Tag: PBS station

The Sad News About Dan Weston

While we were at Emerson, Dan’s dad was a dentist. Somehow Dan got hold of a medical catalog and ordered all sorts of exotic condoms. They weren’t for Dan nor me. Dan got a display case and sold them to fellow students!

It’s easier to find people with unusual names than common ones. If your name is Geoff Fox and Geoff is spelled with a “G” how tough can it be?

On the other hand it’s been tough to find my freshman college roommate, Dan Weston. There are too many Dan Weston’s (including that guy on TV for the Scooter Store). When last we spoke Dan was working for the PBS station in Hershey, PA. That was at least 30 years ago.

When I stumble across people I knew from college I ask about Dan. I just don’t stumble into that many people… and having been on the accelerated dismissal program at Emerson College that’s understandable.

“On a sadder note, I’m sorry to tell you, Dan passed away a few years ago. He was an engineer at KTLA TV here. I hadn’t seen him for a long time and only saw the notice in the Alumni magazine. He had some kind of cancer, I’m not sure. He was a sweet man.”

That came from Paul Greengross in Los Angeles who I ran into on Facebook. No one wants to get this news.

While we were at Emerson, Dan’s dad was a dentist. Somehow Dan got hold of a medical catalog and ordered all sorts of exotic condoms. They weren’t for Dan nor me. Dan got a display case and sold them to fellow students!

I wish I would have found him sooner–obviously.

High Def At My Desk

I’m at my desk this Sunday evening and not away at dinner because of strong wind and rain moving through Connecticut.

Say what you will about my job, there are some benefits. While the radar loops in a monitor to my right, I’m watching the Sunday night football game on NBC in HDTV. That’s right, somehow I’ve been blessed with an HDTV set at my desk! It’s an LG 20LS7D, which I assume means it’s a 20″ screen.

Football in HD is amazing, but not 100% what I expected. There are lots of compression artifacts whenever there is motion. You can especially see it where there is high contrast.

By compression artifacts, I mean slight video distortion where an approximation of the actual picture replaces the full fledged version. If you play with JPG images, you’ve probably seen something similar.

It’s possible this degradation of the picture isn’t the TVs fault or the fault of HDTV in general. I’m getting this via an unencrypted feed on Comcast. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were taking what they get from the local broadcaster and compressing it a little more to save on precious bandwidth.

Whatever it is, HDTV ends up as M(edium)DTV.

That being said, the picture seems sharp because of the astounding contrast. The blacks are blacker and whites whiter than what I’m used to seeing on TV. That brilliance makes the picture jump out at you.

To your eye, high contrast implies high resolution, even when high resolution isn’t there. Programs like Photoshop create this effect with a filter called ‘unsharp mask.’

I’ve been surprised to see the programming on our local PBS station. They seem to be running a full HDTV feed (still with artifacts) which differs from the PBS programs being run on their standard definition channel.

I spent a good 45 minutes watching this PBS feed a few evenings ago, staring at penguins and seals on South Georgia Island, not far from Antarctica.

Someone who walked by my desk said he’d pretty much watch anything in HD. I think I understand.

I’m not ready to bite the bullet and go HD at home. A set large enough for our family room is still prohibitively expensive for the amount of use it would get.

After seeing this presentation, I’m glad to say we’re not in HD at work yet. I’m not sure my trowel-like application of makeup would serve me well. The world is a better place with a slightly fuzzy Geoff.