In my area, we did the switchover to digital on the original date, a few weeks back.
Things haven't been that great.
It seems that when the stations switched over, they also gave up on caring about standard TVs.
Widescreen shows that in the past were broadcast letterboxed on standard TVs (ER, SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE, FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS, etc) are no longer broadcast that way. They are shown zoomed in.
Not even panned and scanned, but zoomed in. Both on ER and FNL this past week, there were dialogue scenes with people on either end of the picture, and both were cut out. It was a dialogue scene with no people in the frame.
This has happened on both the area NBC and FOX channel (I don't watch ABC or CBS enough to notice what was letterboxed before).
I do have a smaller HDTV that works fine. But for those watching on standard TV, I don't know if they realize what has been happening.
I don't know if this is an issue with my cable company or local station, but I've emailed the station, but didn't get any response.
Whether other stations will do the same with the switchover, I don't know. But it is like they are forcing everyone to buy an HDTV.
Things haven't been that great.
It seems that when the stations switched over, they also gave up on caring about standard TVs.
Widescreen shows that in the past were broadcast letterboxed on standard TVs (ER, SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE, FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS, etc) are no longer broadcast that way. They are shown zoomed in.
Not even panned and scanned, but zoomed in. Both on ER and FNL this past week, there were dialogue scenes with people on either end of the picture, and both were cut out. It was a dialogue scene with no people in the frame.
This has happened on both the area NBC and FOX channel (I don't watch ABC or CBS enough to notice what was letterboxed before).
I do have a smaller HDTV that works fine. But for those watching on standard TV, I don't know if they realize what has been happening.
I don't know if this is an issue with my cable company or local station, but I've emailed the station, but didn't get any response.
Whether other stations will do the same with the switchover, I don't know. But it is like they are forcing everyone to buy an HDTV.
Add to that the horrible on-screen Graffitti known as Pop-Ups, Scrolls and Banners!
