LazyTown Airing in High Definition Starting September 2011 on Sprout

[Victoria]

LazyTown Airing in High Definition Starting September 2011!

http://www.lazytown.biz/2011/06/another ... ast-deals/

11th June 2011. LazyTown continues its success on air, with broadcast deals agreed with numerous TV channels across the world. In particular recent agreement with American children’s channel Sprout, which is the #1 kid’s network among moms of pre-schoolers, has selected LazyTown as a “flagship brand” with everyday HD episodes starting this September and a 2-hour branded afternoon block starting January 2012. LazyTown currently also airs on Vme, #1 Spanish network for preschool children, multiple times daily.

This is exciting news... at first. But then it sinks in that this is going to be almost as obscure as those HD VMD releases. Sprout HD launched in September 2010 and so far the only cable system it's carried on is Comcast in Pennsylvania. It is not carried in HD over the air or on any other systems, including DirecTV and Dish Network. Our only hope is that some other carriers pick this channel up in the coming months.

Anyways, if you live in Pennsylvania, private message me. We should chat. It's ridiculous how hard this company is making it to get LazyTown in high definition.

[boredjedi]

Re: LazyTown Airing in High Definition Starting September 2011!

Yeah seriously what's with the games. If I didn't know any better, I would say they are actually trolling us and having a good laugh about it. But Seriously from a commercial aspect it's horrible decision making. I could see if this was 2004 and it would be a rare treat for HD but it's 2011 and HD is as common as apple pie.

I do have family members in Pittsburg and will ask them if they get Sprout. I would prefer non water marked HD though.

[Victoria]

Re: LazyTown Airing in High Definition Starting September 2011!

They could at least put the episodes for sale in HD up on Amazon, iTunes, Xbox Live Marketplace, PlayStation Store, even their own Digitalstore thing, etc... they could put them up on Netflix... what the hell is going on?

All the LazyTown episodes are already up for sale digitally at iTunes and this place, but conveniently, no HD copies available! This despite the fact that iTunes fully supports HD episodes and people are used to paying more for them... they could be making more money by selling HD episodes for $3 each on iTunes instead of only SD ones for $2 each. It makes no sense at all.

[boredjedi]

Re: LazyTown Airing in High Definition Starting September 2011!

Yeah I check lazytown.com store from time to time and it's still the same old 768x416 that's what you get for $2.

[LazyPooky]

Re: LazyTown Airing in High Definition Starting September 2011!

[youtube]pv6UTibnYCw[/youtube]

http://www.lazytown.biz/usa/

..

[yhpets]

Re: LazyTown Airing in High Definition Starting September 2011!

As the main audience are children they obviouslly don't care if its HD as long as its watchable, I'm not sure they would make much more money releasing HD episodes. Am I missing something here?

[boredjedi]

Re: LazyTown Airing in High Definition Starting September 2011!

As the main audience are children they obviouslly don't care if its HD as long as its watchable, I'm not sure they would make much more money releasing HD episodes. Am I missing something here?

You'd be surprised what kids want. The fact they keep coming out with Hollywood HD CGI kid movies and in 3d for the big screen should be an indication. If your theory was correct, they could easily have filmed the stuff in 8mm and show it on a 4"x4" box. You also need to appeal to adults as well since they are the ones plunking down their hard earned cash for the product they would want the best bang their money can buy.

It cost them around 1 million dollars to make these episodes and to keep releasing them in crap quality compared to HD is just a crime and kind of defeats the purpose of spending all that money on all that state of the technology.

[Victoria]

Re: LazyTown Airing in High Definition Starting September 2011!

As the main audience are children they obviouslly don't care if its HD as long as its watchable, I'm not sure they would make much more money releasing HD episodes. Am I missing something here?

Then why make such a big deal about shooting the show on state-of-the-art high definition cameras back in 2004? This whole debacle has been one gigantic tease.

It's not true that it doesn't matter if kids' shows are in HD or not... all of Disney/Nick's modern shows are shot in HD, broadcast in HD, and the HD versions are consistent top-sellers on iTunes.

All the PBS kids' shows made in the past few years have been produced and are broadcast in HD on PBS across the country. Cartoon Network is HD, The Hub is HD... at this point your stuff better be in HD if you want to draw in kids' eyeballs.

[SportaKandy]

Re: LazyTown Airing in High Definition Starting September 2011!

Apparently the "big deal" was only disseminated online, because I never saw any kind of Nick promo talking about LazyTown's cameras.

