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CALDWELL'S TAKE
CALDWELL: Blurred vision! Observations from watching fifteen minutes of Smackdown Oct 26, 2007 - 9:56:10 PM
Friday night. When there's no Step by Step or Family Matters to get you from the work week to Saturday college football, and when another failed attempt at an American Idol knock-off has you down, you turn to Smackdown. Normally, I skip that step and watch Smackdown on the DVR sometime Saturday or Sunday, but I decided to check out the show that's changing Friday nights. But only for a quick 15 minutes.
While scarfing down dinner, I channel surfed like the average person sitting at home, just enjoying a nice meal and looking for some action on the television. After flipping past pre-season NBA and Stephen A. Smith yelling at me like Mike Tenay after eight Red Bulls, I swung by the CW to check out Smackdown. What did I find? The blood of Matt Hardy splattered all over my television screen. Goodness, someone get that man a towel and a doctor.
But, aside from seeing Matt Hardy's blood everywhere and thinking Cowboy Bob, I noticed how much I had to squint to see the show. Normally, I watch Smackdown in my office and never notice anything about the production value. For this 15 minute session, I was watching on an HDTV in the living room, and I noticed that the picture was grainy and there appeared to be two Rey Mysterios in the ring. Or, maybe that's just how big he is these days.
In any event, I wanted to make sure it wasn't the TV. I flipped it to ESPN for the pre-season game and the picture was crystal clear. Yes, Kevin Garnett really is wearing green these days. I flipped it back to Smackdown and everything looked so fuzzy.
The dark lighting. The blacked-out arena. The drab blue color scheme. Michael Cole's commentary. It felt like I was watching a VHS tape of Memphis circa 1977.
My conclusion was simple: WWE needs to step it up to HD. Pronto. I know it's in the works for 2008, but forget about WWE exposing "the magic" of pro wrestling by switching to HD, I just want to be able to watch the show without needing a trip to the eye doctor on Monday.
With every major television network finally moving to HD, and with Comcast offering about 30 channels in HD these days, WWE needs to be HD-ready as soon as possible. With the price of High-def TVs dropping every year, more folks are expecting the production quality of their favorite television programming to match the capabilities of their brand new TVs.
Even if the show is hitting on all cylinders, frustrated viewers are going to click off to a higher-quality television broadcast to enjoy a show in crystal-clear color. Meanwhile, Smackdown's dark lighting and dark blue color scheme makes the show unpleasing to the eye. A set re-design and new color scheme could really help Smackdown right now, but especially when the company is HD-ready in 2008.
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