my profile | my password | search | faq & rules | forum home

» Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE   » Community   » The Afterlife   » Wide Screen TV Rant (Page 2)

This topic comprises 2 pages: 1  2

Author Topic: Wide Screen TV Rant Bruce McGee Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1776 From: Asheville, NC USA... Nowhere in Particular. Registered: Aug 1999 posted 05-29-2010 07:35 AM                     Im on Dish Network for all things TV. My TV's are all old 4X3 images. The 2 local PBS stations are running a stretched picture on everything. I feel like I am watching a badly done pan and scan, only the camera never pans, when I'm seeing this. The local news stations, (10 minutes of news, 50 minutes of repeating) typically shows photos and mug shots all stretched out of shape... Their faces look alot like Stewie on The Family Guy... Dont they have a clue? Well, they are a FOX station... I set up my friends HDTV when he got it. He didnt like the black bars on either side of the picture, so I reluctantly set it at full screen. I tried to explain the image differences, but since he paid for that giant 37" screen, he wants to see something allover it.  |  IP: Logged Josh Jones Redhat Posts: 1207 From: Plano, TX Registered: Apr 2000 posted 05-31-2010 12:11 AM                        At the moment, this hotel has yet to join the age of flat, still watching fishbowls here. The Hyatt I stayed at recently had plasma TV's but I did find a way to set the display to adjust based on mpeg flags. It just forgot every time I shut the set off JJ  |  IP: Logged Paul Mayer Oh get out of it Melvin, before it pulls you under! Posts: 3836 From: Albuquerque, NM Registered: Feb 2000 posted 05-31-2010 02:00 PM                        The La Quinta in Temecula had plasma with locked-wide displays. Not sure who was providing the feed. The Fairfield Inn Marriott in Santa Clarita had plasma as well, with DirecTV for the feeds, and selectable display modes. My brother has a 37" 16:9 flat panel and leaves the cable box set on "stretch". He doesn't see the distortion and gets very angry whenever I point it out. He also cannot see the difference between the SD stuff on the regular channel numbers, and the HD versions on the 700-series channel numbers (Cocks Cable here in LAS). I've learned to just not say anything about it anymore. Next week, the Hampton Inn in Arcadia (or is it in Pasadena?). We'll see how HD enlighted they are...  |  IP: Logged Mike Blakesley Film God Posts: 12767 From: Forsyth, Montana Registered: Jun 99 posted 05-31-2010 09:35 PM                        I suppose the hotels are just avoiding complaints. If they let people adjust the width, then every time some projectionist stayed in the room, the next person coming in would complain about the picture (and be too dumb to know how to "fix" it) so the hotel would have to dispatch somebody to "fix" the set. The way it is now, the random projectionist is upset but still stays in the room; and the 99% of the public that doesn't know scope from flat is happy with their distorted images.  |  IP: Logged Sam Graham AKA: "The Evil Sam Graham". Wackiness ensues. Posts: 1431 From: Waukee, IA Registered: Dec 2004 posted 05-31-2010 11:04 PM                        Actually, Marriott has it down...The TV DEFAULTS to widescreen every time you turn it on...but you can adjust it to native. So you have to do it every time, but it's easy enough, and the dummies are happy from the get-go.  |  IP: Logged Martin McCaffery Film God Posts: 2481 From: Montgomery, AL Registered: Jun 99 posted 06-01-2010 06:10 PM                        Meanwhile, in the people who should know better file - TV news. I don't know how many times, local and national news, I have seen the in studio monitor set to wide, with everything stretched and squashed, but cut to the direct feed and it is the proper ratio. It's like they have to prove they are up to date by having wide screen monitors, but have nothing to show on them. Well, they are just props anyway.  |  IP: Logged Joe Redifer You need a beating today Posts: 12859 From: Denver, Colorado Registered: May 99 posted 06-01-2010 06:36 PM                        People who work at the local stations are idiots. I have probably told this story here before, but one channel in particular kept stretching 4:3 images to 16:9 during their newcasts. Of course, this messed up the image on EVERYONE'S TV no matter if they had a 16:9 or not. I wrote them an e-mail and told them to please stop it and that it is unprofessional. They wrote back the next day saying that they would never do such a thing, have a policy against it and that they know better. So I recorded the news to my hard drive that night from my antenna feed and sent them full-sized frame grabs of pictures being distorted. Then they backpedaled and said they did it for artistic reasons. Morons.  |  IP: Logged Bruce McGee Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1776 From: Asheville, NC USA... Nowhere in Particular. Registered: Aug 1999 posted 06-01-2010 09:08 PM                     Joe, Local TV is not professional anymore. In my area, local news has replaced entertainment. It's so dull.  |  IP: Logged Bobby Henderson "Ask me about Trajan." Posts: 10973 From: Lawton, OK, USA Registered: Apr 2001 posted 06-01-2010 10:27 PM                     That TV station might have copied that talking point from various cable channels who do the same stupid shit. Yes, a lot more than just local TV stations with a 16x9 broadcast are airing the horror of stretch-o-vision. I've seen episodes of Seinfeld and other 4:3 SD originated TV series put into stretch-o-vision on TBS-HD, TNT-HD, A&E, The History Channel HD and many others. Some of the Discovery networks will zoom the shit out of 4:3 SD content to fill the screen. It's not quite as bad as stretch-o-vision but it still looks really bad. The folks giving the orders to the worker bees at the master control board just need to pillar-box the 4:3 SD content and let certain idiots out there in the viewing market hit the "wide" button on their TV sets. Sadly, the horror of stretch-o-vision very likely exists because the TV stations and cable networks probably get flooded with angry calls from really stupid TV viewers who can't be bothered with reading anything with the word "user manual" on it or even read the buttons on the TV remote. Some of these assholes might even demand an engineer (if the TV station has one) come out to their house and adjust their TV to fill the screen. "No ma'am, we'll fix that problem here at the station for you and fuck up the picture for the minority of TV viewers who actually have a brain."  |  IP: Logged Sam Graham AKA: "The Evil Sam Graham". Wackiness ensues. Posts: 1431 From: Waukee, IA Registered: Dec 2004 posted 06-02-2010 06:50 AM                        When I was visiting some relatives a couple of years ago, my aunt complained that, on the HD feeds, everybody "looked skinny".  |  IP: Logged Joe Tommassello Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 547 From: Coatesville, PA, USA Registered: Jan 2008 posted 06-11-2010 05:53 PM                  Last week I was in a hotel room and they had a Philips brand widescreen that adjust based on the program you were watching. For example if you were watching a letterboxed movie on TCM (let's say a flat movie) it zoomed in to fill the screen properly...all on it's own. Of course when the TCM logo popped up at the bottom every so often it pushed the bottom up slightly (leaving the top where it was) in order to get all the visual info on the screen. Fox News Channel now broadcasts exclusively widescreen (who'd have thought a news station would be the innovator?) so it always zoomed up nicely on that and only varied when 4:3 commercials came on. Material in that shape had the weird stretching more as you get further from center issue.  |  IP: Logged Chris Slycord Film God Posts: 2986 From: 청주시, 경북도, South Korea Registered: Mar 2007 posted 06-11-2010 09:21 PM                     quote: Joe Tommassello For example if you were watching a letterboxed movie on TCM (let's say a flat movie) it zoomed in to fill the screen properly...all on it's own. Isn't it automatically not done "properly" if the thing zooms in and screws with the aspect ratio? Or maybe I'm misunderstanding you.  |  IP: Logged Joe Redifer You need a beating today Posts: 12859 From: Denver, Colorado Registered: May 99 posted 06-11-2010 11:03 PM                        "Zoom" doesn't mean "stretch" in this instance. Aspect ratio stays the same.  |  IP: Logged Joe Tommassello Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 547 From: Coatesville, PA, USA Registered: Jan 2008 posted 06-14-2010 11:28 AM                  It seemed the limit of it's zoom was the equivalent of a flat (1.85:1 or so) picture. 20,000 Leagues... was playing one night and the scope image remained in the middle of the screen with the proper aspect ratio...that is, of course, till the TCM logo came on and it caused a slight vertical squeeze. The 16x9 FNC broadcast retained proper height and width (with no squeezed edges) the entire time the programming was on. While this TV would probably annoy most of us here with it's shifting images it would be great for someone like my mom who wants to see her screen filled all the time but still wants to see choices B. and D. when she watches "Who Wants to be a Millionaire"  |  IP: Logged Bruce McGee Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1776 From: Asheville, NC USA... Nowhere in Particular. Registered: Aug 1999 posted 06-14-2010 03:30 PM                     I installed a new flat screen HDTV for an elderly neighbor this morning. I set it up so that when something is broadcast 4x3, you see the black bars. The owner questioned me on this, and I explained the difference. She is totally satisfied with my explanation, and loves seeing some things on the full screen, too. I played I Love Lucy, her favorite sitcom, stretched and the regular way. She definitely prefers the regular picture, as she noticed that the Ricardo apartment was all stretched out of shape. Sharp old soul. She is 95 and getting around pretty good!  |  IP: Logged

All times are Central (GMT -6:00)

This topic comprises 2 pages: 1  2

Printer-friendly view of this topic

Hop To: Select a Forum: Category: Operations -------------------- Digital Cinema Forum Film Handlers' Forum Large Format Forum Ground Level Feature Info, Trailer Attachments & REAL Credit Offsets Category: Community -------------------- Film-Yak Film Handlers' Movie Reviews The Afterlife Bob Maar's Joke-A-Thon Category: Classified -------------------- Equipment and Supplies Wanted/For Sale Help Wanted/Seeking Employment Category: System -------------------- Software Beta Testing Forum

The Film-Tech Forums are designed for various members related to the cinema industry to express their opinions, viewpoints and testimonials on various products, services and events based upon speculation, personal knowledge and factual information through use, therefore all views represented here allow no liability upon the publishers of this web site and the owners of said views assume no liability for any ill will resulting from these postings. The posts made here are for educational as well as entertainment purposes and as such anyone viewing this portion of the website must accept these views as statements of the author of that opinion and agrees to release the authors from any and all liability.