h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The company I work for is making the final transition to High Definition. I made the transition two years ago and have been waiting for them to catch up!

All the things I have been warning them about (lack of background footage in HD, the fact that you look better not worse on HD cameras, digital media is not physical, there are lots of excellent options for upconverting, etc.) are now revealing themselves yet I still get blank looks when I talk about anything technical. Once again I wonder what *Management* is when some of them have an extremely narrow field of knowledge when it comes to the nuts and bolts of what we do.

I always enjoy working with engineering staff, if I don't actually learn something from them it's an off day but at least I know they know what I'm talking about. Sales people, managers, office employees, even some technicians- they all seem to think that everything changed over night- and it change beyond their comprehension!

When I started in this business I was still in school, at 16 I was helping produce a local cable company half hour program. It was in black and white, then I went to university, then technical school and it was colour. Cameras were big, bulky and needed very large recording medium. Then came the minicams, followed by smaller media. Digital came next and now HD. I'm sure that before I'm finished there will be another leap-

http://www.afterdawn.com/news/article.cfm/2008/01/14/japanese_government_plans_ultra_high-definition_tv_standard_for_2015

..and I'll be operating equipment I can only imagine now. I remember an article in Zerb-
http://www.gtc.org.uk/publications/zerb.aspx
in the late 70's (back when it was printed) that talked about such ultra high definition. It envisioned a camera that statically shot an entire football pitch, with an operator that used just the area around a moveable cursor to broadcast. I can see it happening, if just for labour savings!

Anyway, am I the only person around who sees all this as part of a process rather than a quantum leap?

I think what you are saying is typical of how management and general support staff everywhere have little idea about the actual operation of any given company.


FB

It seems to be the case in other fields and bisuness too... the higher up the management level you go the less they actually seem to know about waht the bisuness is...
Was I the only person who saw the title of this thread and thought it was going to be about someone on HooToo having a sex change?

That would be a first!

I've noticed the whole lack of comprehension way up the ladder before. I'm just astonished to find reasonably intelligent people who knew Standard Definition pretty well turn into blank faced zombies when HD is talked about in detail. I have directors who don't know the difference between interlaced and progressive or 24p and 60i. I've even found people who don't know that 60i isn't really 60i, it's 59.94 fps.

OK, so I know for most of my readers I'm spouting information they don't need to know, but the people I work with had no problems with NTSC 4:3 SD, even with shutter speeds. They should have made the effort to learn about the new HD options but they haven't and I spend a good part of my day trying to explain. It is very, very frustrating.

I think my lodger would understand and know that stuff... But he's quite a TV and techno geek on such things
and I guess it must be annoying pressuming you've got to constantly explain these same things to differnt people, and I guess also often to the same people They should have the decency to learn their own bisuness...