Director's Cut Blog with Frank Macek

Today marked the launch of WKYC's first web/broadcast simulcast of "Good Company" - Channel 3's live and local weekday morning show that airs from 10 - 11 AM. Hosted by Fred Griffith, Andrea Vecchio, Michael Cardamone and Eileen McShea, the show is now available worldwide on the "Good Company" homepage: www.wkyc.com/goodcompany Note: the show is only viewable during the live broadcast from 10 - 11 AM weekday mornings. At this time, no archive is available of the programs.

From: Matt in Pepper Pike Q: How old is the WKYC building where you are located on Lakeside Avenue now? A: We just celebrated our 6th Anniversary at 1333 Lakeside Avenue after "officially" moving into the building in January 2001. Although the newscasts were produced and directed from here starting in December 2000 while the building was being finished around us, the anchors remained at the old building at E. 6th St. until the night of the Superbowl: Sunday, January 28th, 2001. During the transition time, the cameras were fed via fiber optic to the new building. Scott Newell, Kristin Anderson, Eileen McShea and Chuck Galeti were the first to anchor a newscast in the new building (though from a temporary set in the newsroom). Tim White, Romona Robinson, Mark Nolan and Jim Donovan debuted our new main set the following night at 6 PM.

This week's blog will focus on technology and the difference between buying a single-layer and a dual-layer DVD burner if you are in the market. Both cost about the same at this point, so it's always better to opt for the dual-layer which will soon become the "standard." Here's why: Generally, a standard single-layer recordable DVD will hold about 4.7GB of information, which is a lot less than most movie DVDs hold because those already use the dual-layer technology. And you would think dual-layer would hold twice the information, or about 9.4GB of data. But, the truth is you lose about 10% capacity because of how the data is written to the second, or upper layer of the disc, leaving less usable space. The consumer dual-layer discs you buy at the store are semitransparent, and burners and players make a very small adjustment in the focus of the laser's lens to read the upper layer of the DVD through the bottom layer. In contrast, pressed movie DVDs use a reflec...

From: John in Hudson Q: I still can't receive the Akron Canton News on Time Warner here in Hudson - Wasn't that going to change last week? A: The "Akron Canton News" did indeed move back to TWC Channel 23 in the Akron Canton area as we mentioned here on the blog. However, TWC still has not added the show to the Northern Areas of Summit County as part of their local programming channel (or to the former Adelphia Cleveland or Comcast areas as far as we know) . If you'd like the Akron Canton News, feel free to contact a good friend of the "Director's Cut" blog, TWC PR man Bill Jasso. His email is: bill.jasso@twcable.com Southern Summit County viewers can see the "Akron Canton News" on TWC Channel 23 at 6:30 after "More Sports and Les Levine" and at 10 PM.

The Academy Awards are the 800-pound gorilla of award shows, but the People's Choice trophy outweighs the Oscar statue by more than 5 pounds. Here's a breakdown from USA Today (WKYC's sister newspaper, published by Gannett) on just how much trophies weigh. 1. People's Choice trophy (14 lbs) 2. Oscars (8 lbs, 8 oz) 3. Grammys (6 lbs, 8 oz) 4. Golden Globes (5 lbs, 7 oz) 5. Emmys (4 lbs, 12 oz) Courtesy: USAToday.com

The last couple of days have been long ones for everyone at WKYC as we, along with other media outlets, brought you expanded coverage of the severe winter storm that pummeled our area. It was 36 hours of hunkering down and covering the storm all across Northeast Ohio. Many people take the media for granted. After all, we are in the public service industry. Our job IS to keep viewers informed, but there are risks involved that people at home don't think about. Everyday our reporters and photographers put their lives in danger when they go out to cover stories. You may have seen the story of one of our photographers who was injured recently at Tower City covering a story about kids causing trouble around Public Square. As it turned out, a safe story turned out very differently as the video shows: http://www.wkyc.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=62803 During this winter storm, our crews had to face the same frustrations and treacherous conditions that other motorists faced while cov...

From: nwitcraft via email Q: Why is the picture on WKYC-HD stretched when the iAlert school closing graphic is on the screen? The picture above the school closings looked distorted. The picture would look better if it was 4:3 with the sidebars like normal. Everything else is great, I like the new news graphics. A: We believe this problem has been fixed now. The graphics were too big for the screen, which caused us to squish the picture too much, thus giving you a distorted image. Part of the problem is our Master Control is not HD yet, so we are doing this as a bypass through the HD Control Room direct to air.

