The Future of Standard TV? (1 Viewer)

[Jon Martin]

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.

 

[Hanson]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but if the local affliate is no longer broadcasting an SD feed, isn't it the cable compnay that is cropping the picture? Who is supplying the SD feed to the cable companies in this case? I assume the cable companies are downcoverting the HD feed.

 

[ThomasC]

This seems like a problem with the cable company. I'm guessing they're taking the signal, cropping it, and sending it out so people don't complain about the black bars. People watching with an antenna wouldn't have this problem.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Exactly. One of the provisions in the converter box program was that all boxes must allow the owner to choose between letterboxing, center-cropping and stretching the picture. The vast majority of TVs with digital tuners are widescreen TVs that accept the 16x9 picture natively.

I know a few months back a lot of NBC affiliates started center-cropping primetime programming. (Fortunately, my NBC affiliate was not one of them) Once stations go digital only, it's hard to say whether they or the cable company are providing the widescreen crop. Undoubtedly this issue will get more attention when the remainder of the country switches in June.

 

[AnthonyC]

This has been a problem for me recently--to make it doubly annoying, widescreen commercials (i.e. tags for the news) are shown in OAR. Weirdly, a couple weeks ago The Amazing Race (which is 4 x 3) was shown with black bars on all sides of the screen, so I assumed that it was a small price to pay for everything else being shown in the proper ratio. But it was only on that one episode; everything widescreen is still cropped and centered. It's really a pain; to see things in proper OAR I either have to wait for the DVD or watch online, which I hate.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Anthony, try getting a converter box. If you're relatively close to the transmission towers, it'll work with a $5 pair of old rabbit ears you can get from a garage sale and gives you the same options as an anamorphic DVD. I use mine with a $4 GE A/B switch from Home Depot so I can go back and forth between my cable feed and OTA.

 

[Chris Lockwood]

Don't email them, call. Call every time a show is improperly shown, and tell your friends to do the same. Clog their switchboard until they fix it.

 

[Jesse Skeen]

You mean whenever there's a network logo on the screen that doesn't go away? I did that when they first started, but that didn't do any good.

 

[Regulus]

Not to mention the Progression of Commercials from 12 Minutes per hour to 15, then 20, now up to 26 Minutes per Hour! Add to that the horrible on-screen Graffitti known as Pop-Ups, Scrolls and Banners!

 

[Mikah Cerucco]

What show are you watching that has 34 minutes of content for a 1-hr time slot? I've never seen that.

 

[Regulus]

Actually its Two Shows, Jeapordy and Wheel of Fortune, but I counted THIRTEEN MINUTES of commercials on each show, for a total of Twenty Six minutes of Ads during that hour!

 

[Kevin Hewell]

A normal one hour drama usually has around 18 minutes of commercials.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

These shows are designed to run shorter than normal because most affiliates group them into an hour block and broadcast the state lotto drawings during the final act break of whichever show runs second.