TV3 and C4 move to Widescreen

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Ultimate Geek

#66279 4-Apr-2007 14:26

Thanks joker - that explains it.

richms

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#66282 4-Apr-2007 14:56

4:3 in the middle is called pillar boxing.

Why the hell cant they transmit the aspect different for each program and let the box decide what to do. I have a 4:3 tv that supports letterboxing an anamorphic signal. Thats the best compromise for dvds since it means that I get the full res of widescreens and dont miss stuff on 4:3 - if I have to constantly change the STB back to centercut or widescreen then that will get old real fast since I dont like the idea of having a 4:3 picture end up the size of a 21" tv with black all around it.

Richard rich.ms

digitalepsilon

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#66366 4-Apr-2007 22:32

richms: 4:3 in the middle is called pillar boxing.

Why the hell cant they transmit the aspect different for each program and let the box decide what to do. I have a 4:3 tv that supports letterboxing an anamorphic signal. Thats the best compromise for dvds since it means that I get the full res of widescreens and dont miss stuff on 4:3 - if I have to constantly change the STB back to centercut or widescreen then that will get old real fast since I dont like the idea of having a 4:3 picture end up the size of a 21" tv with black all around it.

What you ask is technically possible:

..in countries where the 625 line television standard is used (usually with PAL colour), [..] this standard has provision for a pair of pulses contained within the video signal. This pair of pulses is detected by television sets that have widescreen displays and cause the television to automatically switch to 16:9 display mode. When 4:3 material is included (such as the aforementioned commercial), the pulses are removed and the television switches to a 4:3 display mode to correctly display the material. Where a video signal is transmitted via a European SCART connection, one of the status lines is used to signal 16:9 material instead. The NTSC video standard contains no provision for widescreen mode switching.

Source: Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspect_ratio_(image)

Perhaps this is what Sky already uses on their Movie channels? They do change aspect ratio on the fly.

richms

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#66369 4-Apr-2007 22:36

Aspect is part of the mpeg data, there are 3 ways to get it to the tv (4 if you count hdmi weirdness) - the 2 you mentioned and the available on ntsc way of a bias on the chroma pin of the svideo.

It should be options on settops how to present either aspect, unfortunatly all I have seen just give 3 options for tv type, with no option for widescreen capable 4:3 set

Richard rich.ms

TomAckroyd

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#66372 4-Apr-2007 22:51

richms: Aspect is part of the mpeg data, there are 3 ways to get it to the tv (4 if you count hdmi weirdness) - the 2 you mentioned and the available on ntsc way of a bias on the chroma pin of the svideo.

It should be options on settops how to present either aspect, unfortunatly all I have seen just give 3 options for tv type, with no option for widescreen capable 4:3 set

My Telstra STB has the option you need: set "TV screen format" to 4:3, and "display format" to full screen. Any 16:9 pix will be sent to your TV as anamorphic full screen. Then set your TV as you would for DVD.

The way to think about getting best pictures is to minimise the number of aspect ratio converters in the signal chain, including any ARCs at TV stations. The worst scaling happens inside LCD widescreen sets, and next worst is DVD player outputs. ARCs at channel are expensive, professional and good quality.

richms

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#66373 4-Apr-2007 23:01

But does it signal the tv to do the squish as needed?

Richard rich.ms

cyril7

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#66401 5-Apr-2007 06:54

Sky boxs support both methods of signalling aspect ratio, ie control pin in SCART connector and WSS on line 23. This last option was only correctly implemented in the lattest (340) version of the firmware that was rolled out some 6months ago.

It will be interesting to see what TV3 does next wednesday. It is common practive in Europe to transmit material in its native AR and signal to the STB/TV to display it as directed. However in Aus the broadcasters have chosen to operate in a fixed AR of 16:9 and use their own ARC's to pillarbox 4:3 material.

