I miss the camera film stock from the 80s where every overhead lights would give off a lens flare or sparkly effect, Miss Elizabeth’s dress would just shimmer like jewels. It gave wrestling a larger than life appearance.
YES!!!! I worked in production for 15 years...and you have a great eye for value and for presentation. Well done. I miss those things too. I liked how in legends of wrestlemania (the game in 2009 for Xbox 360 and ps3) emulated this in the older arenas
That was due to the shutter speed of the camera. It can still be done today but the better lighting and better iso performance on the camera there’s no need to have a shutter speed so low anymore.
One thing I did notice when WWE did go HD, they stopped using black ring ropes. I know white ring ropes has been the standard from 2010-16 and 2021-present, but I wouldn’t mind the return of red, white, and blue ropes
They basically cutout the black ropes a year or so prior. They became pretty rare once WWE started experimenting with white ropes with Saturday Night’s Main Event in 2006.
Ive been itching for the return of red and blue ropes for the appropriate shows for years, i think the white ropes should only be for PLE's. Unique set designs would be great too, but one thing at a time i guess lol
i think it was to give the business a more pure innocent look for the pg era. i loved the monday night raw retro episodes. those were some of the best episodes in history.
The start of the HD era where all the stage designs started to look the same apart from WrestleMania. I think SummerSlam 2008 was the last time a stage design had any effort put into it.
False, WWE was using “different” stages for each show up until the mid-late teens then they kinda started to change the main shows or out of country shows and keep everything else basic
@@yoorichyrichGaming I said they were "starting" to go in that direction of everything looking the same. SmackDown and Raw stages were looking identical too just with a colour change.
HD was a big deal in the early 2000's. I remember as far back as 1998 when you had HDTV ready TV projectors where you had to buy a separate HD box, but hardly anything was being broadcast in HD back then. It wasn't until I'd say 2005 that you finally started to see network tv stations broadcast in HD and it wasn't even the HD that we know today. A lot of stations started out broadcasting in 720i or 1080i originally and then moved to 720p or 1080p some time later.
I was young when this happened. I remember when wwe started advertising they were going HD I was worried I'd not be able to watch it as I didn't have a HD TV and didn't understand it all 😹
wwe was shooting test broadcasts at least several weeks before the switch in late january like fine tuning before the debut the jeff hardy swanton off the stage was shot in hd iirc. its weird seeing that footage not only seeing the old set on tv in hd but all the replays were still in 4:3 then back to widescreen for the regular camera.
I’m 35 I’ve been following wwe for decades . Anybody ever notices around late 92 I’m a say November, that the resolution went up . If u go back before that everything was still stuck in that late 80s look. Same thing for WCW in early to mid 94 the cam resolution upgraded. U go back and look at wcw in 93 and it looks 360pish
Man I remember the first time I watched HD anything it was incredible .. still remember my first HD tv I bought on my own to go with my PS3 .. still hearing bruce talk about this is a little eye opening I didnt realize how much actually went into switching I always thought it was just getting HD cameras lol
People were dropping like $2-3k to get HD TVs, Blu Ray players, and various cords and cables. Pretty much anything you watched live was still being shown in 720 or still 480 in some spots. I also knew a ton of people who dropped major cash buying up as many Blu Ray disks as possible. There was also the format wars of 2007-08 where folks were trying to decide if they were going with Blue ray or HD DVDs! What a time.
@@TheKevinWoodI miss those days. Pre online to early online gaming was a total new world. Yeah we pretty much had to wait for the technology to catch up. I miss Blu-Rays. I miss that super high quality experience only to go to the Stone Age switching to cable
@@TheKevinWood thankfully I worked for London Drugs who sold all this new tech to employees at cost +5% it was weird though I set up this beautiful Panasonic and got nothing except better looking video games for a long time
When did TNA experiment with HD? I know they started broadcasting permanently in HD on October 23rd 2008 when they were at the Hard Rock Casino. I didn’t realize they did any experimenting beforehand.
Pardon my ignorance but why are the old WWF videos why don’t they quite translate that well into a crisp clearer format even when restored to full 1000p
I remember at the few stations had HD but some still used Analog TVs. I remember first time seeing HD I went over a friend's house he had early Flat-screen TVs oh wow the lighting and color look beautiful.
