Black on the sides or on top and bottom, and problems with these

[vchimpanzee]

I've had some really weird experiences lately.

I have cable, and regular TV sets from the analog era. I only watch broadcast channels and WGN because i have a very basic package, and a lot of times information will be cut off on the right or left. I'd rather have the black at the top and the bottom, and sometimes I do.

One day, though, a syndicated show called "Don't forget the Lyrics" had black on the right and left, so the area being watched was the standard shape from the old days. Except everyone appeared to have lost a great deal of weight. It reminded me of that time President Clinton appeared in an early test of this type of technology and he looked like he was normal weight.

At the other extreme, I watched "How the Garcia Girls Spent Their Summer" on a broadcast station--the same one as "Lyrics", in fact--and it had black at the top and bottom. And stuff was STILL cut off on the left and right. I could make remarks about how the Garcia Girls are normal weight compared to supermodels who some say are anorexic ... well, we know from her 'Ugly Betty" days that America Ferrera was ... normal. She lost some of that weight late in the series and looked really hot in a fantasy episode of that show.

 

[RadioJunkieMike]

I realize this is an old thread but lately WGN America has been showing movies with the odd "square picture in the center of the sceen" configuration described above. I'm not sure what the point is. Letterboxing is one thing, but this is just.. weird. And the same movies (which are from syndictaed packages) are airing on other channels with normal width.

 

[Darth_vader]

Windowboxing.

Topic covered more than a year later in http://radiodiscussions.com/smf/index.php?topic=223721.0.

 

[RadioJunkieMike]

Windowboxing.

Topic covered more than a year later in http://radiodiscussions.com/smf/index.php?topic=223721.0.

Thanks, DV that was an interesting thread. Only thing is, in WGN's case we're not talking about a sitcom rerun that was made before Widescreen TV existed, we're talking about recent theatrical films that were widescreen to begin with. So it seems like an odd choice on WGN's part.

 

[landtuna]

I've seen relatively recent commercials here that run in 'windowboxing' mode. Don't know why.