Potentially dumb question... (widescreen tv shows) (1 Viewer)

[MoG]

Hi,

Forgive me if this is asinine but...

Am I correct in assuming the picture being broadcast is still "full screen". ie-the black bars are being sent as part of the picture?

I have a DTV set that does 480p. I'm wondering if I would gain anything buy getting a STB to pick up OTA DTV signals and watch the shows via the TV's 480p component inputs. The TV lets me select the aspect ratio for that video input.

However, I'm thinking I'd still have to select the 4:3 aspect ratio if I did all that. If I selected the 16:9 aspect ration, I'd have two sets of black bars, right? First one caused by my set squeezing the image, and the 2nd set being part of the picture being broadcast?

Forgive me if this isn't the right forum for this...

(please move it to the appropriate one if needed)

 

[Galvin]

I heard one person say this is done in preperation for HDTV in 3 years from now. It's real widescreen I don't know where I heard it from, but it's not full screen with bars drawn on top.

I think and I'm not sure about this but by 2005 every TV station has to broadcast in digital which would be nice, by then 90% if not more will most likely have digital cable, I already have it, and I keep saying damn I wish CBS, NBC, ABC, FOX, UPN, etc would have digital broadcast as well because it's so much clear. Scifi I think has the worst picture for analog.

Widescreen worked awesome for B5 and their movies, and I like it with Enterprise very much.

 

[rutger_s]

The analog stations broadcast the widescreen shows:

Enterprise

Angel

The West Wing

The Sopranos

ER

in letterbox widescreen. I.E. the black bars are part of the broadcast signal.

But the digital stations broadcast the widescreen shows in anamorphic widescreen. The black bars are not part of the digital broadcast signal and a HDTV decoder downconverts the signal to fit a 4:3 screen.

Note: that by digital, I do not mean DirecTV digital. I am referring to HDTV and DTV which requires a seperate decoder/tuner.

And Enterprise is hard-shot for 1.78:1 since the UK broadcasts are pan & scanned for 1.33:1.

 

[MoG]

Thanks for the reply. That's exactly the information I was looking for. My TV does the "squeeze", so it seems that I would indeed get increased picture quality by getting a STB to view free OTA DTV broadcasts. Cool...

 

[Ken Chan]

Sorry, but I know for NBC at least, The West Wing and ER are not broadcast in HDTV. The only shows NBC broadcasts in HDTV are The Tonight Show and (for whatever reason) Crossing Jordan. For Jordan on the analog 4:3 channel, they show one of those "in HDTV where available" graphics at the beginning.
On CBS and ABC most of their scripted stuff (or maybe scripted dramas only?) is in HD. CBS also does the "in HDTV where available" graphics, but I don't recall if ABC does it. Those shows are cropped to 4:3 on the analog channels.
You may be hard-pressed to find any UPN affiliate that broadcast in HD, and for that reason, the network may not make it available. The only UPN DTV station I know shows Enterprise letterboxed in 720x480, not HD. Same applies to WB.
For The Sopranos, you might be able to get HD if you get HBO HD.
Oh: HDTV is not anamorphic -- the pixels are square -- but it is "widescreen" in comparison to 4:3. Now, you could do non-HD DTV (720x480) in anamorphic, just like a DVD, but I doubt anyone is doing that, since that resolution is for backward-compatibility.
//Ken

 

[Jeff Kleist]

Queer as Folk also has 16:9 airings on Tuesdays, and Stargate SG-1 also has widescreen airings, at least on HD-Showtime(they are upconverted from standard def). Rumor has it that when the show moves to Sci-Fi next year, they are going widescreen only (though since there is no HD-Sci-Fi channel there will be no more airings in HD.
If you don't mind a slight quality loss, just zoom the image to fill your screen. Since you are keeping the AR straight, no worries there