When could we see the SD format of many of the popular cable networks go away? Just courious as they all run HD feeds and I am sure it costs money to run both a SD format and HD format. Along with this many shows seen on cable are shown in HD and are formated that way even on the SD feed.
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SD Format: When Could We See It Go Away?
- Thread starter radiolives
- Start date
The sooner the better. I'm sick of going into peoples houses and into resturants and seeing an expensive widescreen with a crappy old SD cable channel stretch out. I'm tired of bloated fat looking football games on ESPN. The sad thing is that most of these people don't seem to notice that their picture looks like crap. I'm not opposed to SD. I watch subchannels all the time and local shows that are in SD. I want to see the show as it originally was shot. If its 4:3 I'm OK with that. but please don't stretch, zoom or crop your picture people. If maybe if they added side bars to everything 4:3 it might discourage people from doing this annoying habit. Whats even worse. A tv set on "panoramic" that makes an SD channel look like some freaked out funhouse mirror.
I also wonder (as I am a Comcast customer) when Comcast or other big cable companies make the decision to go all-HD except perhaps public access/community channels, and any other channels that may still be only broadcasting on SD (if any exist).
My system (Verizon FIOS) has both SD and HD for most cable channels. Older shows were shot in the 3x4 aspect ratio. When they are shown on the HD channel, they crop the top and bottom to make the show look wide-screen. I'd prefer to keep the SD channels with the original aspect ratio. And some shows I deliberately record from the SD channel to save disk space on my Tivo.
I've said before that the zoom function does make sense, although it can be abused. on my Insignia set if a show is letterboxed on the top and bottom in SD the normal setting leaves the picture with black bars on all 4 sides. In most cases the zoom setting will only take off the black bars, except on some movies with an even narrower picture where even zoom doesn't totally get rid of the top and bottom bars.
Is TBS still an offender when it comes to stretching SD into HD? I've heard they're quite notorious for this...
I also have FiOS and I use their DVR. A half-hour program recorded in HD takes up three times as much space as it would in SD. Not sure if this is the same for TiVo. But I would think that once SD is phased out, TiVo and FiOS and everyone else expands our DVR disk space. It's only fair.
OT: Welcome to the four-digit club, Matt... from one of the two members of the five-digit club.
MattParker said:
I also have FiOS and I use their DVR. A half-hour program recorded in HD takes up three times as much space as it would in SD. Not sure if this is the same for TiVo. But I would think that once SD is phased out, TiVo and FiOS and everyone else expands our DVR disk space. It's only fair.
OT: Welcome to the four-digit club, Matt... from one of the two members of the five-digit club.
DToTheJ said:
I believe both TBS and TNT are abusers of the strech
I don't think SD feeds are going away for a while, but what is disappearing are HD logos. I've noticed ESPN, USA and a couple other cable nets that no longer tag their logo bugs with "HD", also I noticed more and more channels are moving their bugs into the lower right or upper right corners, outside of the 4x3 "safe" zone (The Fox affiliate around here does this nicely)
A couple of things about SD and LCD sets:
Most LCD sets nowadays have a "zoom" or "set by program" function (my LG does that) where the set determines how the picture looks by the type of signal. If the signal is coming from my U-Verse box, then it defaults to 16:9 (and U-Verse doesn't stretch 4:3, so an SD picture has pillarboxes on the left and right). If it comes from my VCR (yes, I still have one) or my DVD player it switches to 4:3. I have the option of zooming on the DVD player (since it's a component Y/Pb/Pr input) and maintaining a clear picture. If the signal is coming from the antenna, the TV defaults to 16:9, and it's up to the broadcaster to either pillarbox a 4:3 signal or stretch it (something over which I have no control).
It's not that hard for restaurants and bars to RTFM and figure out how to provide their patrons with a good looking picture. And I know nobody wants to watch a 4:3 signal on a 16:9 set they spent over a thousand bucks on. But it's also true that the vast majority of TV watchers don't really care. (See the Betamax/VHS battles of the late '70s for an example.) People will put up with a stretched signal in order to feel that they're getting the most out of their widescreen set in the same way they put up with crappy video quality in order to be able to record 6 hours of programming on a single tape, instead of just 2 (or 4 with Beta II).
