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Simpsons Season 20 (New HD Intro) - Page 2

post #31 of 36
3/2/09 at 7:38pm

Re: Simpsons Season 20 (New HD Intro)

FYI, King of the Hill went to 16:9 a week before the Simpsons did. (Of course, Fox didn't promote it at all.)
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post #32 of 36
3/2/09 at 8:04pm

Re: Simpsons Season 20 (New HD Intro)

I didn't catch KOTH, but during the scene where Bart and Ralph and the bullies were on the bus making stupid faces, you could only see the edge of Ralph. I wrote to my NBC station when I first noticed them airing The Office fullframe but of course got no response. This is even worse than pan-and-scan since they're just taking the center of the screen and slapping it out there.
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post #33 of 36
3/4/09 at 8:56am

Re: Simpsons Season 20 (New HD Intro)

Some things noted on "How the test was won" episode:
The insurance company envelope has the address "Balloon Payment Blvd."
The banner on the school with Miss Caldecott is now Mr. Newbury is a reference to the two literary awards for children's books.
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post #34 of 36
3/4/09 at 11:20am

Re: Simpsons Season 20 (New HD Intro)

Leave it to Mr. Burns to brighten up any weak episode of "The Simpsons". "Apaches!"
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post #35 of 36
3/5/09 at 10:10am

Re: Simpsons Season 20 (New HD Intro)

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mike Slade
This isn't the networks. I assume you're probably watching on cable. This is a byproduct of the digital transition and how your provider is carrying the feed. Since the analog feed is going away, cable providers have begun to take the digital feed provided to them and also use it as their standard channel. For this most just crop the sides and send it out that way. Most shows on CBS and ABC are shot for the safe 4:3 area so you don't notice it. But like you said NBC's shows were all shown letterbox because they are shot to use the 16:9 frame. Now that the cable providers are cropping the sides, it's very noticeable. Not sure about other FOX shows but, I noticed the simpsons and king of the hill both appeared to be composed for widescreen now. When i saw the shots of Hank and the gang in the alley, they covered the whole screen. I was thinking at the time "i bet this looks awful on the SD channel." I assume most of hank and boomhauer were cut off.

Actually, I think this is a problem with the local channels, and not the cable companies. It is the signal that they are sending to the cable company.

I watched it in SD and it seems my local channel didn't know what to do. It would begin to be shown letterboxed, then in the middle of a segment, switch to zoom. Throughout the episode, it changed three or four times. I thought they would finally figure it out, and then it was zoomed again.
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post #36 of 36
3/5/09 at 9:02pm

Re: Simpsons Season 20 (New HD Intro)

Quote:
Originally Posted by Jon Martin
Actually, I think this is a problem with the local channels, and not the cable companies. It is the signal that they are sending to the cable company.

I watched it in SD and it seems my local channel didn't know what to do. It would begin to be shown letterboxed, then in the middle of a segment, switch to zoom. Throughout the episode, it changed three or four times. I thought they would finally figure it out, and then it was zoomed again.

Well i can't say for sure but I think it's the cable companies although what you're describing does sounds like a local issue. There are still many local stations that cannot do HD video from the local level, so when they have to insert local commercials or weather graphics, they have to drop back to their standard signal to send those out. Basically when they drop back to their SD upconvert you're getting what would normally be on the analog station. Where I live we only have one local station that can do HD on local material. So when we have severe weather in our area HD goes out the window. Then sometimes there are just problems when the controller is either asleep at the "HD button" or the auto switcher is having issues. I'm just assuming that the local station provides their digital signal in its raw form and then it's up to the cable provider to display in in a way they choose for the SD version of the channel. I don't think the locals would send the signal to them in multiple different ways so that it could be displayed differently on the SD cable version.

I asked my local ABC affilate how it's done and they said they have an agreement with the cable providers to "center cut" the HD image for the SD tier. They said it is done on the cable side though.
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