Some little mistakes slipped through tonight’s first feed of Nightly News that show one of the challenges of HD: making sure shots work in 4:3 and 16:9.

Brian had Andrea Mitchell and Lee Cowan in the Washington Capitol Hill studio at the anchor desk. During the wide shot just before Mitchell started her report, a dark shadow (presumably a person) appeared in the lower right hand corner. It was, however, mostly outside of the 4:3 space.

Then, during a package, Mitchell and Cowan left the set and Tim Russert joined Brian at the desk. Just behind his chair you could see one of the extra chairs pushed up against the wall.

While the HD viewership still doesn’t have a majority, productions do need to be cautious when setting up shots.

In other areas of the show, there seemed to be something a bit awry with timing. Maybe it was my imagination, but Brian seemed to start talking just a little too late and on several occasions mikes weren’t cut off quickly enough and a little audio slipped through (including a snippet coming out of the first break that may have been a stage direction).