A new kind of letterboxing problem

[vchimpanzee]

New development: Now the episodes are no longer letterboxed. They fill the screen, which must mean they're cut off on the right and left.

If you're watching on a 4:3 TV, probably so. It also depends on the season. Only in the last few years have The Simpsons been produced in 16:9.

It doesn't depend on the season. The new episodes are now not being letterboxed.

I am noticing more and more movies getting cut off on the right and left. Even V-chip ratings, and of course credits. In some scenes there is no one on screen because one's on the right side and one's on the left.

 

[DJKraze]

As soon as everybody throws away their old 4:3 analog TVs and buys a new 16:9 TV we'll all be in good shape. All the local thrift shops are getting full of old analog TVs. But who's gonna buy them?

At the places I've checked out they've pretty much cleared out entire hotels of their tube TVs and are offering them between $2-$7; they have no remotes and still have the ethernet-like jack connection to the hotel's PPV network. Nobody's jumping on them. I replaced my bedroom set with a good Vizio 26" set a year back and thought of offering it on craigslist but once I saw the thrift prices, it was laughable to even offer $20 for one, and that was with the coupon digital converter box included.

cheap hotels still have tube sets

Are you saying my bedroom is a cheap hotel? I have an old RCA 32 inch CRT set, and I plan on keeping it until it dies or other reason I'm forced to give it up, and yes, I have a flat screen in my "computer room" (not counting laptop and PC screens) and yes, I have a Zenith converter box for the RCA, and it's hooked up to an old 8 channel pelican system selector pro switcher, so this tv is set up to use the following:

1 N64/Game Cube/XBOX (multi-connector cable)
2 PS2
3 Zenith DVD/VCR combo unit which has Dish Network TV1 on aux 1 and an amped antenna on the tuner to get the remaining analog LPTV
4 Magnavox DVDR/VCR combo unit with Dish Network TV2 on aux 1
5 Zenith HDTV Digital converter
6 XBOX 360
7 WDTV box (the old kind that only shows video from connected USB devices)
8 an old Replay TV Box that I got at a flea market that someone upgraded the hard drive to 500GB, I've had it since this summer and I'm still nowhere near 5% done with the programs someone recorded on it (it looks like it was once connected to a cable system in Derby as all the local TV is from NYC and they took it offline some time before 2010). Came with two spare hard drives, so once I finish watching the 500, I still have a 250 and an 80 to watch!

BTW: the digital TV in the computer room has a networkable Blueray connected to it, but not yet online.

But (in order to keep on topic here), the stamp does occur for me as well on the Digital converter, but this box has a multiple zoom function and will go from "set by program" to "letterboxed" to "cropped" (which eliminates the "Stamp") to "squeezed" which takes 16:9 and squishes it to 4:3 (even if it's already 4:3). The dish box tuners have down conversion as well but most channels are either set to 4:3 or letterboxed, never pillar.

 

[vchimpanzee]

I have six sets with tubes. All with VCRs built in. One is broken, and another I haven't used lately. All the VCRs are in various stages of causing problems.

And I've never stayed in a motel that didn't have tubes.

One had a brand new TV because of lightning strike the night before, causing the man who ran the place to go to Wal-Mart to buy more. Wal-Mart used to be across the street but they closed. This year county offices were there. I don't remember how many years it took for that to happen. It could have been before the DTV conversion.

 

[vchimpanzee]

Letterboxed shows are useful when there is winter weather that results in closings and delays, which can be pput at the bottom of the screen conveniently instead of squeezing the video.

i have noticed one commercial where people look unusually fat and have reason to believe that was done so they would look normal on a wide screen.

Then there's the worst case I ever saw of movie credits being off-screen on the left and right.

 

[PirateJohnny]

I work at a Fox TV affiliate. We broadcast a 16:9 video image like all other TV stations on the air now. Cable and satellite re-broadcast us (and everyone else) on the HD channels as 16:9 and on the SD/analog channels as 4:3.

Until the last few years The Simpsons were produced in 4:3. Only the last few years were produced in 16:9.

Letterboxing a show to put bad weather on the screen is a technical PITA. Advertisers complain about their commercials being small if letterboxed. We just put the weather info over the lower portion of the picture.

VC, it sounds like all your TVs are 4:3. If people look fat, that's because a 4:3 image was stretched to fill a 16:9 screen with no black bars on the side (pillarboxing). You are seeing a 4:3 center-cut portion of a 16:9 image. They look fat on a 16:9 screen, too.

The movie credits were cut off because the movie was in a 16:9 format and you were watching a 4:3 center-cut image on a 4:3 TV. If the movie had been letterboxed you would have seen the whole image with black bars on the top and bottom. People watching on a 16:9 TV would have seen a postagestamped image-black bars on the top and bottom as well as on both sides.

Making an image perfect for an obsolete 4:3 TV makes it imperfect for a state of the art 16:9 TV. The FOX Network no longer uses 4:3 safe graphics on their ball games.