The first ESPNewsHD screenshots are here!

The only reason I don’t watch as much of ESPNews as I used to is because I’ve become an HD Snob, as my wife likes to put it, and rarely do I find myself watching something that isn’t in high-def.

Well in case you all forgot, we mentioned back in late December that ESPNewsHD would launch on March 30th and it’s looking like that is still going to happen. At least, it’s going to be late in March, maybe early April. Obviously that doesn’t necessarily mean providers like DirectTV, Cox, Comcast, etc., will show the station that same day, but one can certainly hope.

But to whet our appetites for this glorious day of a new, beautiful 24/7 sports news channel, we have screenshots or mockups of what the new ESPNews graphics package will look like and I’m FRAKKING excited for it! Thanks to some dude on DBSTalk for finding these on ESPN Media.

Here is the first one below, it has a top bar that displays the upcoming news categories. The left pane will display current information for the game or news item that is the latest on that top news bar. If you look, it shows the BOS-CLE game as the highlighted game, and then some information about it.

The other thing to note is that while it doesn’t fill the screen, the main picture with the news feed appears to be widescreen (16:9), meaning while it wont fill up your TV screen, you’ll still be getting a HD picture of game highlights, etc. Not too shabby.

Now, with the one below, it also looks like they’ll use it to show more than one game or event currently taking place. The NCAAF example gives us 3 final scores at one time, which is pretty slick.

And you still get the bottom bar with the latest top stories and the current time, which I love.

The one below just shows another use of the left pane, to show the Nextel Cup standings.

This last one is awesome (awww, Brett), but mainly for the snazzy little game update for the Oregon vs Tennessee fake contest. Not only do you get the score, the time, the quarter and who has possession, they also give you the down and where they are on the field with a sweet looking football field graphic.

Wowee!

And below that, you get current stats from the game.

Now, without football around for awhile, it’s going to be cool to see what they put up for baseball games. Will they use a nice diamond graphic to convey game status?

There you have it. What do you think? Are you going to be addicted to the new station once it hits? I know I am. Just recently the Brett Favre retirement press conference was on, and it lasted around 2 hours.

I had ESPNews on for the last half of it, and I can just imagine how much more fun it will be to enjoy things like that plus get a bazillion other updates and news items all in a sexy graphics package.

Can’t wait!