VH1 Rock Honors The Who

VH1 Rock Honors The Who premeired last night. As an old fan, I enjoyed the interpretations of their songs by other bands, especially the Foo Fighters opening of Young Man Blues and Bargain. But what I thought was the most interesting was the difference between the HD broadcasts on MHD and VH1.

MHD was clearly superior. One, it filled the whole screen. The VH1 HD broadcast was letterboxed boxed within a 4:3 frame. MHD also sounded better. It was less compressed. Finally, it had a lot less commercials. I was switching back and forth between the two initially, checking out the differences, and soon found the MHD broadcast ahead of the VH1 version. It ended after less than 1 hour, 40 minutes. I assume the VH1 broadcast filled the whole 2 hour time slot.

MHD looks like they have finally figured out their volume problems, too. It used to be the promos and ads were 10 dB or more louder than the shows. Tonight they were about the same. If anything, the liners were a little quieter than The Who. That was appropriate.