[Ana Muriel]

Re: LazyTown Airing in High Definition Starting September 2011!

They talk about Sprout too:

http://www.virtualpressoffice.com/publi ... Id=&sInfo=

[Victoria]

Re: LazyTown Airing in High Definition Starting September 2011!

Apparently the "big deal" was only disseminated online, because I never saw any kind of Nick promo talking about LazyTown's cameras.

Did you see any LazyTown promos at all?

We all know Viacom jewed them over hardcore.

[SportaKandy]

Re: LazyTown Airing in High Definition Starting September 2011!

I think I saw a couple health-related spots but that's it.

Dora and Backyardigans were the prize children, LazyTown was the red-headed (err..pink headed) step child.

[xfv]

split

As the main audience are children they obviouslly don't care if its HD as long as its watchable, I'm not sure they would make much more money releasing HD episodes. Am I missing something here?

You'd be surprised what kids want. The fact they keep coming out with Hollywood HD CGI kid movies and in 3d for the big screen should be an indication. If your theory was correct, they could easily have filmed the stuff in 8mm and show it on a 4"x4" box. You also need to appeal to adults as well since they are the ones plunking down their hard earned cash for the product they would want the best bang their money can buy.

It cost them around 1 million dollars to make these episodes and to keep releasing them in crap quality compared to HD is just a crime and kind of defeats the purpose of spending all that money on all that state of the technology.

Lazy town is made with cinema technology (http://www.definitionmagazine.com/jo...-flood.htm%20l). It is a shame that Lazy Town has not been released in Full HD from the start. Maybe the problem is distribution. HD technology is expensive.



Tómas Örn Tómasson with the three Astros and CineTal monitor

[Victoria]

Re: LazyTown Airing in High Definition Starting September 2011!

As the main audience are children they obviouslly don't care if its HD as long as its watchable, I'm not sure they would make much more money releasing HD episodes. Am I missing something here?

You'd be surprised what kids want. The fact they keep coming out with Hollywood HD CGI kid movies and in 3d for the big screen should be an indication. If your theory was correct, they could easily have filmed the stuff in 8mm and show it on a 4"x4" box. You also need to appeal to adults as well since they are the ones plunking down their hard earned cash for the product they would want the best bang their money can buy.

It cost them around 1 million dollars to make these episodes and to keep releasing them in crap quality compared to HD is just a crime and kind of defeats the purpose of spending all that money on all that state of the technology.

Lazy Town is filmed with digital cinema cameras (Thomson Viper: http://www.shuttersniped.com/tag/thomson/). These cameras are much more powerful than the HD cameras used in television. These cameras usually only used for movies or music videos. Zodiac, for example, was filmed entirely with these cameras. It is a shame that Lazy Town has not been released in Full HD from the start. However, Full HD is a very expensive technology. HD televisions are very expensive and Full HD satellite-transmit signals is also very expensive (requires almost four times more bandwidth). Also, Blu Ray readers are also expensive and not very common in comparison to the DVD.

Full HD episodes have been available, the problem has been its distribution. Now Full HD technology is more common and inexpensive but only in digital satellite television.

It's not expensive, it's not uncommon, Blu-ray players are now $50 and very common, there's been many recent releases where the Blu-ray version outsold the DVD version, high definition transmission is very easy to do now. If I can edit and transmit full HD content from my basement on standard consumer grade computer equipment and Internet connectivity why can't LazyTown?

It's time to get some proper HD episodes out now, LazyTown Entertainment. Kids on YouTube can get out better quality from their cellphones than you've released to the public thus far. I tell you what, LTE: If it's that hard for you to get these episodes out in HD, I'll make you a deal. Mail me a hard drive with the digital HD files on them and I'll see that they get distributed.

Thanks for the otherwise informative post, xfv.

[StingX]

Re: LazyTown Airing in High Definition Starting September 2011!

There is no doubt that someone at LazyTown or elsewhere is making (and has been making for years on end) a poor decision by not making HD episodes available for purchase in any reasonable way.
The only excuse I can imagine is that whoever runs that department was hesitant to hop onto the bluray train after their disaster with the HDDVD releases and has stayed with such a position despite bluray's obvious domination for the present and the foreseeable future. But that of course does not assplain the potential for a digital release as Xizer mentioned.

It is strange and disappointing that thus far their high end equipment has not been used to its full capacity, but I am certainly not as passionate about the issue as Xizer is haha. I am certain that someday they will get their heads out of their asses and start pumping out some discs.