Analog v digital aspect ratio

While it is still available, I still prefer to watch analog rather than
digital transmission for sports programs however I have noticed recently (in
particular the golf from Wentworth) that the analog signal is broadcast in
4x3 where I would have expected 14x9. My first thought was that the beeb
were using old 4x3 cameras on outside broadcasts then converting to wide
screen for the digital transmission. Wrong. Comparing the analog and digital
signal together shows that the 4x3 is just the wide screen original with the
sides chopped off. Why would they do that? Surely they could send the analog
signal out on 14x9 format.

Archie - currently watching a film "Masacre in Rome" being broadcast on
analog in16x9 format so I can zoom to fill the screen.

Archie wrote:
While it is still available, I still prefer to watch analog rather than
digital transmission for sports programs however I have noticed recently (in
particular the golf from Wentworth) that the analog signal is broadcast in
4x3 where I would have expected 14x9. My first thought was that the beeb
were using old 4x3 cameras on outside broadcasts then converting to wide
screen for the digital transmission. Wrong. Comparing the analog and digital
signal together shows that the 4x3 is just the wide screen original with the
sides chopped off. Why would they do that? Surely they could send the analog
signal out on 14x9 format.

Both BBC and ITV choose to broadcast sport on analogue as a 4:3 centre cut out
of the original 16:9 picture that is seen on digital output. Therefore the
camera crews have to ensure that what they are shooting is '4:3 safe'. For all
other types of programming, as you've observed, 14:9 letterbox is used on
analogue.

C4 present their sport on analogue as 14:9. I don't know why there's a
difference in policy between BBC/ITV and C4 ?


--
Mark
Please replace invalid and invalid with gmx and net to reply.

On Tue, 16 Oct 2007 07:26:19 +0100, Mark Carver
wrote:

C4 present their sport on analogue as 14:9. I don't know why there's a
difference in policy between BBC/ITV and C4 ?

The one that winds me up is American Football. Five show it through
the regular season just fine in widescreen, then when ITV take over
for the playoffs and Superbowl they show it in craptacular 4:3.
--
Andrew, contact via http://interpleb.googlepages.com
Help make Usenet a better place: English is read downwards,
please don't top post. Trim replies to quote only relevant text.
Check groups.google.com before asking an obvious question.

On Oct 16, 12:19 am, "Archie" wrote:
While it is still available, I still prefer to watch analog rather than
digital transmission for sports programs however I have noticed recently (in
particular the golf from Wentworth) that the analog signal is broadcast in
4x3 where I would have expected 14x9.

So what do the 'set top boxes' typically do? Do they allow you to
say what aspect ratio your screen has and whether you want to crop,
letterbox the 16:9 to 4:3?

Robert

On Oct 16, 3:34 pm, Robert wrote:
On Oct 16, 12:19 am, "Archie" wrote:

While it is still available, I still prefer to watch analog rather than
digital transmission for sports programs however I have noticed recently (in
particular the golf from Wentworth) that the analog signal is broadcast in
4x3 where I would have expected 14x9.

So what do the 'set top boxes' typically do? Do they allow you to
say what aspect ratio your screen has and whether you want to crop,
letterbox the 16:9 to 4:3?

Some boxes when set to feed a 4:3 TV will letterbox the picture to
16:9. Others will follow the broadcaster's AFD signal, which can
instruct the box to display the image as 4:3 CCO, 14:9 LB, or 16:9 LB.
It can get annoying if the viewer does not like the broadcaster's
choice of ARC'ing, and the box offers no means of override.

Further reading at:-

http://www.pembers.freeserve.co.uk/T...nical.html#WSS

Mini Glossary :-

CCO Centre Cut Out
LB Letterbox
ARC Aspect Ratio Conversion/Converter
AFD Automatic Format Descriptor

"Mark Carver" wrote in message
ups.com...
On Oct 16, 3:34 pm, Robert wrote:
On Oct 16, 12:19 am, "Archie" wrote:

While it is still available, I still prefer to watch analog rather than
digital transmission for sports programs however I have noticed
recently (in
particular the golf from Wentworth) that the analog signal is broadcast
in
4x3 where I would have expected 14x9.