What not many people realise is with the increase in resolution, also comes with a different colour space. Standard definition = Rec 601 High definition = Rec 709 Ultra High definition = Rec 2020 I should also point out that it’s a transition from Analog video signals to digital video signals going from SD to HD so everything needs to be upgraded to work. I’m interested with the NETFLIX move would we then get to see WWE in 4K ? 😊
I’ve never watched this channel, first time commenting. (Popped up in my feed) The feller doing the interview is first grade! He asks some absolute great questions, they’re well thought out, they don’t come off passive aggressive and with a feeling of interrogation and are very well articulated. I just wish he would ask these same questions to somebody else as Bruce seems almost slightly automated with his answers, very polished and careful with how he words them. I see that it’s his show so that’s probably not possible but I would love to see someone else from inside the industry answer these same questions.
Watching the matches on WWE Vault has made me realise how much better wrestling looked in 4:3. I wish they would move back to that. It focuses much more on the action, with wide screen you see far too much of the outside of the ring and the crowd.
nah thats just your nostalgia talking since most of wrestling history is shot in 4:3 but wrestling is much better nowdays with 16:9 now imagine Attitude era with 16:9 HD
I'm still waiting for ANY wrestling company to finally produce in 4K. 😭 We have 2024, like, come on! This has to be a must for the change to Netflix right?.....Right?
funny thing is wwe have been creating 4K content for a couple of years now mainly backstage footage as i have seen it on youtube, i remember a behind the scenes royal rumble video showing the talent and fans going to the arena.
Describing upgrading monitors to a higher res monitor as some sort of monumental challenge lets you know that a certain beaver was making things as difficult as possible to move forward any sort of progress that would expose his inability to do anything outside of his cemented automated stale sanitized production he can have his underlings do for him.
@@douglasmurphy3266 The logistics were bigger than you think. You had entire racks & studio systems set up to fit square CRT monitors, suddenly you have to deal with wide screens now, remember that room full of CRT monitors that Mean Gene used to do promos from? That all had to be gutted, ripped apart and rebuilt from the ground up. It wasn’t just a single pop out and replace thing. Mind you they had to do all this while still being live every week so workers have to come in and work around existing infrastructure to keep the show going. Then you had to build out whole new computer server systems with hundreds if not thousands of hard drives to store everything digitally. A whole new IT crew had to be hired to deal with digital vs analog. Computers that couldn’t handle processing HD video all had to be upgraded. Video production teams had to be trained on new software & equipment. It was a very costly changeover for TV & news networks all across America so why would it be any easier for WWE?
@@douglasmurphy3266 It was a costly and bigger challenge then you think. They had to gut and rebuild every studio, upgrade every graphic to HD, build whole new server systems, buy new computers and retrain whole crews on new hardware/software and do it all without interfering with the guys working on the old equipment to keep the weekly shows going. It was difficult for news rooms all across America that Congress had to delay the mandate to go to HD several times.
@@douglasmurphy3266 also just to prove how challenging it was, CBS with all their money was still only broadcasting 5 NFL games a week in HD a year before WWE transitioned. It was a chaotic rollout for everyone and I’d argue WWE did a fine job of it beating the 2009 deadline by a year.
HD was the reason that Regal grew his hair out. As they did a HD test 6 months earlier, Regal looked at a match he did and thought “why is so much of my scalp visible”. I assume Curtis Axl has never watched any of his matches, there is like 20% of hair left on the top of his head, just shave it off.
I don't like HD. I come from the '80s and the way the lighting was set up was so much better. You couldn't see the crowd and the ring would just be the standalone centerpiece. All the action took place there. Watching those flash bulbs go off when a big move happen really let you know something was going on. And as another person said when Miss Elizabeth would come out her dress would sparkle because of those overhead lights. Everything looked like it was in a fantasy world. Once you got into HD and now into 4K it basically looks like you're watching a fake video game and it looks way faker than the 1980s ever did. The '80s looked real life. This looks like it was filmed on an alien planet somewhere. There's nothing audiophile or videophile about it. There's a reason why everybody is mumbling into the microphone today. Because they don't have the mic directly above their head anymore. And especially when you watch end zone coverage in the football games. The player doesn't even look like he's really on the field anymore. It's so ugly
I'm not trying to be a jerk or troll, I don't normally watch the podcasts but, did Conrad have a broken nose recently? He just looks different in his face for some reason.
