Sky very slow at adopting widescreen.

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rugrat

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#17804 12-Dec-2007 15:32

On one midday news they showed highlights from previous nights cricket game in widescreen so the game is sourced in widescreen from channel 9. People pay sky to watch sports and then get the sides chopped off on sky.

Netball nz games were also widescreen free to air, yet people that pay to watch on sky get sides chopped off (Just less adds, but still see less picture in the game.)

Also I'm using 16x9 zoom more and more as Getting bars on all sides of pictures in programs on other channels, like beyond tomorrow on discovery, it would be a lot less messy if they'll shown in widescreen in the first place.

Is there a technical issue with widescreen, or is it just that sky thinks the pay for television market can't handle it like the free to air market?

I wished free to air would get the sci fi programs rather then prime and sky 1 as I would rather watch them in full wide screen.

richms

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#99622 12-Dec-2007 15:42

apparantly it takes a whole new facility to do widescreen, which is strange since I would think it would take more effort to crop the sides off material then to play it out as they get it.

Richard rich.ms

cyril7

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#99648 12-Dec-2007 18:32

I understand that they are in the process of upgrading the Mt Wellington facility as we type to handle 16:9 (as well as HD). What I do find strange is that the Albany facility where Prime is played out (as well as some feed through channels that are soured/shared with Foxtel like Discovery) have already been updated, yet Prime is still not 16:9.

They do seem to have dragged the chain on this one.

Cyril

cheesemeth0d

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#101708 24-Dec-2007 20:29

cyril7: I understand that they are in the process of upgrading the Mt Wellington facility as we type to handle 16:9 (as well as HD). What I do find strange is that the Albany facility where Prime is played out (as well as some feed through channels that are soured/shared with Foxtel like Discovery) have already been updated, yet Prime is still not 16:9.

They do seem to have dragged the chain on this one.

Cyril

Yes, Mt Welllington is in the middle of a major upgrade. Their studio shows are run from an OB van in the carpark thrus the varying quality of some shows (Crowd Goes Wild suffered from very poor picture quality for a while)

16:9 depends on the wide screen signaling held within the PAL system. Line 23 is used for signaling widescreen. Basically your TV (providing it's something nice and new and widescreen) reads this line and decides if the picture is intended to be widescreen or 4:3.

The problem is what I would informally call the 'switching speed' of TVs. Most will go black for a second or so while they swap their aspect from standard to wide. If you were to have a show that had both standard and wide signalled clips you would have holes in the show as the TV adjusts for this.

The dilemma at the moment is the whole HD thing. Does one put all the effort into setting up a channel in widescreen, spend a whole ton of money on ARCs to pillar box all the 4:3 shows, then throw all that gear and effort out as soon as the HD gear is implimented?