When is standard cable going to be broadcast in widescreen?

[PizzaDude]

So, when is widescreen going to be the standard?

In my opinion, it's not worth it to buy a new, widescreen hdtv right now because of how the picture is stretched like this. Everything looks fat and distorted...

 

[Jeff7]

There are going to be some protests if this happens. My dad is among the crowd who says "What are those black bars? Get rid of them!" when he sees a widescreen DVD. He will not watch a movie that is widescreen format. He just can't stand it, he says that "the black bars are too distracting."

I meanwhile hate letterboxed versions because they chop off about 25% of the movie.

 

[BigJ]

Originally posted by: Jeff7
There are going to be some protests if this happens. My dad is among the crowd who says "What are those black bars? Get rid of them!" when he sees a widescreen DVD. He will not watch a movie that is widescreen format. He just can't stand it, he says that "the black bars are too distracting."

I meanwhile hate letterboxed versions because they chop off about 25% of the movie.

Tell your dad to crop the picture

 

[OneOfTheseDays]

your dad is just going to have to get used to it

 

[PizzaDude]

Originally posted by: Jeff7
There are going to be some protests if this happens. My dad is among the crowd who says "What are those black bars? Get rid of them!" when he sees a widescreen DVD. He will not watch a movie that is widescreen format. He just can't stand it, he says that "the black bars are too distracting."

I meanwhile hate letterboxed versions because they chop off about 25% of the movie.

It doesn't chop off any of the picture, it's just formatted differently so you can use the whole screen. I have a 4:3 TV right now and would much rather watch a fullscreen dvd because then the picture is a full 27" instead of having the "distracting" black bars...

 

[cKGunslinger]

It only takes little while to get used to have your 4:3 signal stretched wide (cropping + stretching doesn;t work for me, because I watch too many news shows with text at the bottom that gets cut off.)

Hmm.. maybe that's why I like the ladies with meat on their bones - on my TV, everyone looks fat!

 

[SpanishFry]

Originally posted by: PizzaDude

Originally posted by: Jeff7
There are going to be some protests if this happens. My dad is among the crowd who says "What are those black bars? Get rid of them!" when he sees a widescreen DVD. He will not watch a movie that is widescreen format. He just can't stand it, he says that "the black bars are too distracting."

I meanwhile hate letterboxed versions because they chop off about 25% of the movie.

It doesn't chop off any of the picture, it's just formatted differently so you can use the whole screen. I have a 4:3 TV right now and would much rather watch a fullscreen dvd because then the picture is a full 27" instead of having the "distracting" black bars...

fullscreen = pan and scan.

congrats, you're losing 43% of the picture :thumbsdown:

 

[CVSiN]

Blackbars do NOT cut off the picture.. that format shows 100% of the picture as it should be.. on the full screen your missing half the movie...

pan and scan is lame..

 

[redgtxdi]

OP, your plight is heard loud & clear!!


I bought a plasma TV earlier this year & returned it!! Voila! Done!! Fini!!


On top of SDTV looking like crap.........(and DO NOT buy into the folks who swear they've got SDTV nailed down. They don't. SDTV looks like a VHS tape on SLP mode and always will until screens are not limited by resolution anymore).........there's also the aspect ratios you mentioned.

Heck, you can spend all day over at avsforums on the COMPLAINTS about HDTV/widescreen, etc. And how about the first time you fire up your super panoramic in a 2.35:1 and even though you've got your widescreen TV you're STILL LOOKING AT BLACK BARS!! WTF????????????????


Yup........it's a catch22! My advice.................stick with your $200 27" CRT & laugh all the way to the bank!!

My sister talked up her latest Bravia to me & just went on & on.....(I did confirm with her that I thought Bravia's did about the best job currently).........until I got to her house & SHOWED her how her SDTV looked like crap. She swore up & down to me that it's not normally like that.........(yeah right......I'm a guy who spent the last 5 years studying HD/WS/SD/ED/xxx/etc. etc.)..........I just smiled & walked away.

It's sad. And who knows what networks will do.


Oh and last, but not least..............once you've got the 720p TV to kill ALL 720p TV's.........they'll figure out a way to broadcast in 1080p and you'll be hosed all over again!!!

Enjoy!!

 

[vi edit]

Depends on the stretch mode. The "horizon" stretch on my LG plasma is *very* good. It shows up a bit more on some types of shots than others, but overall it's easily worth the minimal pain for the bliss it provides during movies and properly formated HD content.

