Anyone else stuck with the CW in 4x3?

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Why they letterboxed it, I don't know, but letterbox doesn't equal widescreen. Enterprise wasn't in HD until the final season, or rather it was "filmed" in HD in the final season.

All four seasons of ENT have been seen, natively, in HD. Mostly on HDNet I think. The series could be released on Blu-Ray now if they wanted.

And I'm well aware that letterbox doesn't always equal widescreen. But in this case, it did. They weren't cropping the top and bottom or anything, they were airing the complete 16x9 image. But if the show's airing on a HD channel, you'd think the network would bother to actually air it in HD.

 

[StarshipDefiant]

Why they letterboxed it, I don't know, but letterbox doesn't equal widescreen. Enterprise wasn't in HD until the final season, or rather it was "filmed" in HD in the final season.

All four seasons of ENT have been seen, natively, in HD. Mostly on HDNet I think. The series could be released on Blu-Ray now if they wanted.

And I'm well aware that letterbox doesn't always equal widescreen. But in this case, it did. They weren't cropping the top and bottom or anything, they were airing the complete 16x9 image. But if the show's airing on a HD channel, you'd think the network would bother to actually air it in HD.

Oh, wait i am sorry, I meant to say letterbox (which is widescreen) doesn't equal high def. Gah. Total fuck up on my part, Sorry LB. Didn't mean to confuse you.

Do said channels, specifically mention that it's in HD?

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

^ Yes.

 

[gastrof]

Isn't there anything you can do on the TV itself to fix this?

As mentioned, the AFD signal disables your aspect ratio controls on the digital box. THAT's the problem. You CAN'T do anything about it. THEY lock your equipment on "zoom" and that's it.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

^ I'm not talking about the box. I mean the *TV*. Any decent HDTV will have its own aspect ratio controls.

 

[StarshipDefiant]

^ I'm not talking about the box. I mean the *TV*. Any decent HDTV will have its own aspect ratio controls.

What they're saying is, if your using a cable box of some sort, or a cable source, they, meaning the cable company, are the ones frakking up the ratio, and turning it into a 4:3 instead of allowing it to be in widescreen as intended by the producers of certain shows. This means that your TV is displaying the source as intended by the company, nothing you can do to your TV to fix it.

 

[gastrof]

We are NOT talking about cable in this thread, but about OverTheAir television.

The station was sending out a signal that caused the box to zoom the widescreen picture and thus cut off the sides.

Normally you wouldn't use a digital converter box with a digital TV. They're meant for use with older analog TVs which naturally have no aspect ratio controls.

Suggesting I use my TV's non-existant aspect ratio controls to counter the the "zoom" effect of the box isn't all that helpful.

Also, even if the conveter box was, for some reason, feeding into a digital TV that HAS aspect ratio controls, the box would be getting fed in thru the audio/video inputs, not thru the digital tuner, and so the TV's controls would likely not be available on anything coming in thru the a/V inputs.

Even if the aspect ratio controls WOULD work with something coming in thru the external inputs, since what's coming out of the box has been forced into 4x3, there IS no widescreen picture at that point, so the TV wouldn't be able to restore the edges of the picture. All it'd be getting from the digital tuner box would be 4x3 video. The station locked the box into that mode.

I don't understand why you guys don't get so simple a point.

Suggesting I use a TV's aspect ratio controls on a 4x3 feed?!?!

 

[gastrof]

Oh...

Man, after things going as crazy as they did, I almost forget.

After several protests to the station, they've stopped cropping the picture. I can once again get widescreen shows in letterbox.

I don't know what they were thinking...

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

the TV's controls would likely not be available on anything coming in thru the a/V inputs.

It doesn't matter what input the image comes from. Most TVs, the decent ones anyway, will let you use the aspect ratio controls on ALL images.