Someone at Dish needs to send a message to the tech dept to please fix the SD feeds aspect ratio that are downconverted from HD. I'm watching the KTLA news that is broadcasted in 16:9 HD on the Superstation pack that is 4:3 SD and the edges are cut off. This is due because Dish decides to use the 16:9 HD feed and downconvert it to 4:3 SD without keeping the original aspect ratio. Its frustrating watching programs on the downconverted SD stations. To make it clearer - please make the SD channels (like the superstations pack) in 16:9 letterbox format the way it is originally broadcasted similar to what the FOX stations and ESPN/Disney does. Most of us have 16:9 TVs, PC's, tablets and mobile devices anyway.
Dish: fix SD's aspect ratios to 16:9
- Thread starter bradfordj
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That'd be almost as annoying as what the local cable company does. When I go over to my parents, they have one old SD tube TV in my Dad's office. For their SD channels, the cable company takes 16:9-broadcast channels, such as ESPN, leaves them full height on screen and just squishes the full picture to fit the width. 
Do your parents a favor and get them a modern TV. I personally think anamorphic widescreen is the only way to go (for SD channels).
I personally think anamorphic widescreen is the only way to go (for SD channels).
That's the way Dish has done it for years. Many stations no longer have an SD feed. All they have is HD. Before our locals here in Rochester NY went HD on Dish, they were sending Dish the HD feed and Dish just cut off the edges for the SD transmission. So AFAIK,what you are complaining about won't be changed.
Are they fixing it by converting to letterbox before transmitting, or are they going to join the modern world and send it as 16:9 SD?
Do your parents a favor and get them a modern TV.
Already did that actually...they have a nice HD/theater setup in their living room.
Dad doesn't use the TV much in the office, or we'd probably swap that out too. I just thought it was funny when I saw what the podunk cable company was doing with the aspect. I tend to be an OAR snob...I can live with cropped if I have to, but I can't stand a stretched/squished/warped picture. :tsk:
Before HD arrived, SD was always 4x3. I'd prefer the SD downconverted feeds to be sent as 4x3. SD is already lower rez than HD, making it a postage stamp 16x9 letterbox and having to zoom the picture in both horizontal and vertical directions just makes the picture look worse. I'd rather have the sides cut off (just as a normal SD camera would shoot it) than to take the SD resolution and make it even lower than SD resolution.
The best solution...
Dish sends out the full 16x9 picture. They add software so the end user can decide (on a receiver by receiver basis) how the SD is output... anamorphic (will automatically stretch to fill a 16x9 screen, but will be 'squished' in a 4x3 screen), center cut (pillar boxes on 16x9 screen, full on 4x3), or letterbox (postage stamp on 16x9 screen, letterbox on 4x3). This way, if a customer has a mix of 16x9 & 4x3 screens, they can get the image THEY prefer.
There was a push a year or so ago that program creators were supposed insert a 'flag' into the programming that would AUTOMATICALLY change the receivers output to what the creator wanted (letterbox or center cut). The process was called 'AFD' (automatic format descriptor, IIRC).
Dish sends out the full 16x9 picture. They add software so the end user can decide (on a receiver by receiver basis) how the SD is output... anamorphic (will automatically stretch to fill a 16x9 screen, but will be 'squished' in a 4x3 screen), center cut (pillar boxes on 16x9 screen, full on 4x3), or letterbox (postage stamp on 16x9 screen, letterbox on 4x3). This way, if a customer has a mix of 16x9 & 4x3 screens, they can get the image THEY prefer.
There was a push a year or so ago that program creators were supposed insert a 'flag' into the programming that would AUTOMATICALLY change the receivers output to what the creator wanted (letterbox or center cut). The process was called 'AFD' (automatic format descriptor, IIRC).
The difference is, DVD is actually scaled to 16:9, Dish 16:9 SD is actually just letterboxed 16:9 in a 4:3 frame. You lose vertical resolution in that scenario.
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Of course I meant broadcast/transmission video. And my point is exactly what 2Halo said. You lose both vertical AND horizontal resolution.
Nevertheless widescreen SD video exists, and it should be broadcast as anamorphic widescreen to avoid that loss of vertical resolution caused by picture-framing the widescreen video. Yuck.
Nah, don't lose horizontal resolution, just vertical.
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It should not be broadcast as anamorphic widescreen. It should be broadcast as a 16x9 image according to standards that exist for this format. The intent is to be presented for 16x9 displays and not transported in 4x3 and converted for 16x9 displays.
I completely agree with that sentiment regarding digital channels for which there is a widescreen SD mode. These channels, for widescreen material, are often inexplicably broadcast letterboxed, and with 4:3 channel flags, causing a picture framed image for all modern HDTVs. :rant:
I suppose Dish could indeed fix this and send the right flags for their widescreen SD content, e.g. on Eastern Arc. But that (presumably) wouldn't work for WA because of the many SD receivers still out there which know nothing about widescreen. Dish could also fix this problem on the TV2 (SD) output of their HD receivers by adding an anamorphic widescreen format mode. But they haven't done that either.
