I generally don’t just link to a YouTube video, but I came upon this one by accident and thought this was the coolest video game trailer I’d ever seen. And it is also showcases YouTube’s new widescreen format that came online in the past week.

So, please enjoy.

Because otherwise I would miss out on the wonderful HD programming we get in Australia.

Tonight Ten HD gave us The Gladiator. In glorious widescreen high definition. Here’s a sample.

Thanks Ten. At least the commercials were widescreen.

I originally was going to title this post “Now they are just trying to piss me off”.

Tonight, I turned on the TV to 9 HD, and was greeted with this watermark:

I have not doctored this image. This is what Channel 9 were showing on their HD TV station here in Australia, 10:38 PM EST.

As you can see, it is the usual watermark, but in two different locations. After a few minutes they finally made up their minds and went with this:

Back to normal. But actually I’m not so sure. Have they shifted the watermark just a little to the right? Well, let’s compare to a shot I took back in May:

Yes, it appears they have moved the watermark just a little to the right. I’m not sure if this transition took place tonight while I was watching TV live, or happened some time back.

Regardless, it still is not enough. Not even close.

I’ve written on numerous occasions about watermarks, and more recently about the ABC in particular.

Today I thought I’d revisit the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and look at their HD offering – ABC HD.

First, let’s compare the watermarks. This is ABC 1.

And this is ABC HD.

Yes, John Clarke is looking away from that disaster of a watermark in disgust.

Here are those watermarks close up:

What the hell is going on with the ABC? Is that a “HD” or an “I-D”? Why is the D cut off by the green bounding box? Why is the “1″ a different font from the “HD”? Why is there a huge vertical gap between the ABC logo and the text? Why is the colour of the ABC logo odd (grey?) in the HD watermark? Why is the watermark still not over towards the right edge of the widescreen image?

Why is there a watermark at all on a non-commercial station owned and paid for by the tax payers?!

The entire industry is run by old men with no idea about technology. They don’t get typography. They have no sense of style. And they’re letting the hacks digitally damage everything we watch.

And they wonder why people are turning away from Free-To-Air television.