Analog vs. digital - people look fatter

I've just been setting up an HD-ready TV for my Mum. In the
past she's noticed that friends' HD-ready TVs have "distorted"
pictures. The one we selected in the shop (to check it wasn't
too dire) showed a normal picture.
However, while I was setting it up, I noticed that the analog
channels showed peoples' faces as being fatter - literally, they
looked like they'd put on a couple of stone. Mum reckoned this
was the same as on her friends' sets.

Comparing the TV, on an analog channel, with my properly set-
up digital TV, showed that indeed the picture had both sides
clipped, while still keeping the 16:9 aspect ratio. The result
is that circles are flatter and wider than they should be, and
the edges have been lost.
Using the built-in DVB, the channels display correctly.

There are no controls for fine-tuning the horizontal size of
the picture.

Have other people noticed this? I'm surprised that the effect
seems to be common (well, among her friends, anyway) and that
the owners are either unaware or dont care about the poor setup.

--
.. Pete Lynch I have learned from my mistakes and
.. Marlow ... I am sure I can repeat them exactly
.. www.pete-lynch.com --- Peter Cooke.

Peter Lynch wrote:
I've just been setting up an HD-ready TV for my Mum. In the
past she's noticed that friends' HD-ready TVs have "distorted"
pictures. The one we selected in the shop (to check it wasn't
too dire) showed a normal picture.
However, while I was setting it up, I noticed that the analog
channels showed peoples' faces as being fatter - literally, they
looked like they'd put on a couple of stone. Mum reckoned this
was the same as on her friends' sets.

My Toshiba has an option to stretch a 4:3 picture out
in a NON-LINEAR fashion, where the centre isn't stretched
much, but the edges are stretched more.

The notion (I assume) is to have the distortion caused
be stretching restricted to "unimportant" parts of
the image.

I've never used this option...

BugBear

On Thu, 31 Jul 2008 11:59:14 +0100, bugbear
wrote:

Peter Lynch wrote:
I've just been setting up an HD-ready TV for my Mum. In the
past she's noticed that friends' HD-ready TVs have "distorted"
pictures. The one we selected in the shop (to check it wasn't
too dire) showed a normal picture.
However, while I was setting it up, I noticed that the analog
channels showed peoples' faces as being fatter - literally, they
looked like they'd put on a couple of stone. Mum reckoned this
was the same as on her friends' sets.

My Toshiba has an option to stretch a 4:3 picture out
in a NON-LINEAR fashion, where the centre isn't stretched
much, but the edges are stretched more.

The notion (I assume) is to have the distortion caused
be stretching restricted to "unimportant" parts of
the image.

I've never used this option...

BugBear

Analogue stations tend to use 14:9 for broadcast which isn't as wide
as 16:9, so most TV's will stretch the picture to fill the frame.

Marky P.

On 31/07/2008 11:50, Peter Lynch wrote:

I've just been setting up an HD-ready TV for my Mum. In the
past she's noticed that friends' HD-ready TVs have "distorted"
pictures.

Something isn't set up properly (sometimes deliberately due to ignorance).

Is the TV using an internal tuner, or being fed from an STB of some
sort? If it's from an STB, the STB needs to be informed via its menus
that the TV it's feeding is 16:9 rather than 4:3

Otherwise there will be an aspect ratio button somewhere on the remote
(often they look like a rectangle with a cross through it, or nested
rectangles) or within the settings menu an option for "auto aspect
ratio" or similar.

The one thing to bear in mind is that it is normal to have black bars
left&right when watching a 4:3 program on a 16:9 TV, some people feel
they have to adjust the aspect ratio to fill the whole screen (as
they've paid for it) this *will* result in either stretched fat people,
or people with the tops of their heads cut off - try to explain why they
shouldn't do that!

In an earlier contribution to this discussion,
Peter Lynch wrote:

I've just been setting up an HD-ready TV for my Mum. In the
past she's noticed that friends' HD-ready TVs have "distorted"
pictures. The one we selected in the shop (to check it wasn't
too dire) showed a normal picture.
However, while I was setting it up, I noticed that the analog
channels showed peoples' faces as being fatter - literally, they
looked like they'd put on a couple of stone. Mum reckoned this
was the same as on her friends' sets.

Comparing the TV, on an analog channel, with my properly set-
up digital TV, showed that indeed the picture had both sides
clipped, while still keeping the 16:9 aspect ratio. The result
is that circles are flatter and wider than they should be, and
the edges have been lost.
Using the built-in DVB, the channels display correctly.

There are no controls for fine-tuning the horizontal size of
the picture.

Have other people noticed this? I'm surprised that the effect
seems to be common (well, among her friends, anyway) and that
the owners are either unaware or dont care about the poor setup.


The *default* will stretch a 4:3 picture to 16:9 to fill the screen - so you
get fat looking people.

But surely the set lets you choose one of several aspect ratios. If you set
it to 4:3 for analog channels it will display correctly. You'll get a black
band down each side of course, but I think that's preferable to making
people look fatter than they really are.

There may also be a mode which stretches the picture uniformly to fill the
whole width - but you're then in danger of losing people's head and feet!