Isn't this why they scrapped the custom ppv sets because they showed up so bad on the HD. They were made on a whim and shoddy paint on the logo and ppv names etc
Wrestling does not belong in HD. It looks silly. The camera quality from the attitude era and early 2000s added grit to what you were seeing on screen. Don’t know how to describe it, it was just better.
@@jabrondestoroyah you sound corny as hell trying so hard to use the cool words you heard the wrestlers say. I’m sure they’d think you were an insider just from the way you talk
WWE and wrestling HAD to go HD or it would look like they were behind the times. Pro wrestling has a history of being behind the times so why give more people that feeling?
@@Gannooch HD is a great thing. However all that shininess and glam makes it seem too *polished* and almost sterile. AEW is HD also but their tv product feels grittier which is what wrestling is.
I miss the camera film stock from the 80s where every overhead lights would give off a lens flare or sparkly effect, Miss Elizabeth’s dress would just shimmer like jewels. It gave wrestling a larger than life appearance.
YES!!!! I worked in production for 15 years...and you have a great eye for value and for presentation. Well done. I miss those things too. I liked how in legends of wrestlemania (the game in 2009 for Xbox 360 and ps3) emulated this in the older arenas
That was due to the shutter speed of the camera. It can still be done today but the better lighting and better iso performance on the camera there’s no need to have a shutter speed so low anymore.
@@microsofttechsupport3622 still should be manufactured cause it looks awesome
Yeah the lights would leave a kind of streak across the screen
For me the lack of flash photography from crowds makes the show seem smaller. I can’t explain it with out sounding nuts but I know I’m right
One thing I did notice when WWE did go HD, they stopped using black ring ropes. I know white ring ropes has been the standard from 2010-16 and 2021-present, but I wouldn’t mind the return of red, white, and blue ropes
Wrestlers actually say the black ropes blend in with the crowd and makes it hard to see
They basically cutout the black ropes a year or so prior. They became pretty rare once WWE started experimenting with white ropes with Saturday Night’s Main Event in 2006.
@@Poppybirdy Yeah. It doesn't make the wrestlers pop and stand out on screen.
Ive been itching for the return of red and blue ropes for the appropriate shows for years, i think the white ropes should only be for PLE's. Unique set designs would be great too, but one thing at a time i guess lol
i think it was to give the business a more pure innocent look for the pg era. i loved the monday night raw retro episodes. those were some of the best episodes in history.
The start of the HD era where all the stage designs started to look the same apart from WrestleMania. I think SummerSlam 2008 was the last time a stage design had any effort put into it.
So true. Only boring LED screens since they went HD. Truly miss the old feeling when every PPV had a unique look.
False, WWE was using “different” stages for each show up until the mid-late teens then they kinda started to change the main shows or out of country shows and keep everything else basic
@@yoorichyrichGaming I said they were "starting" to go in that direction of everything looking the same. SmackDown and Raw stages were looking identical too just with a colour change.
I remember reading at the time the company first started airing in HD, some of the roster were told to tone it down with their overuse of spray tans.
Shawn in particular.
ken anderson was specifically noted in examples according to brian myers i think.🤣
Yh Orton and Christian looked like oompa lumpas on some shows haha
I remember reading about how they filmed a SmackDown house show on 2006 as a test. They'll have it in their library.
HD was a big deal in the early 2000's. I remember as far back as 1998 when you had HDTV ready TV projectors where you had to buy a separate HD box, but hardly anything was being broadcast in HD back then. It wasn't until I'd say 2005 that you finally started to see network tv stations broadcast in HD and it wasn't even the HD that we know today. A lot of stations started out broadcasting in 720i or 1080i originally and then moved to 720p or 1080p some time later.
I noticed the one episode of RAW that was televised in widescreen the week before they officially went High-Definition with the new HD stage set.
same
I was young when this happened. I remember when wwe started advertising they were going HD I was worried I'd not be able to watch it as I didn't have a HD TV and didn't understand it all 😹
wwe was shooting test broadcasts at least several weeks before the switch in late january like fine tuning before the debut the jeff hardy swanton off the stage was shot in hd iirc. its weird seeing that footage not only seeing the old set on tv in hd but all the replays were still in 4:3 then back to widescreen for the regular camera.
