B&B to go HD in September

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B&B to go HD in September

The weekday broadcasts of The Bold and the Beautiful are about to get a little more beautiful and a whole lot bolder. B&B will begin broadcasting in high-definition later this summer.

The Bold and the Beautiful will become the latest soap to transition to high-definition. The 30-minute soap will make the leap to HD beginning in September, and the change means that all six of the soaps on the air will be broadcasting in a widescreen format.

"I'm not sure our cast members know this is happening yet," Bell mused as he revealed the show's plans in an interview with TVGuide.

B&B's conversion to the high-definition format comes a full decade after its sister soap, The Young and the Restless, made the switch. Y&R became the first soap to broadcast in HD in June 2001. It was another eight years before a second soap, ABC's General Hospital, made the investment to upgrade its studio to support a hi-def broadcast. All My Children went hi-def in early 2010 as part of the show's relocation to Los Angeles. Days of our Lives marked its 45th anniversary in November 2010 with an upgrade to HD.

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One Life to Live began broadcasting in a 16x9 SD format in December 2010. While the upgrade isn't high-definition -- the SD stands for standard definition -- the broadcast does feature the familiar widescreen format.

According to industry figures, it costs several million dollars to upgrade a television studio with the new lighting, cameras, and other production equipment needed to broadcast in the enhanced video format.

The Bold and the Beautiful's first high-definition broadcast will air on September 7.


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