Until broadcasters and satellite/cable TV networks begin broadcasting in full 16:9 (even if it's still just 480 quality), the pillarbox/stretch debate will continue, and people still won't care. But they'll still complain about Fox Sports broadcasting in widescreen and having a black box around the entire picture, not knowing they can just hit "zoom" and make it all better.
Most LCD sets nowadays have a "zoom" or "set by program" function (my LG does that) where the set determines how the picture looks by the type of signal. If the signal is coming from my U-Verse box, then it defaults to 16:9 (and U-Verse doesn't stretch 4:3, so an SD picture has pillarboxes on the left and right). If it comes from my VCR (yes, I still have one) or my DVD player it switches to 4:3. I have the option of zooming on the DVD player (since it's a component Y/Pb/Pr input) and maintaining a clear picture. If the signal is coming from the antenna, the TV defaults to 16:9, and it's up to the broadcaster to either pillarbox a 4:3 signal or stretch it (something over which I have no control).
It's not that hard for restaurants and bars to RTFM and figure out how to provide their patrons with a good looking picture. And I know nobody wants to watch a 4:3 signal on a 16:9 set they spent over a thousand bucks on. But it's also true that the vast majority of TV watchers don't really care. (See the Betamax/VHS battles of the late '70s for an example.) People will put up with a stretched signal in order to feel that they're getting the most out of their widescreen set in the same way they put up with crappy video quality in order to be able to record 6 hours of programming on a single tape, instead of just 2 (or 4 with Beta II).
Until broadcasters and satellite/cable TV networks begin broadcasting in full 16:9 (even if it's still just 480 quality), the pillarbox/stretch debate will continue, and people still won't care. But they'll still complain about Fox Sports broadcasting in widescreen and having a black box around the entire picture, not knowing they can just hit "zoom" and make it all better.
Zooming can represent a problem by itself, specially if you zoom a SD signal. The picture will look somewhat blurry, and rests from the channel bug or something else might still show up, making -IMHO- a somewhat uncomfortable experience.
I do agree that people should start using the pillarbox function of their TVs a little more. I'm tired of going to public places and seeing expensive LCD TVs on the "Full" plugged to an analogue cable signal. The "Panorama" setting makes viewing of 4:3 a little more palatable but I still avoid it.
I do agree that people should start using the pillarbox function of their TVs a little more. I'm tired of going to public places and seeing expensive LCD TVs on the "Full" plugged to an analogue cable signal. The "Panorama" setting makes viewing of 4:3 a little more palatable but I still avoid it.
F
FreddyE1977
Guest
Numerically speaking, old low-def, cathode ray NTSC sets in use still far outnumber the HD ones.
And the HD does not always make a smooth transition going the other way (witness Fox's letterboxed
presentation of NFL Football this past season) So to avoid alienating 80%+ of their audience I suspect
SD will be around for a number of years yet.
And the HD does not always make a smooth transition going the other way (witness Fox's letterboxed
presentation of NFL Football this past season) So to avoid alienating 80%+ of their audience I suspect
SD will be around for a number of years yet.
TV has a 3x4 aspect ratio because when the original TV standards were drawn up, that's what almost all movies had. Widescreen movies came into wide production in the 50s (the technology required was not new) to give people a reason to see movies in theaters. Still it took theaters several years to install the required equipment to show wide-screen movies. During this period, many movies were still shot in 3x4 aspect ratio. Others were filmed in two versions. One take for wide-screen and then the scene was re-staged, re-set and re-shot for standard screens. Some DVDs include both versions for comparison. In some musicals, for example, the dance numbers are often very different in the two versions.
FreddyE1977 said:
Yeah, most of the people I know over the age of 40 are are still using CRT's and don't even really care about upgrading to HD. My father insists on waiting for his SD set to break (which will probably be never). I remember reading something a while back that said less than 30% of all households have HD tv's. So I agree, SD won't go away anytime soon.
