are in hd?

2/5/2006 5:20:55 PM

well, you figure that companies are going to be spending big $$$ anyway, and that ad agencies would love to get in on the superbowl commercial market as much as possible... competition would almost dictate that ad agencies not charge extra for HD, especially during such an important time as the super bowl, just so they could appear as attractive of an alternative as possible

2/5/2006 5:23:30 PM

as for why so few are in HD already, I'm not exactly sure but I have two guesses as to why the superbowl would be different for using HD
1) there's not a terrible advantage during normal TV watching; most commercials are either a) informative or b) funny; you don't really need HD to enhance either of these (could HD really enhance either of these? maybe on the informative front for stuff that needs to look really nice)
2) superbowl commercials are designed to be super-splashy and the best ones are ones that make an instant impression. I imagine that HD would definitely enhance the "splashiness" of commercials

2/5/2006 5:28:18 PM

Well, standard definition looks like shit on HDTVs, so if I'm spending millions upon millions of dollars to advertise my product to the world, I would want it to look as good as it possibly could.

2/6/2006 1:29:30 AM

Quote :

"using very expensive equipment to film for 30 seconds. is a better quality picture really going to sell you more products? then again, alot of things with commercials are silly."

It's not about the commercials having better quality pictures. It's about the studios using modern, up-to-date technology. HD is the future, and they may as well switch over sometime, why not now? The cameras are starting to be somewhat cheap (HD cams now are where digital camcorders were about 5 years ago).

2/6/2006 1:45:06 AM

http://video.google.com/superbowl.html

2/6/2006 2:53:30 AM

Principle photography for most high end commercials is still shot on 35mm film.
Transferring the film to HD for post production and broadcast is not a big problem.

However, HD is beginning to gain more acceptance because of the "relative"
savings in cost ( more in film stock / developing and color timing than the price of the gear )

check these out:

http://www.cinealta.com/html/index.html
http://www.panavision.com/product_detail.php?maincat=1&cat=36&id=100&node=c0,c203,c204

These are the big boy's HD rigs, not the HDV handycams.

2/6/2006 8:23:52 AM

there was a lot of stuff on the superbowl (pretty much all comercials) that had the sides cut off on the HDTV that i was watching it on. Now THAT seems like a waste when half of the people go drink beers in between the comercials and run back when they come on.

2/6/2006 8:41:43 AM

speaking of HD commercials...the ones for LOST in HD almost made me mess my pants

2/6/2006 1:35:15 PM