 

[Thraxen]

Originally posted by: redgtxdi
My sister talked up her latest Bravia to me & just went on & on.....(I did confirm with her that I thought Bravia's did about the best job currently).........until I got to her house & SHOWED her how her SDTV looked like crap. She swore up & down to me that it's not normally like that.........(yeah right......I'm a guy who spent the last 5 years studying HD/WS/SD/ED/xxx/etc. etc.)..........I just smiled & walked away.

Not all SDTV looks like crap on an HDTV. Digital channels look just fine. Sure, they don't look as good as HDTV, but they don't look any worse on an HD set than a non-HDTV.

 

[purbeast0]

OP ... you DO know you don't HAVE to stretch the 4:3 to fit the 16:9 picture, right? please tell me you know this ...

and redgtxdl ... your TV must have sucked. first of all, you got a plasma. plasma's are the bottom of the barrel as it is (consiering I am assuming you didn't get a top of the line one, considering you think a 27" CRT looks better). sure a 50" picture at normal SD resolution will not look as crisp or clear as the SD picture on a 27" picture. Just like a game running in 800x600 on a 15" monitor will look better than it would on a 24" monitor. If you don't understand why, then I guess it makes sense you are complaining.

at 27" your TV still has all that noise on the picture and looks like crap, only since the image isn't blown up to 50", you don't notice it.

 

[Special K]

Why can't the filmmakers start producing movies in a 16:10 aspect ratio so that people with HDTVs can use the whole screen?

 

[vi edit]

Originally posted by: Thraxen

Originally posted by: redgtxdi
My sister talked up her latest Bravia to me & just went on & on.....(I did confirm with her that I thought Bravia's did about the best job currently).........until I got to her house & SHOWED her how her SDTV looked like crap. She swore up & down to me that it's not normally like that.........(yeah right......I'm a guy who spent the last 5 years studying HD/WS/SD/ED/xxx/etc. etc.)..........I just smiled & walked away.

Not all SDTV looks like crap on an HDTV. Digital channels look just fine. Sure, they don't look as good as HDTV, but they don't look any worse on an HD set than a non-HDTV.

I'll respectfully disagree with that. No matter how good the digital feed, you simply can't bend the simple physics of the beast. SD content is intended to run at a specific resolution. HDTV's are inteded to display content presented in a much higher resolution. When you have a low quality source, the TV simply can not overcome the poor feed.

It's similar to having a $5,000 receiver and a $10,000 set of speakers...and then feeding it a source from an FM modulator. All that high end stuff will do is further expose the crappy sound you are feeding it. Not make it better.

There are tweaks and cheats you can do to try and help it, but overall you are still stuck with lower quality SD feeds.

 

[Qwest]

Wide Zoom on a Sony HD Tube makes 4:3 look pretty decent.

 

[Thraxen]

Originally posted by: vi_edit
[I'll respectfully disagree with that. No matter how good the digital feed, you simply can't bend the simple physics of the beast. SD content is intended to run at a specific resolution. HDTV's are inteded to display content presented in a much higher resolution. When you have a low quality source, the TV simply can not overcome the poor feed.

It's similar to having a $5,000 receiver and a $10,000 set of speakers...and then feeding it a source from an FM modulator. All that high end stuff will do is further expose the crappy sound you are feeding it. Not make it better.

There are tweaks and cheats you can do to try and help it, but overall you are still stuck with lower quality SD feeds.

I don't know... our digital non-HD movie channels generally look quite a bit better than the analog channels on our HDTV. I really haven't noticed a difference in visual quality on the digital channels between our HD sets and our SD sets.

 

[AznAnarchy99]

I cant stand full screen movies knowing they cut off parts of the screen. Widescreen is the way it orginally is. I can deal with the bars.

 

[spidey07]

So don't zoom/streatch the picture? Most any HDTV can do this.

and as far as I know, SDTV is a 4:3 aspect ratio and will always be.

Anybody that says SDTV looks bad on a HDTV doesn't know what they are talking about or probably more likely don't know what they are doing/know how to operate their TV.

 

[Reckoner]

Full Screen is still too popular, so it's going to be at least a few years I'd wager.

 

[Dr. Detroit]

Knowing that my household watches standard TV 90% of the time I bought a Sony KV36HS420 (Sony 36" Vega HDTV)

When I do get to watch HD or widescreen movies my picture is a nice 33".

Once we get full time HD I'll upgrade to a nice 50" LCD Sony.

 

[lokiju]

Originally posted by: redgtxdi
OP, your plight is heard loud & clear!!