I’m 35 I’ve been following wwe for decades . Anybody ever notices around late 92 I’m a say November, that the resolution went up . If u go back before that everything was still stuck in that late 80s look. Same thing for WCW in early to mid 94 the cam resolution upgraded. U go back and look at wcw in 93 and it looks 360pish
Man I remember the first time I watched HD anything it was incredible .. still remember my first HD tv I bought on my own to go with my PS3 .. still hearing bruce talk about this is a little eye opening I didnt realize how much actually went into switching I always thought it was just getting HD cameras lol
If you didnt play xbox or playstation at the time you were basically buying the TV to wait until cable figured itself out
People were dropping like $2-3k to get HD TVs, Blu Ray players, and various cords and cables. Pretty much anything you watched live was still being shown in 720 or still 480 in some spots. I also knew a ton of people who dropped major cash buying up as many Blu Ray disks as possible. There was also the format wars of 2007-08 where folks were trying to decide if they were going with Blue ray or HD DVDs! What a time.
@@TheKevinWoodI miss those days. Pre online to early online gaming was a total new world. Yeah we pretty much had to wait for the technology to catch up. I miss Blu-Rays. I miss that super high quality experience only to go to the Stone Age switching to cable
@@TheKevinWood thankfully I worked for London Drugs who sold all this new tech to employees at cost +5% it was weird though I set up this beautiful Panasonic and got nothing except better looking video games for a long time
@@TheKevinWoodXbox promoted hd dvd
When did TNA experiment with HD? I know they started broadcasting permanently in HD on October 23rd 2008 when they were at the Hard Rock Casino. I didn’t realize they did any experimenting beforehand.
Back in the day when WWE moved to HD it looked so awesome. It was recorded at 24FPS and looked awesome on TV, very cinemenatic.
Pardon my ignorance but why are the old WWF videos why don’t they quite translate that well into a crisp clearer format even when restored to full 1000p
I remember at the few stations had HD but some still used Analog TVs. I remember first time seeing HD I went over a friend's house he had early Flat-screen TVs oh wow the lighting and color look beautiful.
I worked at Radio Shack at this time and sold plenty of HD antennas lol
What not many people realise is with the increase in resolution, also comes with a different colour space.
Standard definition = Rec 601
High definition = Rec 709
Ultra High definition = Rec 2020
I should also point out that it’s a transition from Analog video signals to digital video signals going from SD to HD so everything needs to be upgraded to work.
I’m interested with the NETFLIX move would we then get to see WWE in 4K ? 😊
I’ve never watched this channel, first time commenting. (Popped up in my feed)
The feller doing the interview is first grade! He asks some absolute great questions, they’re well thought out, they don’t come off passive aggressive and with a feeling of interrogation and are very well articulated. I just wish he would ask these same questions to somebody else as Bruce seems almost slightly automated with his answers, very polished and careful with how he words them. I see that it’s his show so that’s probably not possible but I would love to see someone else from inside the industry answer these same questions.
Watching the matches on WWE Vault has made me realise how much better wrestling looked in 4:3. I wish they would move back to that.
It focuses much more on the action, with wide screen you see far too much of the outside of the ring and the crowd.
nah thats just your nostalgia talking since most of wrestling history is shot in 4:3 but wrestling is much better nowdays with 16:9 now imagine Attitude era with 16:9 HD
Break It Down Bruce new day clear full understanding and the truth do what you do so much better than others
That last snme that wasn't hd was schwag. Diggity schwag.
I'm still waiting for ANY wrestling company to finally produce in 4K. 😭
We have 2024, like, come on! This has to be a must for the change to Netflix right?.....Right?
funny thing is wwe have been creating 4K content for a couple of years now mainly backstage footage as i have seen it on youtube, i remember a behind the scenes royal rumble video showing the talent and fans going to the arena.
I didn't even think about the makeup needing to change
Describing upgrading monitors to a higher res monitor as some sort of monumental challenge lets you know that a certain beaver was making things as difficult as possible to move forward any sort of progress that would expose his inability to do anything outside of his cemented automated stale sanitized production he can have his underlings do for him.
There has definitely been a clear upgrade since the previous guy left.
