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I'm not much of a videophile, but I am looking at a new tv to replace a mammoth 55" box that is about 10 yrs old. So i was looking in a store the other day and one of the young salesmen told me that everything would be broadcast in 16:9 after the conversion and therefore my old set will be have a smaller picy. Is this true? I hadn't heard that. But there again, I've been out of the loop on this.
A Wise man seeks much advice. A Fool listens to all of it.
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Aside from HD, You get a much better view of the playing field (Hockey, soccer, American pointy-ball (aka "Football"), basketball, etc... with 16:9 Sports broadcasts. And since most films are at an even wider aspect ratio, it helps to have 16:9 display capability.
I don't even know if you can buy a 4:3 display anymore.
I bought a 27" 4:3 TV a few years ago.
Then again, I don't watch a lot of TV, and if I want to build a home theater, I'll be using a projector to get 16:9 and HD instead of a TV anyway :)
Switching to widescreen production means buying all-new equipment. Smaller producers may not be ready for that. Note that most commercials are still in 4:3, even the ones shown on "HD" channels.
> > I don't even know if you can buy a 4:3 display anymore. < <
Sure you can. The bulk of new televisions under 20" diagonal are 4:3.
Judging from experience here in Australia, it won't take long for that to change. Most ads I see here are 16:9.
David Aiken
Hi there
I agree. I haven't actually counted, but I think at least half the commercials are 16:9 (on OTA HDTV in the Los Angeles market). I am also including the numerous "widescreen" commercials that are letterboxed for 4:3 and then pillarboxed for 16:9. The past year has brought more commercials in 16:9 aspect ratio with surround sound and LFE. Some of the commercials have PQ as good as, if not better, than some of the regular shows (esp compared to filmed dramas).
Regards
When it comes to television content, Los Angeles (home of the major TV studios) may be a bit farther along than those of us out here in fly-over country, don't you think?
The stations broadcasting digital broadcast some stuff as SD with a 4:3 Aspect ratio and black bars appear on either side of the picture on a widescreen TV unless you stretch the picture on the set. Other stuff is broadcast in HD with a full 16:9 aspect ratio that fills the entire wide screen w/o changing the fill on the TV sets. Often shows are broadcast in 16:9 HD but commercials as 4:3 SD, and by 16:9 TV flips back and forth with side bars or not. The digital signal is noticably sharper than the analog signal broadcast by the same station (I can compare the two directly) but other than the aspect ratio I see little sharpness difference between the SD 4:3 signal and the HD 16:9 singnal. I am making these comparisons on a 32 inch panasonic LCD and I might see more difference on a 50 inch set.
broadcast HDTV is coming in just like color TV did 40+ years ago. Initially only a small % of programming is done in HD but over time an ever larger share of the signals broadcasted will be 16:9 HD
HD. SD content will still be SD and, hopefully, still shown in original aspect and not stretched to fill a 16x9 screen. It will be a long, long time before all programming will be HD. It will never happen for lots and lots of programming that was not originally shot in HD?
The major networks will have HD as 16:9 but upscaled SD will be 3:4 with black bars. The subchannels will be SD digital, and they will probably be stretched, as they are now.
Jack
Here in Australia we have standard definition programs in 16:9 image format now in some cases and 4:3 in others, and that's on the same channel so it's got nothing to do with the definition of the broadcast. It simply depends on the format ratio for the picture for the particular program being broadcast. You don't need HiDef for a program to be broadcast in 16:9, at least as far as technical reasons go. Your US channels may have some standard they comply with which requires standard def broadcasting in 4:3 ratio but that's not the case here. Our main free to air networks have separate simultaneous standard def and hi def broadcasts and the aspect ratio of the picture they broadcast is identical on both digital broadcasts. The only difference as you swap between the standard and hi def broadcasts is the resolution of the picture.
Not everything is broadcast in 16:9 here on the digital networks but the TV programs that aren't broadcast in 16:9 are things which were filmed in 4:3 originally and that basically is older TV programs and some newsfilm footage. Movies are basically broadcast in a similar manner to how they're presented on DVDs, and that is largely for viewing on a 16:9 screen.
The facts are this:
- buy a 4:3 set and 16:9 broadcasts won't fill the screen and will show black bands above and below the picture area if the TV is set up to display the full picture.
- buy a 16:9 set and 4:3 broadcasts won't fill the screen and will show black bands on either side of the picture unless you stretch the image sideways and give everyone a weight problem.
