Uploaded July 2015 | Updated September 2026, 16 minutes ago
KFDF was originally intended to launch as a UPN affiliate, but that fell through at a late stage, meaning KFDF launched as "Sports 32". Later in 1995, however, as UPN sought to claim (for its advertisers' sake) that it had full coverage of the entire United States, a deal was struck. Problem: the local ABC station, already home to Star Trek: TNG and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, had aired the first season of Star Trek: Voyager as a syndication package. We had a very narrow window between the end of that station's contract and the beginning of KFDF's contract as a full UPN station to get it into people's heads that the show was moving. This promo ran a LOT during that week-or-two window. This campaign later won an Addy Silver award at the local level, despite some protest that it was a "network spot". Network QUALITY, maybe - or at least it was at the time. The graphics were hand-drawn in TARGA TIPS+ and the mighty Amiga-powered Video Toaster 4000 was used to shrink some footage down to fit; the whole thing was done on 3/4" tape.
A NOTE ABOUT VIDEO QUALITY
I began archiving my work-related video years before YouTube existed. It was an age of darkness, an age of limited web storage, an age of... {shudder} ...dial-up connections.
More to the point, my work archive at my site was all dependent on... {shudder some more} ...Adobe Flash. These videos were converted, usually from either the master MII or Beta tapes of from VHS dubs, with a program called Sorenson Squeeze. Sorenson is great for what it does, but with scenes featuring a lot of motion, there's often a lot of pixellation and motion artifacting that's considered unacceptable these days. The Sorenson files were also generated at a very small resolution, and thus the video extracted from them could only be the same resolution. (I no longer work at any of the TV stations for whom I produced these spots, and as such no longer have access to the master tapes.)
I hope you enjoy this little walk down local TV memory lane.
KFDF was originally intended to launch as a UPN affiliate, but that fell through at a late stage, meaning KFDF launched as "Sports 32". Later in 1995, however, as UPN sought to claim (for its advertisers' sake) that it had full coverage of the entire United States, a deal was struck. Problem: the local ABC station, already home to Star Trek: TNG and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, had aired the first season of Star Trek: Voyager as a syndication package. We had a very narrow window between the end of that station's contract and the beginning of KFDF's contract as a full UPN station to get it into people's heads that the show was moving. This promo ran a LOT during that week-or-two window. This campaign later won an Addy Silver award at the local level, despite some protest that it was a "network spot". Network QUALITY, maybe - or at least it was at the time. The graphics were hand-drawn in TARGA TIPS+ and the mighty Amiga-powered Video Toaster 4000 was used to shrink some footage down to fit; the whole thing was done on 3/4" tape.
A NOTE ABOUT VIDEO QUALITY
I began archiving my work-related video years before YouTube existed. It was an age of darkness, an age of limited web storage, an age of... {shudder} ...dial-up connections.
More to the point, my work archive at my site was all dependent on... {shudder some more} ...Adobe Flash. These videos were converted, usually from either the master MII or Beta tapes of from VHS dubs, with a program called Sorenson Squeeze. Sorenson is great for what it does, but with scenes featuring a lot of motion, there's often a lot of pixellation and motion artifacting that's considered unacceptable these days. The Sorenson files were also generated at a very small resolution, and thus the video extracted from them could only be the same resolution. (I no longer work at any of the TV stations for whom I produced these spots, and as such no longer have access to the master tapes.)
I hope you enjoy this little walk down local TV memory lane.
