We watched Company last night on our local PBS HD channel in the SF Bay Area. It was a stunning production and John Doyle's direction with its spare set and actors playing instruments was very unique and imaginative. For a modern, lean piece like Company, Doyle's style works better, I think, than it did for Sweeney Todd, a more ornate period piece. The cast was excellent with Raul Esparza as Bobby a standout (Tony nominated for this show). The four showstopper numbers were done brilliantly. The HD picture quality was very good as was the camera work. The frequent closeups of Esparza were very effective. He has an interesting range of facial expressions/reactions. The sound was generally good but there were some problems. There were a number of audio dropouts and what appeared to be censoring of language in two instances. Since I was DVRing the show with the intention of taking it to DV tape and ultimately to DVD, that was disappointing. The pleasant surprise was the fact that a DVD of the production is available (noted at the end of the show). When PBS showed Light in the Piazza in 2006, it was never released to DVD.

I recorded it too, and watched for a few minutes. I have to say the video quality was very much lacking. Little detail, and very soft. My thought is that it was a production decision, not one that I agree with.

I recorded it too, and watched for a few minutes. I have to say the video quality was very much lacking. Little detail, and very soft. My thought is that it was a production decision, not one that I agree with.

That's interesting Matt. I watched the opening number on the DVR recording and thought that it looked OK with good detail and sharpness. Maybe our respective local PBS feeds vary in quality?

I watched this last night, and thought the video quality was fine and the audio sounded great on my system, with an unusually wide dynamic range for a video production. Overall, a rare pleasure to see the full broadway musical in HD.

Locally (WSRE, Pensacola, FL) this was NOT broadcast in 5.1 audio. Was it available in other areas in 5.1? I had to crank the volume way up to even hear it. This was also true with the PBS opera presentations-- no 5.1 and a rather low volume setting.

We watched Company last night on our local PBS HD channel in the SF Bay Area. It was a stunning production and John Doyle's direction with its spare set and actors playing instruments was very unique and imaginative.
<SNIP>The cast was excellent with Raul Esparza as Bobby a standout

I found the video and audio quality of the production to be adequare, but hated the staging and direction. Especially hated the use of the saxophones replacing some of the vocals in "You Could Drive a Person Crazy". I also didn't like Raul Esparza's performance. I thought he was phoning it in. He may have one a Tony for the show, but not for this performance. Company is one of my favorite musicals, and I've seen university productions of it that were more inspired than this one. The minimalist set was nice, but traditional for the show (it's often done using scafolding for the sets).