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

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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.

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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.

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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 ...

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

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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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#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.

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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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