There are advantages to each the former benefits 4:3 displays more but can cause disturbances in the picture as either the STB switches between ratios (ie if working with a 4:3 display it will switch between 4:3 LB for 16:9 material and 4:3 fullscreen for 4:3 material) or on a 16:9 TV causing it to switch scan sizes. But you dont end up will pillarboxing. The latter fulltime 16:9 method means that 16:9 displays are always in that mode (or 4:3 ones are in 4:3LB fulltime) but the downside is 4:3 material is pillarboxed, not so much a problem for 16:9 displays but looks way weired on a 4:3letterboxed display, everything goes postage stamp.

From reading the first post to this thread it would appear that TV3 intend to operate fulltime 16:9 and 4:3 material will be pillarboxed not to full 4:3 but to 13:9 (or did they mean 14:9) which is a reasonable compromise.

Cyril

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TomAckroyd

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#66409 5-Apr-2007 09:40

From reading the first post to this thread it would appear that TV3 intend to operate fulltime 16:9 and 4:3 material will be pillarboxed not to full 4:3 but to 13:9 (or did they mean 14:9) which is a reasonable compromise.

Cyril

Cyril - not quite true if you read the release. The signal will be anamorphic 16:9 fulltime, and for digital viewers 4:3 TV commercials will be placed uncropped in the centre, ie pillar-boxed.

CanWest will ARC the entire stream to 4:3 with 13:9 letterboxing for UHF only.

As an educated guess, 16:9 shows that feature 4:3 content (eg packaged shows like 60 minutes, or docos with archive academy material) will probably exhibit varying ARCing as individual producers decide on a case-by-case basis how much to zoom and crop for a good compromise.

Digital viewers with 4:3 sets who want the best viewing experience will have to switch their STBs regularly if they want to watch 16:9 original drama shows, but avoid postage-stamping on other material.

TomAckroyd

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#66410 5-Apr-2007 09:46

richms: But does it signal the tv to do the squish as needed?

I don't know. Some modern TVs you can set to automatic - it will adjust on the fly by looking at letterboxing. Probably best to avoid this completely.

I have a 4:3 CRT TV that doesn't do 16:9. My DVD player is set to display letterboxed, ie it ARCs the picture before sending it to the TV.

For widescreen-capable 4:3 professional CRTs, widescreen is achieved by collapsing the raster scan by the appropriate ratio. This gives far better "analogue" scaling than the digital ARCing in a DVD player or STB. Domestic sets I don't know. I do know that Philips CRT TV scaling is digitally awful.

Hope this helps. It's a minefield and my brain melts every time I start to write another post about this. Think I'll have a lie-down.

lchiu7

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#66444 5-Apr-2007 13:13

TomAckroyd:

From reading the first post to this thread it would appear that TV3 intend to operate fulltime 16:9 and 4:3 material will be pillarboxed not to full 4:3 but to 13:9 (or did they mean 14:9) which is a reasonable compromise.

Cyril

Cyril - not quite true if you read the release. The signal will be anamorphic 16:9 fulltime, and for digital viewers 4:3 TV commercials will be placed uncropped in the centre, ie pillar-boxed.

CanWest will ARC the entire stream to 4:3 with 13:9 letterboxing for UHF only.

As an educated guess, 16:9 shows that feature 4:3 content (eg packaged shows like 60 minutes, or docos with archive academy material) will probably exhibit varying ARCing as individual producers decide on a case-by-case basis how much to zoom and crop for a good compromise.

Digital viewers with 4:3 sets who want the best viewing experience will have to switch their STBs regularly if they want to watch 16:9 original drama shows, but avoid postage-stamping on other material.

