HDTV Gripes

[Chris D]

Every once in a while, something pops up on my HD television channels that bugs me. These happen both on my OTA local HD antenna channels and satellite HD. Sometimes they'll show a shot or commercial that is in widescreen format, but letterboxed into a standard 4:3 screen, (giving black bars on the top and bottom) and then broadcast in high definition widescreen. (putting black bars on the left and right sides) The end result is that the actual widescreen image is framed by equal black bars around THE ENTIRE PICTURE on my HD widescreen set. Stupid. If something is broadcast on a HD channel, it should fill the whole screen in widescreen format. I can understand if a commercial or special shot needs to be in standard 4:3 format with black bars on the left and right only, but not THE WHOLE WAY AROUND!!! Grrr.... At least I've yet to see an entire show or movie shown this way. That would just irk me to no end.

Other gripe would be when a show is broadcast in widescreen on a HD channel, sometimes in actual 720p or 1080i resolution, but the sound is still a stereo feed, not Dolby Digital. People, the STANDARD for HDTV sound is Dolby Digital, not some crappy analog stereo feed! The whole point of digital television is to use a digital signal for both audio AND video.

[/rant mode]
:argue: :stupidpc:




CHRIS
Luke: "Hey, I'm not such a bad pilot myself, you know"

[David Meek]

That's a pretty common gripe, I'm finding out. We were at a party Friday night and the host was asking me some HT-related questions. The one that turned into a 15-minute aside was the stereo/DPL sound with HD picture. How are the broadcast companies getting away with this? 5.1 is the ATSC standard.




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[Digital Bob]

Chris and David,

I would have to dig back through my files to be dead sure, but I'm fairly confident I remember this correctly...

When the gov't adopted the ATSC reccomendations for DTV there was a bit of a wrinkle. For rules reasons they can't specify a certain "brand" of technology or product and that's what Dolby Digital was. So instead they specified the "generic" encoding technology of AC-3.

Now as you know, AC-3 is just like many other encoding algorithms in that it can be used to encode mono, stereo, 4 channel, 5 channel, 5.1 channel etc. Most people involved took the AC-3 mandate to mean it's best form at the time (5.1), but I believe they are allowed to utilize fewer channels as long as they conform to the AC-3 decoding standards for broadcast and retransmission.

Thankfully, not many content providers and/or broadcasters are doing something that short-sighted.

Hope this helps,




dB

[Chris D]

Well, here's another one: for those who don't know, Fox is broadcasting digital channels, but apparently refuses to broadcast in any higher resolution than 480. So as I'm watching baseball playoff games on Fox, I am getting a digital feed and widescreen picture on my local digital Fox channel. BUT, it's still non-HD, so the resolution really isn't any better than the local analog channel. GRRRRRRRRRR... silly. If there's one thing you think Fox would spring for to send out in HD, you would think it would be the World Series.

At least the Super Bowl is going to be on CBS this year, which is the HD channel I receive the best. That should look fantastic.




CHRIS
Luke: "Hey, I'm not such a bad pilot myself, you know"

[Robbie]

I wouldn't know about the HDTV gripes you guys have. I still don't have my HDTV receiver yet.

I guess my biggest grip in HDTV would be the cost of the receivers. I would have assumed the price would be a lot lower by now. Jeeesh. They've come down what bout 100 bucks so far. I'm hoping next year will be the breakthrough year. Although I 've been saying that for several years now.

Robbie

[Burke Strickland]

At least the Super Bowl is going to be on CBS this year, which is the HD channel I receive the best. That should look fantastic.

Of course it will look fantastic. It will be broadcast from Houston's spectacular new retractable-roofed Reliant Stadium! :>)



Burke

[Sonnie Parker]

Cool on the Super Bowl! Maybe I can have our HT room finished by then.

I watched part of the Jets vs. Eagles yesterday in HD. Very nice!






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