As someone else has said, some sets have a mode which stretches the sides of
the picture, keeping the correct proportions for the centre section. If your
mother's set has that option, that may be the one to go for if she can't
live with the black bands.
--
Cheers,
Roger
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On Thu, 31 Jul 2008 12:34:30 +0100, Andy Burns
wrote:

On 31/07/2008 11:50, Peter Lynch wrote:

I've just been setting up an HD-ready TV for my Mum. In the
past she's noticed that friends' HD-ready TVs have "distorted"
pictures.

Something isn't set up properly (sometimes deliberately due to ignorance).

Is the TV using an internal tuner, or being fed from an STB of some
sort? If it's from an STB, the STB needs to be informed via its menus
that the TV it's feeding is 16:9 rather than 4:3

Otherwise there will be an aspect ratio button somewhere on the remote
(often they look like a rectangle with a cross through it, or nested
rectangles) or within the settings menu an option for "auto aspect
ratio" or similar.

The one thing to bear in mind is that it is normal to have black bars
left&right when watching a 4:3 program on a 16:9 TV, some people feel
they have to adjust the aspect ratio to fill the whole screen (as
they've paid for it) this *will* result in either stretched fat people,
or people with the tops of their heads cut off - try to explain why they
shouldn't do that!

My new telly is annoying in that respect. It automatically stretches
4:3 images to 16:9 unless you select 4:3 from the menu. But then you
have to switch it back to 16:9 manually afterwards:-(

Marky P.

On Thu, 31 Jul 2008 12:34:30 +0100, Andy Burns wrote:
On 31/07/2008 11:50, Peter Lynch wrote:

I've just been setting up an HD-ready TV for my Mum. In the
past she's noticed that friends' HD-ready TVs have "distorted"
pictures.

Something isn't set up properly (sometimes deliberately due to ignorance).

Is the TV using an internal tuner, or being fed from an STB of some
sort? If it's from an STB, the STB needs to be informed via its menus
that the TV it's feeding is 16:9 rather than 4:3

As said, the TV has an internal DVB. it also contains the analog tuner.

Otherwise there will be an aspect ratio button somewhere on the remote
(often they look like a rectangle with a cross through it, or nested
rectangles) or within the settings menu an option for "auto aspect
ratio" or similar.

That was my first thought, too. The aspect choices are
auto, 16:9, 14:9, 4:3 and various "zoom" options - all of which
just magnify various amounts of the centre of the screen.
My hope was that the 14:9 mode would do it. In fact all this
does is take the flattened picture and introduce a black sidebar
on each side of the picture.
None of these settings address the twin problems of clipping
the sides of the picture and expanding the picture horizontally
to fill the screen.


--
.. Pete Lynch I have learned from my mistakes and
.. Marlow ... I am sure I can repeat them exactly
.. www.pete-lynch.com --- Peter Cooke.

On 31/07/2008 13:32, Peter Lynch wrote:

The aspect choices are
auto, 16:9, 14:9, 4:3 and various "zoom" options - all of which
just magnify various amounts of the centre of the screen.

Are you saying *all* the options do that, or just the zoom options?

The "variable" zoom settings give unsettling effect during horizontal
pan/tracking shots.

My hope was that the 14:9 mode would do it.

it ought to be a reasonable compromise, make it a bit wider, loose a bit
from top/bottom, but no stretching.

In fact all this
does is take the flattened picture and introduce a black sidebar
on each side of the picture.

So even if you select 4:3 aspect ratio, the picture is stretched, yet
has black bands left/right? Something sounds wrong ...

None of these settings address the twin problems of clipping
the sides of the picture and expanding the picture horizontally
to fill the screen.

a "16:9 zoom" is often the name for a setting which scales a 4:3 picture
up evenly (no fat people) to fit a 16:9 width, but usually you loose
*way* too much from the top/bottom of the picture in that mode.

Just reading back to your original post, you said

Using the built-in DVB, the channels display correctly.

So why not just use that then instead of the analogue tuner?

Peter Lynch wrote:

Comparing the TV, on an analog channel, with my properly set-
up digital TV, showed that indeed the picture had both sides
clipped, while still keeping the 16:9 aspect ratio. The result
is that circles are flatter and wider than they should be, and
the edges have been lost.
Using the built-in DVB, the channels display correctly.

The screen is 16:9.

The only source of 16:9 broadcasts is from DVB.

Analogue sourced pictures will be 4:3, either full screen, or (in most cases)
14:9 letter box within a 4:3 raster.

You will not be able to fill your 16:9 screen with an analogue sourced picture
and not have black bands and/or cropped sides and/or geometric distortion.

The only correct way to view analogue broadcasts is with black side bars, and
also narrow bands top and bottom (in the case of 14:9 letterbox as broadcast)



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

Peter Lynch wrote:
I've just been setting up an HD-ready TV for my Mum. In the
past she's noticed that friends' HD-ready TVs have "distorted"
pictures. The one we selected in the shop (to check it wasn't
too dire) showed a normal picture.

Wow. I've walked into a time warp. This topic hasn't been up here for a
year perhaps?

--
Adrian C