WFAA-TV

Daybreak anchors Jackie Hyland and Justin Farmer welcomed News 8 viewers to the world of high definition news at 5 a.m. Friday.

The future of News 8 arrived at 5 a.m. Friday as WFAA-TV began broadcasting all of its local news programs in a wide-screen high definition format.

Viewers with HD-capable TV sets will see a sharper, brighter, and wider image.

WFAA-TV engineers and production staffers worked for six months to learn how to produce an entire newscast in the 16x9, crystal-clear format.

"Once our engineers get all the plant and the facilities built, basically for the rest of the TV station, there's a whole new work flow for production, for news," said Tommy Baugh, WFAA-TV technical operations manager.

A new control room was built to handle the load.

Viewers can now see their local news with 1,080 scan lines—that's two million pixels (dots) on the typical HDTV set, six times the resolution of a traditional analog signal.

"It's basically like looking out a window," said Scott Rains, Kellum & Sons. "It's a very clear picture, like the people are right in front of you."

The high definition newscast can be received up free of charge with an off-the-air antenna or through a cable or satellite provider.

In addition to Channel 8's high definition broadcast, the digital signal also carries two supplemental channels with news, weather and other alternative programming.

E-mail jbrady@wfaa.com