- movies which have film aspect ratios of 1.85:1, 2.35:1 and 2.40:1 which have been mastered for display on a 16:9 screen will fill a greater proportion of a 16:9 screen than they will with a 4:3 screen of the same diagonal. There are some older DVDs around which show a wide screen film image but which are mastered for display on a 4:3 screen and display with black borders on all sides with a 16:9 screen. They're a very small minority of the discs available and the only cases I know of where DVDs look better on a 4:3 screen than a 16:9 screen. All Blu-Ray and HD DVDs are mastered for display on 16:9 displays.
If everything you watched was 4:3 the choice would be a no brainer. If you watch a lot of material in wider image formats than 4:3 then a 16:9 wide screen is the better choice and it's certainly the way things are going. Standard def vs HiDef has nothing to do with this choice as far as broadcast TV goes here in Australia, and I suspect not in the US either. Most standard def DVDs these days are mastered for display on wide screens. There's no reason for choosing a 4:3 screen in my view unless the majority of material you watch from all sources has a 4:3 aspect ratio and I personally think those days are gone.
David Aiken
US. Can someone recommend some examples? I would like to check it out.
We certainly have enough 4x3 programming that is being stretched to 16x9.
Unless, of course, you want to count 16x9 SD camcorder footage using the anamorphic squeeze technique onto a 4x3 chip.
Do you have standard definition digital broadcasting in the US?
The situation here in Australia at present is:
- we still have analog broadcasting and that is standard definition (PAL) 4:3 picture format
- we have both standard and high definition digital broadcasting. Both are 16:9 with identical picture apart from resolution. The major networks currently run 2 essentially identical channels differing only in resolution but image aspect ratio is the same for both. Some material broadcast on both does have a 4:3 aspect ratio, and movies can have the various wide screen aspect ratios but effectively for the viewer it's like watching an anamorphic DVD, the picture will display correctly with bars as appropriate for the program's aspect ratio and your screen provided your digital tuner knows what your screen aspect ratio is. Setting the screen aspect ratio is exactly the same process as setting your screen's aspect ratio for a DVD player. You just bring up the setup menu, choose the screen aspect setting, and select the right screen format. TV's with in-built digital tuners don't need to have their aspect ratio set because that's 'hard-wired' in the TV's own circuitry. The standard definition digital picture, while 16:9 in aspect ratio, has exactly the same pixel resolution as 4:3 PAL standard broadcasting or a standard definition DVD and can be recorded on a standard definition video recording device such as a VCR, DVD recorder, or hard drive recorder.
We are now, in the last 6-9 months, starting to see a couple of networks showing different programs at times on their standard and HD channels. That's fairly new because I understand that initially they were required to provide identical programming on both channels. Some networks are also introducing additional channels showing repeats or news broadcasts and so far all of those additional channels seem to be in standard def.
As far as hi def image resolution goes, we have 1 network transmitting in 720p, 3 in 1080i, and 1 in 576p which our federal government in its stupidity defined as hi def since it was a higher bandwidth transmission than 576i and required a digital network for transmission. Some networks transmit some programs in standard definition on their hi def channels if they don't have a hi def source for the program but the network transmitting in 720 p usually sticks up a test pattern for the duration and forces you to swap to their standard def channel if you want to see that program.
David Aiken
I was commenting on Wendell's post about SD 16x9 material, of which they ain't got any being broadcast. All of the SD 16x9 material that's seen today originated from a High Definition camera (be it analog film or digital hard drive based) and was down-rezzed/converted for SD broadcast.
I don't have a digital receiver for television at this time. We just subscribe to the local cable company (suck-ass Charter Communications), so Expanded Basic cable is all we get. Or need, for that matter, as when we signed up and got free movie channels for 6 months we never watched them.
.
superior to any consumer HD format.
It doesn't matter how they "begin life." The end result is what matters. The end result is that they are standard definition widescreen.
s
in 16X9. I'm not aware of any. The original poster indicated it was the
case in Australia. Perhaps I misunderstood his point.
For instance, Dorna's coverage of MotoGP is SD widescreen broadcast.As with Australia, the PAL system is more conducive to anamorphic widescreen than NTSC. Lots of "widescreen" video done with PAL cameras.
Anyone who says it's not done "anywhere" either doesn't know what they are talking about, or is being incredibly provincial.
Who said that? I said I wasn't aware of it being done in the US. Chill.
> > Who said that? < <
Someone else did.
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