TVNZ is now widescreen

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#87859 24-Sep-2007 10:45

yeah, Sky. Sorry, should have stated that. The original question pretty much asked whether Sky had any plans to move the rest of their sport channels to widescreen, and if so, when.

cyril7

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#87862 24-Sep-2007 10:57

From Sky last years annual report they stated that the Mt Wellington facility was undertaking a major upgrade, the biggest Sky had done since launch, that would allow it to do 16:9 on all channels if needed. This upgrade was meant to complete late this year. They6 also indicated that most channels would migrate to 16:9 once the upgrade was complete.

That said, I dont know how they get around the Rugby channel premium if they move the standard sports channels to 16:9, or the Rugby channel reinvents itself with other premium material and they drop the 16:9 promotion on it.

Cyril

sbiddle

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#87868 24-Sep-2007 11:54

allstarnz:
sbiddle: I know this is a wee bit OT but I'm annoyed with Sky after watching the AFL this evening. They took a widescreen CH10 feed and centre cut it to transmit it as 4:3 which resulted in both sides of the picture being cut off. Even the studio interview afterwards had both presenters with 1/3 of their bodies missing!

yeah, it looked like crap. Surpised Ten didn't broadcast a 'safe' picture, as i'm sure analogue in Aus would still be in 4:3. The stuff sourced from Seven (last nights game, and the two games last week) looked OK. I hope the Grand Final won't be the same as that's from Ten too. In cases like this, you'd think they'd do like TVNZ used to and show it in 14:9 (ie small black bars top and bottom)

I sent Sky an email about this and they told me that my decoder was set wrong. Since I have TCL this wasn't the case but could be a TCL problem. Can you confirm you had your decoder set to 16:9 and that it was simply a case of Sky having a centre cut feed.

old3eyes

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#87879 24-Sep-2007 12:44

cyril7: From Sky last years annual report they stated that the Mt Wellington facility was undertaking a major upgrade, the biggest Sky had done since launch, that would allow it to do 16:9 on all channels if needed. This upgrade was meant to complete late this year. They6 also indicated that most channels would migrate to 16:9 once the upgrade was complete.

That said, I dont know how they get around the Rugby channel premium if they move the standard sports channels to 16:9, or the Rugby channel reinvents itself with other premium material and they drop the 16:9 promotion on it.

Cyril

I hope at the same time they up the bitrate on their channels to that of Movie channel 1. By the way. Has anyone else noticed that Sky movie ch 2 has mono sound these days..

Regards,

Old3eyes

allstarnz

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#87880 24-Sep-2007 12:47

sbiddle:
allstarnz:
sbiddle: I know this is a wee bit OT but I'm annoyed with Sky after watching the AFL this evening. They took a widescreen CH10 feed and centre cut it to transmit it as 4:3 which resulted in both sides of the picture being cut off. Even the studio interview afterwards had both presenters with 1/3 of their bodies missing!

yeah, it looked like crap. Surpised Ten didn't broadcast a 'safe' picture, as i'm sure analogue in Aus would still be in 4:3. The stuff sourced from Seven (last nights game, and the two games last week) looked OK. I hope the Grand Final won't be the same as that's from Ten too. In cases like this, you'd think they'd do like TVNZ used to and show it in 14:9 (ie small black bars top and bottom)

I sent Sky an email about this and they told me that my decoder was set wrong. Since I have TCL this wasn't the case but could be a TCL problem. Can you confirm you had your decoder set to 16:9 and that it was simply a case of Sky having a centre cut feed.

I am on Sky digital (not TCL). I did have the TV set to 16:9 mode. Baring in mind, that TV does tend to crop ever so slightly too. Will check out the replay on my other TV.

I asked an Aussie AFL fan about this, he says most analogue broadcasts like this letterbox the feed to make it 14:9 (like TVNZ used to do).

I too am skeptical the reason for the delay is the Rugby Channel argument. That's a poor excuse IMO. Their additional content should be enough of a point of difference (eg ARC, Heineken Cup, Currie Cup, Six Nations etc)

:edit: That was the Collingwood v Geelong game from right?

