Sky News - why still in 4:3?
 

Why is sky news still broadcast in 4:3? Apart from making the
presenters look fat, surely much of their news is delivered in 16:9
these days. Certainly all their sports coverage from the UK is filmed
in widescreen.

ed

On 9 Aug 2004 03:12:27 -0700, (Ed) wrote:

Why is sky news still broadcast in 4:3? Apart from making the
presenters look fat,

They look fine on my system at 4:3 - well they look stupid - but not
fat.

surely much of their news is delivered in 16:9
these days. Certainly all their sports coverage from the UK is filmed
in widescreen.

There was originally a plan to go wide when Sky One did but it didn't
happen.

--
Hiram Hackenbacker

On 9 Aug 2004 03:12:27 -0700, (Ed) wrote:

Why is sky news still broadcast in 4:3? Apart from making the
presenters look fat, surely much of their news is delivered in 16:9
these days.

How on earth does broadcasting in 4:3 make presenters look fat?

Charlie

--
Remove NO-SPOO-PLEASE from my email address to reply
Please send no unsolicited email or foodstuffs

On Mon, 09 Aug 2004 13:55:30 +0100, Charlie Pearce
wrote:

On 9 Aug 2004 03:12:27 -0700, (Ed) wrote:

Why is sky news still broadcast in 4:3? Apart from making the
presenters look fat, surely much of their news is delivered in 16:9
these days.

How on earth does broadcasting in 4:3 make presenters look fat?

Obviously the original poster is one of those guys who has a widescreen TV &
insists on getting full value out of every inch of it. Instead of black bars
either side when watching 4:3 material he has it set to a stretch mode that
makes it fill the 16:9 screen & coincidentally makes the presenters look wider &
fatter.

--
Nigel Barker
Live from the sunny Cote d'Azur

Obviously the original poster is one of those guys who has a widescreen TV
&
insists on getting full value out of every inch of it. Instead of black
bars
either side when watching 4:3 material he has it set to a stretch mode
that
makes it fill the 16:9 screen & coincidentally makes the presenters look
wider &
fatter.

Same as me then but if you watch 4:3 with black bars on a 16:9 you are
reducing the life span of your tv.

I have a panasonic tv set to auto which therefore automatically
selects 'wide' when I switch to the sky digibox which is set to output
a 16:9 picture, which is perfect for most channels, but sky news comes
out stretched across my screen. If you can tell me a way to set it so
that 4:3 pictures come out with black bars and 16:9 pictures are also
correctly rendered I'd be most grateful.



Nigel Barker wrote in message . ..
On Mon, 09 Aug 2004 13:55:30 +0100, Charlie Pearce
wrote:

On 9 Aug 2004 03:12:27 -0700, (Ed) wrote:

Why is sky news still broadcast in 4:3? Apart from making the
presenters look fat, surely much of their news is delivered in 16:9
these days.

How on earth does broadcasting in 4:3 make presenters look fat?

Obviously the original poster is one of those guys who has a widescreen TV &
insists on getting full value out of every inch of it. Instead of black bars
either side when watching 4:3 material he has it set to a stretch mode that
makes it fill the 16:9 screen & coincidentally makes the presenters look wider &
fatter.

On Mon, 9 Aug 2004 18:52:14 +0100, Tim Anderson wrote:

Obviously the original poster is one of those guys who has a widescreen TV
&
insists on getting full value out of every inch of it. Instead of black
bars
either side when watching 4:3 material he has it set to a stretch mode
that
makes it fill the 16:9 screen & coincidentally makes the presenters look
wider &
fatter.

Same as me then but if you watch 4:3 with black bars on a 16:9 you are
reducing the life span of your tv.

1. How so?
2. Is there a mode that stretches a conventional aspect picture across the
whole screen without distorting the aspect (IOW trims top & bottom of the
picture)? I can't find this out for myself because we don't have a WSTV.

I went into the tv menu of the digibox last night, and it now has two
tv options, one for second picture (any ideas?) and one for main pic,
and the options are 16:9, 4:3 and 4:3L, presumably for letterbox. So I
have it set to output as 16:9. However, this seems to make it
automatically send all pictures to the tv as 16:9 despite the source
material (sky news) only being 4:3. The 4:3 option is removed from the
'justify' options by the panasonic tv when receiving the rgb signal
from the digibox, so i cannot manually select 4:3.



and Jomtien wrote in message . ..
Ed wrote:

Why is sky news still broadcast in 4:3? Apart from making the
presenters look fat,

Your TV is incorrectly adjusted.

