'It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia' on FX HD

i'm ok with that. honestly, it's always sunny is one of the lowest budget sitcoms on tv.

Almost certainly not HD. Looks exactly like Hell's Kitchen, So You Think You Can Dance, and other 16:9 SD fare from Fox's family of networks. Same soft picture, ringing due to edge enhancement, and artifacts on hard edges from deinterlacing. 16:9 is an improvement, but it's kind of sad that a major cable network is still doing original productions in SD in 2009.

I see staircasing on thin horizontal lines from upconversion but I haven't seen any deinterlacing artifacts in motion.

Why wouldn't they shoot 24p SD like the first season of Flight of the Conchords on HBO (another major cable network) did?

It probably is shot 24p, but then posted in 30i and upconverted from there to 60p for FX HD. Fox's upconverters don't seem to be particularly good at reversing the 2:3 pulldown, resulting in something that is effectively bob deinterlaced with all the characteristic staircasing/aliasing/deinterlacing artifacts. This type of artifact isn't really present on HBO HD because it's still interlaced.

Converting anything from progressive to interlaced when its destination is a progressive format sounds like madness to me, but then I don't do that stuff for a living.

Not a lot of Sunny fans on avs?

I don't really care what they did, but it certainly looked better than it usually does.

I love Sunny but my d* dvr only had it as a 30 minute episode rather than an hour+ so I won't get to see the rest until it replays tomorrow night. I thought the first half of last nights episode was pretty good and I agree with the previous poster that it definitely was an improvement over the SD from the past so I was happy enough with it.

Best show on TV. Been a fan since the first episode aired. Anyone catch that animated show that was on after it? I think it was called Archer.

Hugh Honey and Vic Vinegar!

BTW - I'm pretty sure it was only a 30 minute episode, but my recording through D* cut off with about 5 minutes left...

They ran a bit over due to the stupid Archer spots.

It did look very DVDish and upscaled not very 720p HD-like. Its still one of the funniest and original shows on T.V.

I was wondering why I couldn't find the episode in 720p anywhere like itunes, amazon, psn, or xbox live. I noticed the episode was in widescreen so I thought they had finally gotten enough money from fx to go hd but it sounds like they just went widescreen and maybe some better equipment. I recorded a rerun on FX HD that I haven't gotten to see yet so I was excited.

I noticed that they are releasing what is going to be called a "Christmas Special" in November that will release on Blu ray and dvd. So maybe we'll get some 1080p Sunny in November.

A little better but they aren't fooling anyone that this is HD. At least they're not shooting 4:3 safe which we saw in many driving scenes through the windshield.

Loved this ep. The gang was hilarious all around.

I find it strange how Sweet Dee fluctuates between hot and not though. Sometimes she just looks horrible, and other times she's gorgeous.

I'd say the green eye shadow did not do her any favors in this episode.

Very funny episode as usual...the Gang is always great. The picture quality....not as great, not very HD-like.

I went to "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia : Live" at the Hollywood Palladium last night.
The bulk of it was an extended live performance of "The Nightman Cometh" episode with added dialogue and songs.
Prior to "The Nightman" performance they showed an entire upcoming episode from season 5 and a clip from the Christmas special. I didn't see what they were using for a projector, but it was on a (roughly) 13' x 23' widescreen in the middle of the stage.
The image on the screen looked better than what I see on FXHD. The footage from the Christmas special (besides being hilarious) looked particularly good.

They did 6 tour stops: Boston, Philadelphia, NYC, Seattle, San Francisco, and LA.
I don't know if they plan to do more. Highly recommended, if they do.

I am too busy laughing to notice the PQ.

Honestly never had any complaints about it. The show doesn't need to be pristine.

I hear ya, before this season this was the only show that I watched on a regular basis that was in 4:3. The jump to widescreen on my favorite show ever blew my mind alone.

It might just be my love for this show, but I thought this episode looked somewhat better than the last two. You can still tell it's SD (the jaggies around the "subtitles" was obvious) but I saw fewer upconversion artifacts.

Great episode. I laughed nearly the whole way through it, although I did think the D&B advertising was a bit over the top.

Loved the bit with Charlie's creepy uncle. LOL.

That sign doesn't say Coors Charlie!! hahaha

Loved this episode...

I initially thought that but these guys deserve the money, so if they made a good amount for the plugging of D&B's and beer then so be it. I remember the commentary from the season 1 and 2 and how they couldn't afford to do a lot of basic things with the show but still managed to make it great.