Frankly, I would much rather look at a well-engineered OTA SD signal then the re-encoded garbage that passes for HD on cable. I can't understand why people would pay hundreds per month for quality that is truly horrible.
SD doesn't have to be 4:3 it can be 16:9 as well. It depends, in part, on the encoders and how they are set up at the station. There has been talk of running ads and/or sports scores on the pillar box sides of programming that was shot in 4:3. It is, after all, wasted space.
But the cost of converting to HD is still prohibitively expensive and out of the reach of most small market independent stations--especially LPTV. In addition to new encoders, there has to be a change in the station's infrastructure and STL link. And many stations would rather run multiple program streams in SD then an HD main channel with one or two subs.
Besides, when the FCC takes spectrum away from broadcasters the question of HD vs. SD quality may be a moot one. Speculation has it that only the top 4 networks will be HD and the rest will channel share with SD signals. It's your FCC hard at work (for the benefit of wireless providers and telcos).
SD doesn't have to be 4:3 it can be 16:9 as well. It depends, in part, on the encoders and how they are set up at the station. There has been talk of running ads and/or sports scores on the pillar box sides of programming that was shot in 4:3. It is, after all, wasted space.
But the cost of converting to HD is still prohibitively expensive and out of the reach of most small market independent stations--especially LPTV. In addition to new encoders, there has to be a change in the station's infrastructure and STL link. And many stations would rather run multiple program streams in SD then an HD main channel with one or two subs.
Besides, when the FCC takes spectrum away from broadcasters the question of HD vs. SD quality may be a moot one. Speculation has it that only the top 4 networks will be HD and the rest will channel share with SD signals. It's your FCC hard at work (for the benefit of wireless providers and telcos).
What about all the subs? Virtually all of them have to be in SD due to bandwidth limitations. Without doing the math I think the main signal would have to be 720 to support a sub HD signal and it would limit the number of subs you could have.
I don't see the subs being a big advantage of DTV so it wouldn't matter to me but there is probably something of value to someone out there.....somewhere.
I don't see the subs being a big advantage of DTV so it wouldn't matter to me but there is probably something of value to someone out there.....somewhere.
landtuna said:
Many of the subs show classic 4x3 television, though it's becoming abundantly clear that the images we see on rebroadcasts of classic television shows are framed far looser than originally intended. While watching "All In The Family" on Antenna TV, or even the first couple of seasons of SNL, there are clearly parts of the videotaped image that weren't expected to be seen by the public. This is especially apparent in the corners of the picture, where the cameras of the time simply didn't capture an image at all, with the expectation that the then-standard rounded rectangle shape of the CRTs of the time would show that part of the picture anyway. On a large flat screen that reproduces everything that was captured on the video tape, it looks sloppy.
Here's a discussion of 4x3 television's "safe areas" at Wikipedia.
So if I were a broadcaster, I'd try broadcasting classic shows in a widescreen frame, zoomed a bit (but not stretched) to cut off the top and bottom overscan parts, thus filling out the side borders a bit. That's not exactly the directorial intent, I suppose, but it'd fill the screen better...it comes out to a 13.3x9 aspect ratio if you clip the top and bottom Action-Safe zone...15x9 if you clip the top and bottom Title-Safe zone...
Eh, that'd be a mess, too. Any other ideas?
The only 4X3 images I see are older commercials and those seem to be disappearing rather quickly. I'm not sure it's worth the effort to do anything.
Disclaimer: I'm watching OTA on CRT TV's and can manipulate the video size to 4-5 different displays. Most of the time I have the display set to "zoom 1" which is the full-screen 4X3 image. Watching something like football I need to change the display to "zoom 2" which is 16:9.
Disclaimer: I'm watching OTA on CRT TV's and can manipulate the video size to 4-5 different displays. Most of the time I have the display set to "zoom 1" which is the full-screen 4X3 image. Watching something like football I need to change the display to "zoom 2" which is 16:9.
Ted would approveMainedude2007 said:
Mainedude2007 said:
I just noticed that for the four main ESPN networks no longer have HD next to it. Looks werid. And I also put on USA HD and they still have the HD logo next to the USA logo.
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