With their new HD network being released in a few days they unveiled their new graphics. What are your thoughts on it? I kind of prefer the older graphics which were much simpler.

TVNewser did a write up on the new graphics:

http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/msnbc

Personally, I don't like the bar on top, as well as the bland white coloring. The old graphics were nice and flashy.

I like it better than CNN. At least MSNBC doesn't have the flashing logo in the bottom right corner and the lower third banner that consists of the resizing text box.

Any word when this might come to DirecTV? For some odd reason, my channel guide now shows "mnbc" in small letters. Hopefully this is some sign that, although the press releases don't mention DirecTV, it might be coming soon?

MSNBC HD is in the cablevision guide already. shows up as mnbchd

FiOS has also switched the graphic in the guide from the old capital letters MSNBC to the same graphic they have on the website, msnbc.

It'll be interesting to see how things shake out on Monday. MSNBC is debuting two new morning programs as well. And I wonder if Early Today on NBC will get a makeover since that's produced by MSNBC and retaped at 5:00am under the name First Look on MSNBC.

I'm surprised given all this expansion they continue to run Hardball at both 5:00 and 7:00 and almost no new programming during the weekend.

I wish MSNBC would do something with weekends, but apparently the docs bring in better ratings. So, that's all that matters to them. Because of this, I watch mostly FNC, HLN & CNN on weekends.

Watching with SageTV on my laptop, there are plain gray bars at the top and bottom of the screen so they are not using the whole screen. CNN, on the other hand, does use the whole screen.

I realize the grays are not visible on all TVs, but that's no excuse to completely chop off the top and bottom. Some of us can see it.

It made a difference when they were showing Obama's announcement from the White House live. CNN used the whole screen to show it, and MSNBC was chopped off.

edit: Forgot to say I was watching in SD. How does it look in HD widescreen?