I bought a plasma TV earlier this year & returned it!! Voila! Done!! Fini!!


On top of SDTV looking like crap.........(and DO NOT buy into the folks who swear they've got SDTV nailed down. They don't. SDTV looks like a VHS tape on SLP mode and always will until screens are not limited by resolution anymore).........there's also the aspect ratios you mentioned.

Heck, you can spend all day over at avsforums on the COMPLAINTS about HDTV/widescreen, etc. And how about the first time you fire up your super panoramic in a 2.35:1 and even though you've got your widescreen TV you're STILL LOOKING AT BLACK BARS!! WTF????????????????


Yup........it's a catch22! My advice.................stick with your $200 27" CRT & laugh all the way to the bank!!

My sister talked up her latest Bravia to me & just went on & on.....(I did confirm with her that I thought Bravia's did about the best job currently).........until I got to her house & SHOWED her how her SDTV looked like crap. She swore up & down to me that it's not normally like that.........(yeah right......I'm a guy who spent the last 5 years studying HD/WS/SD/ED/xxx/etc. etc.)..........I just smiled & walked away.

It's sad. And who knows what networks will do.


Oh and last, but not least..............once you've got the 720p TV to kill ALL 720p TV's.........they'll figure out a way to broadcast in 1080p and you'll be hosed all over again!!!

Enjoy!!

You must have been using standard cable or over the air standard def channels then, I have DirecTV and the standard doesn't look nearly as bad as the standard cable that I had prior to it looked.

 

[vi edit]

Originally posted by: spidey07
So don't zoom/streatch the picture? Most any HDTV can do this.

and as far as I know, SDTV is a 4:3 aspect ratio and will always be.

Anybody that says SDTV looks bad on a HDTV doesn't know what they are talking about or probably more likely don't know what they are doing/know how to operate their TV.

:roll:

Take an MPEG movie that had a native resolution of 640x480 and then blow it up and run it 1024x768. It looks worse at that resolution than the native one.

Same concept with SDTV on an HDTV. You can tweak it a bit to help. But the point still remains that unless there is some very high end upconvert on some TV's that I'm not aware of, you simply can't make up resolution on SD content.

 

[PizzaDude]

Originally posted by: purbeast0
OP ... you DO know you don't HAVE to stretch the 4:3 to fit the 16:9 picture, right? please tell me you know this ...

and redgtxdl ... your TV must have sucked. first of all, you got a plasma. plasma's are the bottom of the barrel as it is (consiering I am assuming you didn't get a top of the line one, considering you think a 27" CRT looks better). sure a 50" picture at normal SD resolution will not look as crisp or clear as the SD picture on a 27" picture. Just like a game running in 800x600 on a 15" monitor will look better than it would on a 24" monitor. If you don't understand why, then I guess it makes sense you are complaining.

at 27" your TV still has all that noise on the picture and looks like crap, only since the image isn't blown up to 50", you don't notice it.

Yes...I know that, but then WHY get a widescreen TV and have two black vertical bars on the sides!???

 

[PizzaDude]

Originally posted by: kmr1212

Originally posted by: PizzaDude

Originally posted by: Jeff7
There are going to be some protests if this happens. My dad is among the crowd who says "What are those black bars? Get rid of them!" when he sees a widescreen DVD. He will not watch a movie that is widescreen format. He just can't stand it, he says that "the black bars are too distracting."

I meanwhile hate letterboxed versions because they chop off about 25% of the movie.

It doesn't chop off any of the picture, it's just formatted differently so you can use the whole screen. I have a 4:3 TV right now and would much rather watch a fullscreen dvd because then the picture is a full 27" instead of having the "distracting" black bars...

fullscreen = pan and scan.

congrats, you're losing 43% of the picture :thumbsdown:

What are you talking about? There is nothing cut off when you watch a full screen dvd...

Am I missing something here?

Also, can you clarify what pan and scan is?

 

[Thraxen]

Originally posted by: vi_edit
Take an MPEG movie that had a native resolution of 640x480 and then blow it up and run it 1024x768. It looks worse at that resolution than the native one.

Same concept with SDTV on an HDTV. You can tweak it a bit to help. But the point still remains that unless there is some very high end upconvert on some TV's that I'm not aware of, you simply can't make up resolution on SD content.

Maybe that's the difference. I have a couple of CRT HDTVs. I know for a fact that the main set doesn't upconvert and not being DLP, or anything else with a native resolution, digital cable looks pretty much identical to how it appears on our SD sets... in fact, it may even look better.