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Re: Picture formats changing?

I believe the second paragraph of the bold type below may address what you are seeing. I do see that quite often on commercials, and even whole shows. IMO, someone is dropping the ball somewhere along the broadcast line before your equipment even receives the transmission. As annoying as that is, I rather see that then a 4:3 aspect ratio show stretched and distorted to fit a 16:9 format!

Any image that is broadcast in HD television has the aspect ratio of 16:9 (1.78:1). If the original image was a theactrical movie with the common 1.85:1 or 2.39:1 ratio, you would see black bars on the top and bottom on your 16:9 screen, that is if they wish to retain the original ratio. This would allow the viewer to see the entire image, just as it was shot (commonly called letterbox), without losing any of it by having it hacked off of the sides.  Now, if the original image was 4:3, they will either add the black bars on the side or as some channels do put decorative bars on the side. Some news shows move the 4:3 image all the way over to the left and then puts headline items in three boxes on the right along with the crawler on the bottom. The History channel puts decorative bars with their name on the side.

What you sometimes see when you're viewing a 16:9 format is some broadcasters sending you the same image they send on the SD (standard definition) version, which when the original image is 16:9, they put black bars on the top & bottom for a 4:3 screen,  and then send it over the HD channel with additional black bars on the sides, giving you black bars all the way around it.

I hope this post helps!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspect_ratio_%28image%29
This is CABL.com posting #322410. Tiny Link: cabl.co/mbv2k
Posted in reply to: Re: Picture formats changing? by 42db
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