WRAL-TV Completes the World’s First All-HD Newscast

WRAL-TV Completes the World’s First All-HD Newscast

A bevy of activity took place in the WRAL camp at the N.C. State Fairgrounds on Friday, October 13th, as WRAL produced the first all High Definition newscast in the history of the world. The 30-minute newscast went live at 5:00pm.

WRAL will launch its full-time HDTV newscasts in January, in conjunction with the launch of WRAL’s new HDTV studio, HDTV control room and digital newsroom.

The following images tell the story of the historic evening. For the full story on the broadcast, check out the previous capcom story, “WRAL-TV Makes More High Definition History”.

The historic newscast took place at the N.C. State Fairgrounds on Friday, October 13th.	Director/Producer Spencer Jenkins operates the center camera in the HD headquarters tent at the Fair.	Crew Chief Raymond Farrar gives some last minute instruction to Anchors David Crabtree & Pam Saulsby and Weatherman Chris Thompson.
Crew Chief Tim King keeps an eye on his state-of-the-art HD camera during a live shot.	WRAL-TV anchors David Crabtree & Pam Saulsby sat first chair for the big event.	Studio Broadcast Engineer Charles Braswell worked on the technical end of the HD link-up.
Crabtree, Saulsby & Thompson provide some on-air banter during the newscast.	Director of Engineering Tom Beauchamp explains the HD set-up for the camera.	Crew Chief Tripp Culbreth works the crew for the HD broadcast.
Tripp Culbreth follows the program for his next cue.	Crew Chief Raymond Farrar brought the HD newscast off without a hitch.	LTVS Vice President Jeff McIntyre interviews David Crabtree about the broadcast, while NAPRO Communications’ Art Howard shoots the footage.
McIntyre also interviews Raymond Farrar to make a complete record of the event.	WRAL brought its HD Truck from its home base at HD Vision in Irving, Texas to facilitate this first-ever entire HD newscast.