Set the TV viewing format (using whatever you have in way of a "zoom"
button) to 4:3 (displays 4:3 correctly) or "smart" (stretches the
edges of a 4:3 image to fill the screen) or 14:9 (leaves smaller black
bands at the left and right): whichever you prefer. Set the W/S TV
format to"auto" in the TV menu.
Set the digibox picture menu settings to "16:9" and RGB (see the FAQ).

Turn the TV off and on again. It should now auto-switch from 16:9 to
4:3 (or smart or 14:9) in accordance with the picture signal. If it
doesn't then call the installer.

--
Digibox problem? : A reboot solves 90% of these.
The Sky Digital FAQ: http://tinyurl.com/yvnsy
How to get UK TV overseas: http://tinyurl.com/6p73
Fed up with logos / red buttons? : http://logofreetv.org/
BBC gone? : http://www.astra2d.co.uk/
----
Only the truth as I see it.
No monies return'd. ;-)

On 10 Aug 2004 02:57:41 -0700, (Ed) wrote:

I went into the tv menu of the digibox last night, and it now has two
tv options, one for second picture (any ideas?) and one for main pic,
and the options are 16:9, 4:3 and 4:3L, presumably for letterbox. So I
have it set to output as 16:9. However, this seems to make it
automatically send all pictures to the tv as 16:9 despite the source
material (sky news) only being 4:3. The 4:3 option is removed from the
'justify' options by the panasonic tv when receiving the rgb signal
from the digibox, so i cannot manually select 4:3.

Some Panasonics are only able to use 16:9 mode when receiving an RGB
signal. My parents' Panasonic does this (it's documented in their
manual) whereas mine doesn't.

On Tue, 10 Aug 2004 16:25:14 GMT, Ken Jude
wrote:


Some Panasonics are only able to use 16:9 mode when receiving an RGB
signal. My parents' Panasonic does this (it's documented in their
manual) whereas mine doesn't.

Apologies, that wasn't phrased very carefully. I ought to have said
that some Panasonics, when receiving an RGB signal, are only able to
use 16:9 mode.

On Tue, 10 Aug 2004 18:21:29 +0100, Tim Anderson wrote:

Same as me then but if you watch 4:3 with black bars on a 16:9 you are
reducing the life span of your tv.

1. How so?
2. Is there a mode that stretches a conventional aspect picture across the
whole screen without distorting the aspect (IOW trims top & bottom of the
picture)? I can't find this out for myself because we don't have a WSTV.

1) It uses the phosphors in the 4:3 section of the screen more and
eventually you will end up with the black borders being brighter than the
center when watching a widescreen presentation.

2) Ummm, no.... you just get used to it, you could through it into letter
box but 1. I'm not sure that would help & 2. Letterbox would look poo.
Widescreen progressiveley stretches the picture by the way, the center
portion looks normal, it is the stuff to the sides that gets stretched. It
sounds horrible when describe but is suprisingly easy to get used to.
Eventually 4:3 makes everything look thin :-)

Ah - I thought that phosphor degradation had become less of an issue.
Thanks for this, and for the explanation re. the progressive stretch
characteristic.

Ed wrote:

So I
have it set to output as 16:9.

That's right.


However, this seems to make it
automatically send all pictures to the tv as 16:9 despite the source
material (sky news) only being 4:3. The 4:3 option is removed from the
'justify' options by the panasonic tv when receiving the rgb signal
from the digibox, so i cannot manually select 4:3.

If so you have a very badly designed TV that, in my opinion, is not
fit for the purpose for which it was intended. There being no time
limit on this I would return it for a full refund.

You can however select 14:9 or "smart" and this will more or less do
the trick, though you won't get the real 4:3 that I like to have.

--
Digibox problem? : A reboot solves 90% of these.
The Sky Digital FAQ: http://tinyurl.com/yvnsy
How to get UK TV overseas: http://tinyurl.com/6p73
Fed up with logos / red buttons? : http://logofreetv.org/
BBC gone? : http://www.astra2d.co.uk/
----
Only the truth as I see it.
No monies return'd. ;-)