Aspect Ratio and civilians

[eadler]

Caller: "So when are you going to fix channel 9?"
Me: "Well, it's not something to fix... Time Warner still sends an analog signal on 9 for people with old TV sets. With your new set, you would want to be watching us on 889."
Caller: "That's too much trouble. I'll stick with 9 until you fix it."

One of these days I'll get around to putting foam rubber on my office walls so it won't hurt so much when I bang my head...

-- Jeff

Cablevision fixed that. I don't see why TWC can't. My parents' Cablevision box (the same Scientific Atlanta box that TWC provides) automatically decodes the HD stream for "2", "4", etc. (NYC market) on the HD boxes. SD boxes probably stick with the SD stream (I can't say, they don't have one). Analog sets still get 2 on 2.

Also, Baylink, if you really want widescreen, you can do it. 16:9 SD is certainly doable with ATSC and DVB. You don't need to use any more or less bits, you just need to provide a 16:9 SD picture. In theory, you can even daypart it on ATSC. In practice, I'm not sure how receivers would respond to this.

- Eric

[NECRAT]

Cablevision fixed that. I don't see why TWC can't. My parents' Cablevision box (the same Scientific Atlanta box that TWC provides) automatically decodes the HD stream for "2", "4", etc. (NYC market) on the HD boxes. SD boxes probably stick with the SD stream (I can't say, they don't have one). Analog sets still get 2 on 2.


- Eric

Fullchannel, the small cable operator in Rhode Island does this too, yet Cox and Comcast don't. According to the guy at Fullchannel, it's not that difficult to do.
They just have to rebuild the virtual channel table differently. Cox seems to have a love for their SD and analog. They are one of the last major operatos who refuses to eliminate the analog plant, and use the RF space to increase HD bandwidth and ISP bandwidth.

[PID_Stop]

It is hard sometimes to reconcile the objective of getting a high quality signal against the indifference and ignorance that abounds, especially when there's a massive shift in technology. And sometimes, you're just bucking arbitrary personal preferences.

Back in the early '60s, visits to my grandparents would feature watching their color TV (ours was still B&W)... Dad would restrain himself mightily, but eventually he'd break down, pull the TV out from the wall, and give it a full setup until the thing looked as close to a studio monitor as he could get it. Unfortunately, my grandfather's taste ran more toward "radioactive Smurf", and several days later the picture would be about where it had begun.

And it's not just viewers. I'm convinced that some of our own people still think "aspect ratio" is the measure of how often they get nailed by the geese in our parking lot.

-- Jeff

[Baylink]

Ah... Jeff understands my actual problem. Thanks, Jeff.

[KPJL FM]

It is hard sometimes to reconcile the objective of getting a high quality signal against the indifference and ignorance that abounds, especially when there's a massive shift in technology. And sometimes, you're just bucking arbitrary personal preferences.

Back in the early '60s, visits to my grandparents would feature watching their color TV (ours was still B&W)... Dad would restrain himself mightily, but eventually he'd break down, pull the TV out from the wall, and give it a full setup until the thing looked as close to a studio monitor as he could get it. Unfortunately, my grandfather's taste ran more toward "radioactive Smurf", and several days later the picture would be about where it had begun.

And it's not just viewers. I'm convinced that some of our own people still think "aspect ratio" is the measure of how often they get nailed by the geese in our parking lot.

-- Jeff

Good God, I probably sold hundreds of replacement color TV to Grandparents and had to wash out the pix and make it too green, so 'it looks just like my old set'. They only used two channels, also.....

[w4cl]

Here is one for you. People complain about the bands, so we put our .2 in 16:9 anamorphic. Yeah, SD, but then we are a 16:9 house and it has taken too damn long to get the ops used to switching to 16:9 to go back. And of course people complained that it was widescreen SD. You just can' make people happy. Period.

[PID_Stop]

Here is one for you. People complain about the bands...

Aw, heck... the only bands worth complaining about came from the quad machines when the operator forgot to center up the velocity compensator's control voltages.

-- Jeff

[KPJL FM]

Here is one for you. People complain about the bands...

Aw, heck... the only bands worth complaining about came from the quad machines when the operator forgot to center up the velocity compensator's control voltages.

-- Jeff

STFU, you're giving me flashback headaches....damn quad machines!

[PID_Stop]

Here is one for you. People complain about the bands...

Aw, heck... the only bands worth complaining about came from the quad machines when the operator forgot to center up the velocity compensator's control voltages.

-- Jeff

STFU, you're giving me flashback headaches....damn quad machines!

Perhaps, then, you would prefer a nice kinescope recording?