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#87891 24-Sep-2007 13:38

allstarnz:
I asked an Aussie AFL fan about this, he says most analogue broadcasts like this letterbox the feed to make it 14:9 (like TVNZ used to do).

I too am skeptical the reason for the delay is the Rugby Channel argument. That's a poor excuse IMO. Their additional content should be enough of a point of difference (eg ARC, Heineken Cup, Currie Cup, Six Nations etc)

:edit: That was the Collingwood v Geelong game from right?

It was the Port vs Adelaide game that I was watching.

I've mainly only watched Digital TV in Australia but I have seen fulltime 14:9 broadcast on some regional channels such as WIN in Victoria.

I think it's pretty obvious Sky want to try and keep 16:9 content only on the rugby channel as point of difference. That's a crazy way of thinking really.

TomAckroyd

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#87910 24-Sep-2007 15:02

Watching TCL digital - there was a World Cup story on One News last night with pictures that was a textbook example of how not to treat incoming 16:9 sports footage. They took a severely compressed widescreen clip, kept it anamorphic and cropped the top and bottom to make it fit the screen, losing half the stats graphics in the process.

But otherwise, I have to say TV1 and 2 looked pretty damn smart widescreen. Prime suffers quite badly in comparison now. It doesn't help that TCL seem to not worry about compressing the hell out of Prime's pictures ...

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PromNZ

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#88020 25-Sep-2007 08:31

Yeah, TVNZ are going through the same growing pains for widescreen TV3 did a few months ago.

Monkey brains editors who just assume any footage given to them is 16x9, so we see a lot of short fat pictures of people

Spyware

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#88028 25-Sep-2007 09:43

PromNZ: Yeah, TVNZ are going through the same growing pains for widescreen TV3 did a few months ago. Monkey brains editors who just assume any footage given to them is 16x9, so we see a lot of short fat pictures of people.

The World Cup footage concerned was 16:9 which they then applied a 16:9 zoom (for zooming 4:3 content to get full width) to. TVNZ news mutilation of footage (14:9 zooming of 4:3 Sky Sports material etc.) absolutely disgusts me and I won't be watching.

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Zippity

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#88043 25-Sep-2007 11:03

More importantly, when is Sky going to start broadcasting Live Formula One races in WS format?

rugrat

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#88187 26-Sep-2007 15:45

I hope at the same time they up the bitrate on their channels to that of Movie channel 1. By the way. Has anyone else noticed that Sky movie ch 2 has mono sound these days.

I posted about the mono on movies 2 just after it started. There wasn't much response. I only record off movies 1 or watch that one now. As far as I'm concerned movies 2 miles well not exist.

See the promo for vibe is in 4:3. Guess it will be a 4:3 channel. Hope House and Boston Legal are repeats as way better to watch on TV3 etc in widescreen.

JonC

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#88210 26-Sep-2007 20:34

OMG - I can't believe it. They're broadcasting "The Closer" on TV One in postage stamp format!!! They take a perfectly good 16:9 feed and squash it. What is the point of broadcasting in 16:9?

I think TVNZ have got a few teething problems with this widescreen broadcasting thing.

allstarnz

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#88212 26-Sep-2007 21:06

agreed, i'd rather that TV One news pillar boxed their 4:3 footage rather than stretched it as they seem to at the moment. It looks fugly.

openmedia

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#88213 26-Sep-2007 21:06

JonC: OMG - I can't believe it. They're broadcasting "The Closer" on TV One in postage stamp format!!! They take a perfectly good 16:9 feed and squash it. What is the point of broadcasting in 16:9?

I think TVNZ have got a few teething problems with this widescreen broadcasting thing.

No more than TV3/C4. Perhaps they didn't get a widescreen master

Generally known online as OpenMedia, now working for Red Hat APAC as a Technology Evangelist and Portfolio Architect. Still playing with MythTV and digital media on the side.

JonC

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#88215 26-Sep-2007 21:10

Nah, the feed is obviously 16:9 as there is a neat black border all the way around my widescreen TV. Never seen a whole programme go out like this on TV3. Adverts, yes, but not a whole programme.

Take a look - it's still on now.

[EDIT]

Like this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windowbox_%28film%29

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