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Leaked! New CBS O&O Graphics


Weeters

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Watch WCBS, then watch KDKA. You'll see the difference right away. WCBS has more animations and the whole package just looks better. KDKA's version has fewer animations and is rather basic.

 

It's an overall non-chalant attitude. There is no attention to detail... Check out the video below. They've been airing this for years and either no one has caught it, or no one has bothered to take the time to correct and re-render.

 

While we're discussing KD--the new package looks nice, but the overall implementation is going to be the decision maker for me. If it's shoddy, if animated elements aren't animating, and if the transitions aren't done properly, it'll be a pooper as far as I'm concerned.

 

I'm also disappointed with the lack of scenic material. The one thing KDKA did do right was the footage used under the logo. I understand it's stock footage sold by a local photog, but the variety of opens KDKA put together was impressive after 10 years of generic opens.

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I think it's a mix of technology and effort that contributed to the Big Blue Eye graphics looking so sloppy on so many stations. Up until late last year, KYW's graphics were running on older hardware, and a lot of the animations kept messing up. It still doesn't excuse the slapdash opens, which I think are probably the worst of the O&Os. Around the time the set was refurbished, they updated to new Chyron stuff (I think I remember hearing that) and it was definitely visible on-air. Graphics just seemed cleaner, animations were a bit flashier.

 

Still, I think the simplicity of the graphics set was intentional. CBS didn't standardize their graphics hardware like Gannett and Fox did. I remember hearing that the BBC graphics (before what they have now), where the lowers were a simple white bar with black text, were designed to work on the national VizRT system as well as the regions' older hardware.

 

The new stuff looks like an improvement in that it's not as static or so tied to a single element. I can see the Look F, and the Peter Dunn in these. (When Dunn was at KYW, he changed the graphics to a WCBS/WNBC hybrid. He did several variations of that look, with more and more WNBC and less and less WCBS. Finally he just hired the WNBC designers to create a look for them.)

 

It looks for all the world like CBS 3 is going to debut these after the Emmys, alongside new anchor Jessica Dean, who is being hyped like Larry Mendte. (Which shows you the difference between them and 10, who didn't really hype the arrival of Jim Rosenfield - despite the fact that he has basically has been knocking it out of the park all week)

 

Still, as much as new graphics are needed, my problems with KYW's news product run far deeper.

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I think it's a mix of technology and effort that contributed to the Big Blue Eye graphics looking so sloppy on so many stations. Up until late last year, KYW's graphics were running on older hardware, and a lot of the animations kept messing up. It still doesn't excuse the slapdash opens, which I think are probably the worst of the O&Os. Around the time the set was refurbished, they updated to new Chyron stuff (I think I remember hearing that) and it was definitely visible on-air. Graphics just seemed cleaner, animations were a bit flashier.

 

Still, I think the simplicity of the graphics set was intentional. CBS didn't standardize their graphics hardware like Gannett and Fox did. I remember hearing that the BBC graphics (before what they have now), where the lowers were a simple white bar with black text, were designed to work on the national VizRT system as well as the regions' older hardware.

 

The new stuff looks like an improvement in that it's not as static or so tied to a single element. I can see the Look F, and the Peter Dunn in these. (When Dunn was at KYW, he changed the graphics to a WCBS/WNBC hybrid. He did several variations of that look, with more and more WNBC and less and less WCBS. Finally he just hired the WNBC designers to create a look for them.)

 

It looks for all the world like CBS 3 is going to debut these after the Emmys, alongside new anchor Jessica Dean, who is being hyped like Larry Mendte. (Which shows you the difference between them and 10, who didn't really hype the arrival of Jim Rosenfield - despite the fact that he has basically has been knocking it out of the park all week)

 

Still, as much as new graphics are needed, my problems with KYW's news product run far deeper.

 

Bingo.

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Hmm...I think there's a lot of bad info circulating around here. I seriously doubt that KDKA is using anything as good as Lyric or VizRT. One person said they use a product from Pixel Power, and a few others are saying they're using products from Chyron. If they're using Chyron or a system that delivers the "eye candy" like Viz/Chyron then I would seriously think that the package would have those nice, subtle animations that make the O&O look look nice. However, that is not the case. Currently, KDKA's setup makes the whole graphics package (specifically, the L3s and the weather stuff) look like something done in PowerPoint. Either they don't have the ability to do fancy animations (though they did with their old graphics package), or they didn't bother to implement the "eye candy". If they don't have the ability, then when they do get the latest CBS look it's going to look awful, especially compared to WTAE, which is able to do all of the fancy animations in the new Hearst package (and it does look very nice). If they do have the abliity, then they need to actually make the eye candy work. Personally, I still think they don't have the ability to do the fancy animations and eye candy.

 

So...which is it? Chyron/Viz or something cheaper?

 

I also thought that WCBS and KYW had VizRT.

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Questions like these can be answered by finding job postings.

 

In January of this year, KDKA had a graphic artist position open and was looking for people with experience with Pixel Power.

 

WDJT uses Pixel Power and their graphics have more "eye candy" than WITI, who uses VizRT. Again, it doesn't matter what system it is. What matters is the people using it. For all we know, someone at KDKA didn't like the way things animated and had them taken out.

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WCBS went from Deko to Chyron. KYW went from Pixel Power to Chyron. KDKA likewise. WCBS hasn't had Viz since Dunn became GM. Also...KDKA's weather is so crappy b/c they use Accuweather Cinema not WSI Max like every other O+O except for JZ.

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