I have a 16:9 set which I have set in full mode. For 4:3 material it's stretched out which you get used to - I don't like pillarboxing. With the Widescreen test service from TVNA on D1, I have my STB set to 16:9 mode. The WS video shows up with the right AR on the TV while all other transmissions are stretched. When TV3 goes on D1 I think I will leave the settings the same since it works now. I did notice that when I had the STB set to 4:3 the WS transmission from TVNZ were vertically stretched so it's clear they are broadcasting anamorphically. This full setting also works fine with my DVD player so that those images are in the right AR when the DVD player is set to output 16:9 anamorphic

Larry

Staying in Wellington. Check out my AirBnB in the Wellington CBD. https://www.airbnb.co.nz/h/wellycbd PM me and mention GZ to get a 15% discount and no AirBnB charges.

cyril7

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#66447 5-Apr-2007 13:32

Cyril - not quite true if you read the release. The signal will be anamorphic 16:9 fulltime, and for digital viewers 4:3 TV commercials will be placed uncropped in the centre, ie pillar-boxed.

Correct, thanks for reiterating that the 13:9 images are for the analog services. The down side of running 16:9 fulltime is that viewers using 4:3LB on 4:3 sets to obtain a correct 16:9 AR will see 4:3 material as postage stamp, ie they get the bars on the side due to the pillarbox and bars on the top/bottom due to Letterbox. This is the only downside to doing 16:9 fulltime. The Eurpeans on the other hand have used active switching at the display, thus negating pillarbox.

That all said I think I prefer the fulltime 16:9 approach. Overtime (and hopefully not too longatime) ad agencies will get the hint and provide 16:9 ads. I did a quick tally up the other day, less than around 10% of normal programming on TV3 was available from 16:9 sources (this did not take ads only programs) this did assume however that all local produced live or current event programing provided by TV3 would be 16:9 (which is a valid assumption).

We should have an "A" day as they had in UK some 7or8 years ago, from that day on broadcasters would only accept 16:9 ad material, 4:3 would be rejected.

Larry, what you are proposing to do is the best solution, leave it locked at 16:9 full.

Cyril

richms

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#66458 5-Apr-2007 17:31

TomAckroyd:
For widescreen-capable 4:3 professional CRTs, widescreen is achieved by collapsing the raster scan by the appropriate ratio. This gives far better "analogue" scaling than the digital ARCing in a DVD player or STB. Domestic sets I don't know. I do know that Philips CRT TV scaling is digitally awful.

Thats how mine do it, there is an aspect button on the remote (sadly 1080i is only 16:9 so I cant use it from the PC) - Not had it detect it on any FTA stuff, but thats to be expected I guess, will see once i get a dish up for freview. Perhaps over the easter break I will.

Richard rich.ms

lchiu7

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#66481 5-Apr-2007 22:53

cyril7:

Larry, what you are proposing to do is the best solution, leave it locked at 16:9 full.

Cyril

Actually I have it locked at full. That works okay for most 4:3 broadcasts and 16:9 anamorphic. But I noticed tonight on TV2 they were showing a show that was 16:9 letterboxed in the 4:3 frame (E-Ring). On my full setting the image was squashed vertically. I had to set the TV to 16:9 mode and adjust image on the screen so that the letterboxed image was framed fully in the TV screen. That worked well but of course it's much better if they broadcast 16:9 stuff in anamorphic mode.

Larry

Staying in Wellington. Check out my AirBnB in the Wellington CBD. https://www.airbnb.co.nz/h/wellycbd PM me and mention GZ to get a 15% discount and no AirBnB charges.

steve98

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#66778 11-Apr-2007 10:01

Had a quick look at TV3 this morning, the idents look really great in widescreen but I was disappointed that 4:3 programming is being pillarboxed, which i just know my wife and in-laws are going to hate and I'm going to have to explained *why* its pillarboxed every time it happens!!

stuzzo

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#66798 11-Apr-2007 14:51

I notice today that I am receiving TV3 from Sky Digital on my wide-screen set (set at 16:9) with bars at top and bottom
and thus 4:3 content is being displayed as postage stamp.

I assume that TV3 is sending Sky wide-screen data which Sky are converting to 4:3 by putting bars at top
and bottom and my set is stretching it out to display as 16:9.

Will the insanity never end?

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