HR10-250 ( HD Tivo ) usage question

On Mon, 21 Aug 2006 09:46:48 -0400, (Stephen Harris)
wrote:

Randy S. wrote:
The central fallacy here (not said by you) is that viewing 16:9 material
cut down to 4:3 (i.e. "pan and scan") loses nothing important. First it
*does* often cut off important content, but second, it also betrays the
"feel" of the picture, lacking the breadth and scope (and therefore the

There's another point that hasn't been mentioned. When you buy a fullscreen
DVD that was created from widescreen source then the film has been
editted; the center of the image can wander over the widescreen
frame. For example, a talking heads scenario; two people on opposite sides
of the widescreen frame talking to each other. On the DVD fullscreen
release the editting may make it look like the camera is moving from
head to head as they talk, or maybe even switching between cameras.

Clearly not what was originally meant.

But this is still better than watching a 16:9 picture on a 4:3 TV zoomed
in; in this case you end up with just the center of the picture and lose
the important part of the picture entirely!

Personally, I'm not sure if I'm going to upgrade from my 27" 4:3 TV yet.
Too much stuff I watch (eg SciFi channel) is broadcast letterbox, rather
than widescreen, and so would look terrible on a 16:9 TV.

Well, actually it depends on how you set up your widescreen set. On
mine, I have it set so that the screen is "letterboxed" on the
sides... that is, I only use the 4:3 (or whatever) portion that is
broadcast, when viewing this kind of content. It really looks quite
good. I've seen friends widescreen set set up to fill the entire
screen, either by distorting the scene, or by zooming and cropping,
and I agree....THAT looks terrible.

Charlie Hoffpauir
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~charlieh/

Charlie Hoffpauir wrote:


On Mon, 21 Aug 2006 09:46:48 -0400, (Stephen Harris)
Personally, I'm not sure if I'm going to upgrade from my 27" 4:3 TV yet.
Too much stuff I watch (eg SciFi channel) is broadcast letterbox, rather
than widescreen, and so would look terrible on a 16:9 TV.

Well, actually it depends on how you set up your widescreen set. On
mine, I have it set so that the screen is "letterboxed" on the
sides... that is, I only use the 4:3 (or whatever) portion that is
broadcast, when viewing this kind of content. It really looks quite

Right. In that case you have the black bars from the letterbox
transmission top'n'bottom, and the black bars from the 4:3 display left
and right. Essentially you have a small picture inside a large screen.

Of course, if I got a 42" widescreen then it's still a larger picture than
I currently get (effectively a 34" 4:3 picture), but what a waste of
TV screen!

*ponder* 42" 1080p TVs are becoming affordable these days. Hmm...

good. I've seen friends widescreen set set up to fill the entire
screen, either by distorting the scene, or by zooming and cropping,
and I agree....THAT looks terrible.

Zooming your average SciFi channel program is bad because it's normally
so overcompressed the artifacts make it unwatchable.

--
Stephen Harris

The truth is the truth, and opinion just opinion. But what is what?
My employer pays to ignore my opinions; you get to do it for free.

On Mon, 21 Aug 2006 07:36:03 -0400, Randy S. wrote:

The central fallacy here (not said by you) is that viewing 16:9 material
cut down to 4:3 (i.e. "pan and scan") loses nothing important. First it
*does* often cut off important content, but second, it also betrays the
"feel" of the picture, lacking the breadth and scope (and therefore the
impact) of a dramatic scene. But don't take my word for it, here's a
great site comparing scenes from various movies:

http://www.widescreen.org/examples.shtml

Any true film buff would be appalled at the difference!

This site has absolutely nothing to do with 4:3 vs. 16:9. And abosolutely
non of the images on this site are 4:3 or 16:9 aspect ratios. I debunked
this the last time you tried this same crap. Good try though.


--
Want the ultimate in free OTA SD/HDTV Recorder? http://mythtv.org
http://mysettopbox.tv/knoppmyth.html Usenet alt.video.ptv.mythtv
My server http://wesnewell.no-ip.com/cpu.php
HD Tivo S3 compared http://wesnewell.no-ip.com/mythtivo.htm

There's another point that hasn't been mentioned. When you buy a fullscreen
DVD that was created from widescreen source then the film has been
editted; the center of the image can wander over the widescreen
frame. For example, a talking heads scenario; two people on opposite sides
of the widescreen frame talking to each other. On the DVD fullscreen
release the editting may make it look like the camera is moving from
head to head as they talk, or maybe even switching between cameras.

Clearly not what was originally meant.

Actually, that is *definitely* one of the things I was talking about,
it's referred to as "pan & scan" because in editing the picture from
16:9 to 4:3, the editor pans and scans over the image.


But this is still better than watching a 16:9 picture on a 4:3 TV zoomed
in; in this case you end up with just the center of the picture and lose
the important part of the picture entirely!

Yes, that's pretty hideous.

Personally, I'm not sure if I'm going to upgrade from my 27" 4:3 TV yet.
Too much stuff I watch (eg SciFi channel) is broadcast letterbox, rather
than widescreen, and so would look terrible on a 16:9 TV.


