TVNZ is now widescreen

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Fossie

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#16059 22-Sep-2007 13:14

As of 12pm today, Channel one and tv2 are widescreen. So those of you with Freeview or sky can now get widescreen goodness.

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Chorus

#87657 22-Sep-2007 13:35

TV ONE was WS when I looked at 12:30pm (I assume it went live at noon) and then I saw TV2 go WS at 1pm!

Cool! I can just see all the old cronies watching TV ONE complaining that their TV isn't working properly! But TVNZ seem to be managing this better than TV Works, as they are promoting the change (maybe they learnt from their mistakes).

sbiddle

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#87658 22-Sep-2007 13:39

It's just a shame Sky are still stuck in the dark ages when it comes to widescreen transmissions.. Why should we have to pay extra for the Rugby Channel just so we can watch the transmission in it's native format?

presidentnz

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#87659 22-Sep-2007 13:52

The real kick in the teeth re widescreen on the Rugby Channel is if there are two games played at the same time (which happens quite often now in the Air NZ Cup) you can only get one live in widescreen. The other you can only watch on Sky Sport 2, and only get widescreen replays!

Sky are moving towards more widescreen channels and I'm sure that Sport will follow soon enough. They probably first need to think of something good to keep all the Rugby Channel subscribers.

Regs

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Snowflake

#87682 22-Sep-2007 18:53

i was happy to see the change, but watching the news tonight i felt that the picture quality had taken a bit of a dive... there were a few stretched shots, some zoomed shots and generally the picture looked a lot less crisp. I also thought that there were lots of interlacing problems with any movement.... i hope its just teething issues...

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Zippity

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#87688 22-Sep-2007 19:20

At last - Yippee

tbnz

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#87696 22-Sep-2007 20:18

Hi, well it's definatley widesceen on ch 1 and ch 2 on SKY as of this afternoon but ....

My tv is not switching automatically to widescreen on these channels, i have to force it by selecting the 'full' option.

It switches on TV3, UK TV, Movies 1, 2 & 3 and Nat Geo as it always has, just not on tv 1 and 2.

I read somewhere there is a signal that is broadcast to tell the tv to switch? maybe it's not enabled on these channels because they are newly widescreen?

Am I the only one having this issue?

I have a sony widescreen lcd tv.

presidentnz

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#87704 22-Sep-2007 21:48

No, tbnz, you're not alone. You may recall the same thing happened when C4 (and probably TV3, but I wasn't here then) switched. I spoke to Sky today and after a bit of checking the call centre rep said they were looking into it.

I think what's happening (cyril7, correct me if I'm wrong!) is that the signal that Sky is sending does not have widescreen signalling in line 23 (the first visible line in the TV picture). The other widescreen channels do have this information, and that's how your TV knows to switch. Your Sky decoder knows that it's a widescreen signal because there is a flag in the MPEG stream somewhere indicating the aspect ratio, and that's why, if you set your Sky box to 4:3 letterbox or centre cut-out, it knows that it's a widescreen signal. But your TV doesn't see any of the MPEG stuff, only the analogue picture is being sent to the TV.

Presumably Sky will sort it out the same way as they have the other channels.

Line 23 signals aren't being sent on any of the Freeview services (any more - they were for a time). But if Sky end up letting you tune into the Freeview signals and stop rebroadcasting TV1, 2, 3 and C4, the problem will occur again.

I'm not sure what other people's views on this are, but it would be nice if line 23 signalling was used on all Freeview services (at least until they are all in widescreen). Perhaps letters to Freeview (or the broadcasters themselves) might encourage them to do it. Unless of course there are letters to Freeview complaining about how the top of the image looks a bit funny sometimes (as the signal is visible).

Arun

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tbnz

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#87708 22-Sep-2007 22:02

Awesome to know, thanks! I'm glad i'm not the only one, it means that it will get fixed!

:-)

sbiddle

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#87709 22-Sep-2007 22:05

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!

pjamieson

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Chorus

#87714 22-Sep-2007 22:44

Definetey some squashed down stories on the news tonight. And some of the graphics and images on 1 seem to be within the "safe zone" for 16:9 (the TV ONE show promos mainly), so watching on 4:3 center cut you miss some text.

Also on all of the channels some of the ads are 16:9, but are showing in 4:3, so you get the worst in both worlds (postage stamp in 4:3, and letterbox in 16:9!). Hopefully this is all just a transition thing, and now that TVNZ are in WS (ie: majority of the popular channels that are watched) everything will start coming through in 16:9.

allstarnz

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#87715 22-Sep-2007 22:50

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 truly hope it isn't true that the only reason Sky are holding back on WS sport is that it will remove a massive point of difference of the Rugby Channel. I really wish they'd hurry up, it's not like they don't have the cameras already.

pjamieson

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Chorus

#87719 22-Sep-2007 23:19

And I don't know about anyone else, but 1 & 2 on Sky for me keep freezing tonight. Freeview is fine.

allstarnz

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#87846 24-Sep-2007 09:27

a slight hijack here. but I think it's worth a look...

Just when you'd thought you'd heard it all...

"At this stage we have no plans into considering having Widescreen in place in all our channels as not all our Subscribers have a Widescreen Television within their dwelling."

That's the biggest crock of s**t I have heard in quite some time.

I can't believe they'd even come up with something so lame as that. Why have TVNZ and Canwest already gone to WS then?

cshwone

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#87848 24-Sep-2007 09:34

allstarnz: a slight hijack here. but I think it's worth a look...

Just when you'd thought you'd heard it all...

"At this stage we have no plans into considering having Widescreen in place in all our channels as not all our Subscribers have a Widescreen Television within their dwelling."

That's the biggest crock of s**t I have heard in quite some time.

I can't believe they'd even come up with something so lame as that. Why have TVNZ and Canwest already gone to WS then?

Which provider are we referring to above?

Fossie

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#87849 24-Sep-2007 09:37

sky?

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