PBS's 1404x810 Broadcasts?

wrote (in part):

A program is produce in HD widescreen.
Then it is downconverted to SD in letterbox. Then the SD version is played
out via an HD broadcast in pillarbox. I call this "pilletterbox".

A few years ago I tried to introduce the term "litterbox" for this,
but it didn't catch on 8-)

Del Mibbler

Del Mibbler wrote:
PBS is planning to eliminate its separate HD feed schedule and
incorporate HD into its main feeds.

Is this done on a network or station basis? KQED here in San Francisco
had a separate (mostly) HD schedule but this summer melded the two, so
the HD station now shows the same programs as the primary SD
counterpart, albeit (mostly) in HD of course.

--
URL:http://www.pobox.com/~ylee/ PERTH ---- *

On Fri, 05 Dec 2008 11:58:49 -0500 Del Mibbler [email protected] wrote:
| wrote (in part):
|
|On Wed, 03 Dec 2008 13:24:41 -0500 Del Mibbler [email protected] wrote:
|
|| PBS is planning to eliminate its separate HD feed schedule and
|| incorporate HD into its main feeds. To regain the bandwidth that
|| requires it will eliminate some of its extra SD channels. That may
|| force its affiliates to build their schedules more around the
|| remaining network feeds.
|
|They should do something like Pathfire for their station feeds.
|
| That would work, and I imagine they'll get there or to a similar
| system eventually. For other readers, Pathfire provides hardware and
| a service to deliver video content such as syndicated programs and
| newsfeeds that is automatically recorded on video servers.
|
| I don't know the costs involved but I'm sure it's expensive,
| particularly for the HD version. Most stations have been slow to get
| the hardware to do anything with HD other than pass it through from
| their network. Further processing such as record/playback or adding a
| local weather warning required conversion to SD or NTSC.

It should be possible for a machine to do a limited amount of insertions
and such on compressed content without uncompressing it. It just needs to
slice up the frame into the blocks the compression works on, and replace
specific blocks for things like bottom of screen crawl (over the video,
not squeezing it), and PIP-style weather radar inserts.

A machine that full uncompresses so that it can do anything would be more
expensive.


| Except in some of the largest markets and a few others where PBS
| stations take their committment to the public seriously, many PBS
| stations have lagged behind the other stations in their area. Of
| course they always claim they're operating on a shoestring budget, and
| some of them really are. In my area, the PBS station took the coming
| switch to digital as an opportunity to build a new digital facility
| rather than wedging it in around their old analog system. This was
| done several years ago. Yet they only recently acquired the ability
| to upconvert their in-house programs to 1080i. Before that they ran
| PBS-HD continuously on their HD channel. I wish they'd left it that
| way to the bitter end. I've seen no indication that they can record
| and play HD or generate any of their own. They run a lot of
| windowboxed content that PBS originally fed in HD or at least zoomed
| to fill the 16:9 screen, but which the station recorded letterboxed
| in 4:3 SD.

I think the PBS stations need more time.

I'd even donate to them if they would stop the practice of completely destroying
their schedule during pledge week.

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| Phil Howard KA9WGN (email for humans: first name in lower case at ipal.net) |

On 7 Dec 2008 23:58:33 GMT Yeechang Lee wrote:

| Del Mibbler wrote:
| PBS is planning to eliminate its separate HD feed schedule and
| incorporate HD into its main feeds.
|
| Is this done on a network or station basis? KQED here in San Francisco
| had a separate (mostly) HD schedule but this summer melded the two, so
| the HD station now shows the same programs as the primary SD
| counterpart, albeit (mostly) in HD of course.

WQED has sometimes duplicated programs on HD and SD, but often has different
programming on HD compared to the 2 SD subchannels.

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|WARNING: Due to extreme spam, googlegroups.com is blocked. Due to ignorance |
| by the abuse department, bellsouth.net is blocked. If you post to |
| Usenet from these places, find another Usenet provider ASAP. |
| Phil Howard KA9WGN (email for humans: first name in lower case at ipal.net) |

On Fri, 05 Dec 2008 12:04:31 -0500 Del Mibbler [email protected] wrote:
| wrote (in part):
|
|A program is produce in HD widescreen.
|Then it is downconverted to SD in letterbox. Then the SD version is played
|out via an HD broadcast in pillarbox. I call this "pilletterbox".
|
| A few years ago I tried to introduce the term "litterbox" for this,
| but it didn't catch on 8-)

I like that one. I'll use it more.

--
|WARNING: Due to extreme spam, googlegroups.com is blocked. Due to ignorance |
| by the abuse department, bellsouth.net is blocked. If you post to |
| Usenet from these places, find another Usenet provider ASAP. |
| Phil Howard KA9WGN (email for humans: first name in lower case at ipal.net) |

Yeechang Lee wrote:

Del Mibbler wrote:
PBS is planning to eliminate its separate HD feed schedule and
incorporate HD into its main feeds.

Is this done on a network or station basis? KQED here in San Francisco
had a separate (mostly) HD schedule but this summer melded the two, so
the HD station now shows the same programs as the primary SD
counterpart, albeit (mostly) in HD of course.

It's the network that is dropping the separate HD feed, but some
stations are jumping before they get pushed. I believe the cutoff is
sometime this month.

Del Mibbler