Well, anything that's *broadcast* letterbox can be zoomed to full screen
on a 16:9 screen with no loss of content or added distortion. Though,
as I think you note elsewhere, there is a loss of clarity (since you are
zooming pixels), and it may emphasize artifacts.

Randy S.

It really looks quite
good. I've seen friends widescreen set set up to fill the entire
screen, either by distorting the scene, or by zooming and cropping,
and I agree....THAT looks terrible.

If it's broadcast in letterbox than the cropping is only removing the
black bars so there's no distortion or content loss, but if the picture
isn't great, then it can definitely emphasize the bad parts.

Randy S.

On Mon, 21 Aug 2006 09:12:39 -0500, Charlie Hoffpauir wrote:


What you say (probably) applies to sports, like golf, and perhaps over
50% of all HD content. I really doubt that it applies as effectively
to other sports, like basketball, or football, where significant
action often takes place all over the field (court).

Agreed. there are sports events that make good use of the widescreen. And
for the small percentage (5%) of my overall TV watching I can switch to a
full widescreen view


It certainly doesn't apply to some shows designed more for their
pictorial value. We watched a show about inns at various national parks
the other day, and the wide screen vistas were truly outstanding. I'd
hate to have that trimmed to only the "significant" center portion of
the view. IOW, I really love my widescreen's picture.... I just wish
more content made use of it.

That's my point. Most TV shows don't make use of it. And why I prefer a
4:3 set at this time.

--
Want the ultimate in free OTA SD/HDTV Recorder? http://mythtv.org
http://mysettopbox.tv/knoppmyth.html Usenet alt.video.ptv.mythtv
My server http://wesnewell.no-ip.com/cpu.php
HD Tivo S3 compared http://wesnewell.no-ip.com/mythtivo.htm

Once upon a time, Wes Newell said:
On Sun, 20 Aug 2006 17:56:26 +0000, Chris Adams wrote:
Yep, that's why they make all those movies in a 1:1 aspect ratio. Oh,
wait!

Once again, Wes knows less.

Just what I expect out of a TivoNero. All BS with nothing to back it it up
with but more BS. I can't figure out if you guys are just this stupid or
just that jealous.

Apparently sarcasm is lost on the stupid.

The point is, if there was no extra use for the widescreen portion of
the screen, movies wouldn't be made in 1.85:1, 2.35:1, or even 2.76:1
aspect ratios. Movie studios will do anything to save a buck. Human
vision is not square; why limit the picture to nearly square (4:3)?

--
Chris Adams
Systems and Network Administrator - HiWAAY Internet Services
I don't speak for anybody but myself - that's enough trouble.

In article , "Randy S." wrote:

If you're watching a 16:9 broadcast
that fills the screen, how could you say that it was smaller than anything?

It DOESN'T fill that (fixed size) screen! It has to be limited
vertically so it fits horizontally. The same sort of "shrinking"
occurs when you watch a fullscreen picture on a 16:9 TV (without
distortion or cropping).

A common TV screen size is 25 inches (that's 20 inches across and 16
inches high). A fullscreen (4:3) picture can fill this screen
perfectly, no distortion or cropping. Put a widescreen (16:9) picture
on that same screen, without distortion or cropping, and you're going
to have to limit it's height to about 12 inches. That is, it's
SMALLER. If you don't see that, maybe you've never watched any
"letterboxed" movies on TV.

Mark, it's obviously more complex then that. There are reasons for the
various formats, but 16:9 (or other close aspect ranges) is what
cinematographers like to work in for various reasons, but often because
of the impact that a landscape layout gives. This is the same reason
that "landscape" photographs are made in a similar aspect ratio (as
opposed to portraits).

The reason that videophiles like 16:9 ratio screens is that they are
primarily interested in Movies, and that is the ratio that comes closest
to simulating a theater experience. While 4:3 content *will* be
smaller on a same size diagonal screen (as compared to a 4:3 TV), the
video "experience" is typically less critical. Sports would be an
exception to that. However, notice that most material oriented towards
videophiles as well as sports, (and increasingly everything else!) is
being broadcast in 16:9 now (things like West Wing before it ended, SNL,
March Madness).

The central fallacy here (not said by you) is that viewing 16:9 material
cut down to 4:3 (i.e. "pan and scan") loses nothing important. First it
*does* often cut off important content, but second, it also betrays the
"feel" of the picture, lacking the breadth and scope (and therefore the
impact) of a dramatic scene. But don't take my word for it, here's a
great site comparing scenes from various movies:

http://www.widescreen.org/examples.shtml

Any true film buff would be appalled at the difference!

Randy S.

You all are leaving out one thing that Wes just doesn't seem to grasp. The
human's field of view is wide , not narrow.

http://www.widescreen.org/examples.shtml

Any true film buff would be appalled at the difference!

Randy S.

You all are leaving out one thing that Wes just doesn't seem to grasp. The
human's field of view is wide , not narrow.


That's true as well, of course.

Randy S.

Stephen Harris wrote:


Zooming your average SciFi channel program is bad because it's normally
so overcompressed the artifacts make it unwatchable.

I regularly zoom into SciFi channel programs so that the letterbox
portion fills my 16x9 and I don't find the quality at all unwatchable on
DirecTV with an HDR10-250
--
Nik Simpson