Questions about HD tv's (1 Viewer)

[MatthewHan]

1.When you watch a DVD in widescreen, and you use the subtitles on a 4:3 tv, the subtitles are conveniently placed below the picture in the bottom black bar. However, if I was watching a widescreen movie on a 16:9 HD tv, do the subtitles simply overlay on top of the actual picture? I'm assuming they do. If so, is a Widescreen (16:9) HD necessarily a good choice vs. a 4:3 HDTV?

2. Also, I believe I am right in that Hi-Def television shows are also broacast in widescreen format. If this is true, and I was using a 4:3 HDTV to watch a Hi-Def show, would it cut the sides of the show off, or would I see black bars on the top and bottom?

-MatthewHan

 

[ChuckSolo]

1. Yes the subtitles overlay the actual picture in the scenario you are describing. Yes, a wisdescreen TV is the better choice IMHO because of the increasing availability of widescreen material. HD broadcasts fill up the entire screen on my RCA HD RPTV widescreen. Keep in mind that you are not going to get rid of the black bars on ALL wide screen material. A film presented in an aspect ratio of 2.35:1 on DVD will still give you black bars top and botton on a widescreen TV. A film presented in an aspect ratio of 1.85:1 will fill the entire screen on a widescreen TV.

2. Yes, HD programs I have seen are broadcast in widescreen. Yes, you would see the black bars on top and bottom on a HD broadcast watched on a 4:3 TV.

 

[Charlie Campisi]

Chuck is right. I tried to convince my sister to buy a widescreen tv, but got a note from her today that she bought another 4:3 HD set because it fit in the armoire. IMO, this was a big mistake. We all have to deal with black bars during this period of transition from SD to HD, and while it seems that most of your viewing is in SD, this ignores the whole purpose of buying an HD set.

Stated simply, you buy an HD set to watch programs in HD, not to watch 4:3 broadcasts. So get the tv that allows you to watch the HD programs and widescreen movies the way they were meant to be watched, in glorious widescreen mode.

PS - movies are shot in an even wider mode than HDTV and so some of your widescreen dvd's will still have black bars, though smaller than on a 4:3 tv. That is another discussion though and covered in the forum primer linked above. Welcome to the forum!

 

[Allan Jayne]

If the 4:3 TV barely fit in the armoire (entertainment center cabinet) a 16:9 set that also fit will yield wide screen pictures of the same size.

What counts is if the chosen 4:3 TV puts all 1080 scan lines in a 16:9 shaped space on command from its remote. Then the picture quality can be just as good as with a 16:9 TV. There do exist inferior TV's that use all 1080 scan lines only for 4:3 material upscaled and 810 scan lines for HDTV.

Video hints:
http://members.aol.com/ajaynejr/video.htm

 

[MikeGee]

I've been trying to explain this stuff to my family. Everyone gets a little grumpy when they see the "black bars" on the screen and yell at me for getting widescreen movies.
So basically if i was to watch a HD feed such as a football game it'd run in 16:9 format?
Wouldnt the trend in technology lead to more and more show/brodcasts running in 16:9 format?

 

[ChuckSolo]

Mike, yes, especially HD broadcasts. I think EVERYONE is a little grumpy when viewing widescreen presentations at first but like everything else, you get used to it. I know that even some non HD broadcasts are now being shown in widescreen. The Sci-Fi Channel does this a lot as does TNT and USA Network does too sometimes. Trust me, after a while, you won't even notice the black bars. Also keep in mind that on a widescreen set, the black bars are way smaller than on a 4:3 set so thay are not as noticeable.

 

[Allan Jayne]

The normal way of viewing HDTV broadcasts on a 4:3 non-HDTV TV set using a set top tuner box and an S-video (or composite video) connection will have black bars.

 

[Ted Lee]

yes. as already stated, part of the hd standard is a 16:9 image. so, when everything is switched to hd, everything should be seen in a wide-screen image.

heck, i'll actually start feeling bad for people with a 4:3 set.