@@douglasmurphy3266 The logistics were bigger than you think. You had entire racks & studio systems set up to fit square CRT monitors, suddenly you have to deal with wide screens now, remember that room full of CRT monitors that Mean Gene used to do promos from? That all had to be gutted, ripped apart and rebuilt from the ground up. It wasn’t just a single pop out and replace thing. Mind you they had to do all this while still being live every week so workers have to come in and work around existing infrastructure to keep the show going. Then you had to build out whole new computer server systems with hundreds if not thousands of hard drives to store everything digitally. A whole new IT crew had to be hired to deal with digital vs analog. Computers that couldn’t handle processing HD video all had to be upgraded. Video production teams had to be trained on new software & equipment. It was a very costly changeover for TV & news networks all across America so why would it be any easier for WWE?
@@douglasmurphy3266 It was a costly and bigger challenge then you think. They had to gut and rebuild every studio, upgrade every graphic to HD, build whole new server systems, buy new computers and retrain whole crews on new hardware/software and do it all without interfering with the guys working on the old equipment to keep the weekly shows going. It was difficult for news rooms all across America that Congress had to delay the mandate to go to HD several times.
@@douglasmurphy3266 also just to prove how challenging it was, CBS with all their money was still only broadcasting 5 NFL games a week in HD a year before WWE transitioned. It was a chaotic rollout for everyone and I’d argue WWE did a fine job of it beating the 2009 deadline by a year.
What did Conrad mean by we’re six months out?
Everyone turned orange overnight! 😂
HD was the reason that Regal grew his hair out.
As they did a HD test 6 months earlier, Regal looked at a match he did and thought “why is so much of my scalp visible”.
I assume Curtis Axl has never watched any of his matches, there is like 20% of hair left on the top of his head, just shave it off.
Can Bruce get a better interviewer than Jelly Roll? There's no need to ask the same question three times.
I don't like HD. I come from the '80s and the way the lighting was set up was so much better. You couldn't see the crowd and the ring would just be the standalone centerpiece. All the action took place there. Watching those flash bulbs go off when a big move happen really let you know something was going on. And as another person said when Miss Elizabeth would come out her dress would sparkle because of those overhead lights. Everything looked like it was in a fantasy world.
Once you got into HD and now into 4K it basically looks like you're watching a fake video game and it looks way faker than the 1980s ever did. The '80s looked real life. This looks like it was filmed on an alien planet somewhere. There's nothing audiophile or videophile about it.
There's a reason why everybody is mumbling into the microphone today. Because they don't have the mic directly above their head anymore. And especially when you watch end zone coverage in the football games. The player doesn't even look like he's really on the field anymore. It's so ugly
I'm not trying to be a jerk or troll, I don't normally watch the podcasts but, did Conrad have a broken nose recently?
He just looks different in his face for some reason.
And you care because?
@@analiysanchez9949 i think he looks different and i want to know if it's just me...
purely selfish reasons.
@@pjdolont9012 his nose does look like it was fixed recently
@@analiysanchez9949 Drop the attitude. If u don't care. Don't answer.
Bruce Prichard is full of shit if he doesn’t think the quick cut style the WWE developed wasn’t a direct result of them going to HD.
When WWE went HD they got rid of the smack down fist which was a terrible idea. Plus I agree we used to have colored ropes now we don’t.
Wrestling should never be in HD.
Cut angles, suck! Film it like u use to.
Isn't this why they scrapped the custom ppv sets because they showed up so bad on the HD.
They were made on a whim and shoddy paint on the logo and ppv names etc
It ruined the business
Wrestling does not belong in HD. It looks silly. The camera quality from the attitude era and early 2000s added grit to what you were seeing on screen. Don’t know how to describe it, it was just better.
😂 bro what
Ah yes another mark drank his nostalgia juice from his sippy cup
@@jabrondestoroyah you sound corny as hell trying so hard to use the cool words you heard the wrestlers say. I’m sure they’d think you were an insider just from the way you talk
WWE and wrestling HAD to go HD or it would look like they were behind the times. Pro wrestling has a history of being behind the times so why give more people that feeling?
@@Gannooch HD is a great thing. However all that shininess and glam makes it seem too *polished* and almost sterile. AEW is HD also but their tv product feels grittier which is what wrestling is.
I remember one of the reasons WWE pushed HD back is Shawn Michales looking very old in HD
That comment was lame in HD
Fk I cant escape Conrad. Just because hes used doesnt mean we enjoy him.