Anyone using digital delivery to tv stations for programming?

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I've been reading this forum for years but this is my first post here. I have been handling post production and distribution to a small number of tv stations(8 to 10) for a regional tv show that runs a small budget for the
last 7 years or so. I am curious if there is anyone else around in a similar situation as myself. We are still posting the show in SD and mastering to betacam sp and sending the tapes to the stations each week. I would like
to have the show shot and posted in HD and deliver in HD, however we have
some challenges that I am not sure can be surmounted with a low budget tv show. First caveat, the source material thing. Each week there are two segments of the show (representing about 30% of the total running time) that
we receive from other sources and this is all shot in SD. We would need to
upscale this SD video to HD to fit with the rest of the show. Anyone out there
upscaling SD to HD and coming out with results that a station would accept?(We're not talking about Discovery Channel here....mostly medium market stations and a couple in the top20) Anyway, it kills me to post a show with mostly all digital vids and then turn around and master to the old analog Betacam SP, is anyone out there posting a low budget show and uploading to one of these digital distribution services? And do a lot of stations participate with this? Is there still no standard accepted digital format amongst the tv stations? Anyone else out there in this boat?
 
Digital delivery methods such as DG fast channel are typically used for 30 second ads. Regarding standards, unfortunately there are no universal standards for broadcast delivery. Each broadcaster has their own playout server, most likely an Omneon Mediadeck, Grass Valley K2 or an Avid Airspeed. Each one uses a different encoding format - there's no one size fits all. Oftentimes delivering a tape is the path of least resistance. Some small markets might accept HDV. For the larger markets I would expect HDCAM to be widely accepted for HD delivery. If you want to pursue digital delivery you'll need to contact the engineers at each station to determine the file specs they require.

Regarding upscaling SD to HD the Teranex Mini does a good job and it's relatively inexpensive.
http://www.teranex.com/products/mini
 
I upscale when needed with After Effects with as good of results as I have seen anywhere else.
I try to avoid online fullfillment as there are often interlacing issues when I see it ont he air. Never have I had QC at any station or network reject one but often have I been mad when I see how they air my work. I still lay it off according to their specs.
 
Thanks for the responses. Yeah, one of our stations uses DG fast channel for spots, what about this VYVX media services? Anyone upload to them? Their site says they handle longer format programming(sorry, lost the url). Thanks for the link to the teranex mini. Is anyone using that with Avid Mojo SDI? Also for Grinner, what version of after effects do you use? Thanks again for the help.
 
As a freelancer, I use all versions. In my studio, I am still on v6. The process does not change from version to version though. You just create an HD comp, import your SD clip and scale as desired. Outside of Smoke and Inferno, I know of no NLE that upscales as nice. Certainly no Avid product does, including DS.
After you get use to this opwrkflow, you'll find you start to lean on it a lot when doing any SD show. It allows you to stabilize with great grace and you'll even start to shoot accordingly, knowing you can lean on it later on to make ya look good. I even shoot in HD sometimes knwoing the end product is SD. AE allows me to pan and scan as I want to so compositin is always spot on, even when shooting actions sports, reality, and documentaries with no second takes.
 
Sounds good, I definitely need to try that then. That's one thing that always made me nervous about shooting in HD for something that I know will need an SD output, especially when it comes to a lot of motion and sharp edges that tend to bring out the interlacing problems, but if its going to be spot on then I would probably prefer to shoot all the raw in HD from now on even if I'm not ready to deliver in HD. I guess its just a matter of remembering in my shot composition to kind of treat the side edges of the HD frame as more non-crucial so as not to lose something of value in the image when it is cropped. Thanks for the help!
 
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