Today goes Hi-Def on Sept. 13

Our friends over at sister site DV Guru give a very technical report about the Today show's conversion to a High Definition broadcast, which will start when they move into their newly-renovated studio on Sept. 13 (which is also new anchor Meredith Vieira's first day). If you want all the details about what cameras they're going to use, what kind of HD it is, etc., you can go over to the DV Guru article. The important part for the casual viewer is that, like all of NBC's HD shows, it'll be shown in 16:9 format, meaning that viewers on standard TVs will see the show in a letterbox format. They'll handle standard-format feeds from affiliates by showing colored bars on either side of the 4:3 picture, which, combined with the news crawl on the bottom, should reduce the picture to the size of a postage stamp for those who have older TVs.

But the bottom line is: Ann Curry will still be insincere, Al Roker will still be a goofball, and Matt Lauer will still be bald. They'll all just look instantly older now.