From: Luke in Canton Q: I just discovered your blog yesterday via the blog Ohio Media Watch; I've just caught up on all your posts. Pretty cool job so far but there is something that I think could really add to it -- pictures. Give us pictures of the graphics your talking about and give us before and after pics of the Channel 3 set changes etc. A: I'm currently working on adding pictures to the blog...but it might take me a few weeks before that happens, mainly for technical reasons. We have to figure out the best way to upload the pictures so everyone can view them. Honestly, I didn't think we'd get so many hits on the blog so quickly.. But, that's GREAT thing!

This week, I'll talk about our Akron Canton News (ACN) since it's been a focus our blog lately with it's move back to Time Warner Cable Channel 23 starting this Thursday. First a little background information on how this came about. Following the purchase of WAKC from ValuVision in 1996, Paxson Communications abruptly shutdown the "The North Ohio News Station" and its ABC affiliation which left everyone unemployed and Akron without it's own newscast. Only infomericals and home-shopping shows aired on the station on over-the-air Channel 23. In June 2001, Paxson entered a partnership with NBC - which included Gannett and WKYC - to produce nightly newscasts that first aired at 6:30 & 10 PM. This came at a time when Pax began airing regular shows in the evening timeslots. During that time, the late news shifted to 9 PM, then back to 10 PM after advertisers failed to like the change in time. Unfortunately, that agreement ended on June 30, 2001. The newscast mov...

From time to time, I'll include some tidbits about TV that aren't directly related to WKYC or Cleveland, but are from the wacky world of TV. This one caught my eye over the weekend: Top 10 Most Memorable TV Cars: 1. KITT, 1982 Pontiac Trans Am in "Knight Rider" 2. THE GENERAL LEE, 1969 Dodge Charger in "The Dukes of Hazzard" 3. THE MYSTERY MACHINE, in "Scooby Doo" 4. FERRAIR 308 GTS, in "Magnum P.I." 5. BATMOBILE, modified 1955 Lincoln Futura concept car, in "Batman" 6. 1975 FORD GRAND TORINO, in "Starsky and Hutch" 7. 1973 CHEVROLET EL CAMINO, in "My Name is Earl" 8. 1983 GMC G-Series, in "The A-Team" 9. MACH 5, in "Speed Racer" 10. 2005 MASERATI QUATTROPORTE, in "Entourage" Courtesy: Cars.com

"NBC Nightly News" on Channel 3 is about to become the first national evening news broadcast to go hi-definition.The show will begin broadcasting in the format in March although an exact date is not yet decided. The broadcast will join fellow NBC News production the "Today" show, which started broadcasting in HD in September. NBC's "Dateline," which is also produced by NBC News, is not yet making the jump, an NBC spokesperson said. Though local news markets have increasingly embraced HD as a way of keeping viewers coming out of HD prime-time programming, national evening news departments have been slow to embrace the format. In addition to the cost of overhauling a studio, the department has to replace field cameras around the world. For "NBC Nightly News," most field reports will continue to use standard-definition cameras until early 2008. Courtesy: TVweek.com

From: Donna in Cleveland Heights Q: Why is the "3" on your building's tower blue sometimes and sometimes red? I notice this as I'm driving past the station. A: The change in color is meant to alert people living downtown or driving on the Shoreway that bad weather is approaching. The "3" is blue when good weather is happening. If the "3" turns red, the Channel 3 Weather Plus Team is tracking inclement weather that you need to know about - usually meaning a warning of some kind has been issued for the area. So be sure to immediately tune to Channel 3 or Weather Plus on cable or Digital Channel 3.2, or log-on to WKYC.COM

This week, I want to discuss our school closing system called "I-Alert" (short for "Information Alert"). We have the most comprehensive system in Northeast Ohio. Together, with a number of radio stations and news outlets, we reach the greatest number of people in NE Ohio. The I-Alert system was developed as a free public service in tandem with Clear Channel Radio to allow admininstrators of our area private & public schools and select other educational & religious institutions to get their closings on the air in the fastest way possible. Each facility is provided with an unique password that allows them to access the I-Alert system right over the telephone. The adminstrator can select from several options to indicate their emergency situation to be broadcast. Some of these options include "Closed," "Delayed 2 hours", "No Evening Classes" and "No After School Activities." AM Closings are cleared from the system at 9:35 ...