So what do the 'set top boxes' typically do? Do they allow you to
say what aspect ratio your screen has and whether you want to crop,
letterbox the 16:9 to 4:3?

Some boxes when set to feed a 4:3 TV will letterbox the picture to
16:9. Others will follow the broadcaster's AFD signal, which can
instruct the box to display the image as 4:3 CCO, 14:9 LB, or 16:9 LB.
It can get annoying if the viewer does not like the broadcaster's
choice of ARC'ing, and the box offers no means of override.

Both of the ones I've used have reproduced 4:3 programmes fullscreen (on a
4:3 set), and for widescreen programmes cycle between 16:9 letterbox, 14:9
letterbox and centre cut-out at the press of a button.

--
Max Demian

On Tue, 16 Oct 2007 07:26:19 +0100, Mark Carver
wrote:

Archie wrote:
While it is still available, I still prefer to watch analog rather than
digital transmission for sports programs however I have noticed recently (in
particular the golf from Wentworth) that the analog signal is broadcast in
4x3 where I would have expected 14x9. My first thought was that the beeb
were using old 4x3 cameras on outside broadcasts then converting to wide
screen for the digital transmission. Wrong. Comparing the analog and digital
signal together shows that the 4x3 is just the wide screen original with the
sides chopped off. Why would they do that? Surely they could send the analog
signal out on 14x9 format.

Both BBC and ITV choose to broadcast sport on analogue as a 4:3 centre cut out
of the original 16:9 picture that is seen on digital output. Therefore the
camera crews have to ensure that what they are shooting is '4:3 safe'. For all
other types of programming, as you've observed, 14:9 letterbox is used on
analogue.

C4 present their sport on analogue as 14:9. I don't know why there's a
difference in policy between BBC/ITV and C4 ?

I would rather BBC/ITV showed in in letterbox format. Then they could
put the score and the logos somewhere it does not obscure part of the
match!

M

On 16 Oct, 07:35, Andrew wrote:

American Football. Five show it through
the regular season just fine in widescreen, then when ITV take over
for the playoffs and Superbowl they show it in craptacular 4:3.


I think that you may be mistaken there Andrew. I have watched pretty
much every NFL match broadcast by C5 in the last few years - I
particularly enjoyed the spell of MNF when we were treated to Al
Michaels and John Madden on the US feed and then the excellent Mike
Carlson in the UK studio (and precious few, if any, ad breaks).

However, to my knowledge, C5 have never broadcast a single frame of
NFL action in widescreen.

Perhaps you have your TV system set up so as to "zoom" in to the C5
picture. This would create an image which fills the screen - but
crops the source image at the top and bottom. This doesn't qualify as
"widescreen" in the usually accepted sense.

Mind you, even if you have done this, it would still be better than
the arrangement in the C5 studio. For some bizarre reason the "TV
experts" working at C5 have bought a widescreen plasma TV for the wall
behind the presenters ... and then they s-t-r-e-t-c-h the 4:3 picture
the fill the width of the screen. Apart from distorting the players
(and the action) it is most usually used to show the logos of the
teams playing during the presenter discussions ... and of course they
are all distorted by 33% too.

If anyone at home is watching on a widescreen with a similar s-t-r-e-t-
c-h mode engaged then they will perceive the background wall plasma
with a 78% distortion ... things will be almost twice as wide as they
should be !!!

My local M&S has large 4:3 wall screens ... so they can be found. Or
of course C5 could have selected a non-distorting "pillar box" mode
and simply knocked up an MDF surround to cover the "unsightly" black
bars and ill-fitting plasma bezel.

Ho hum.




Cheers

Graham

)