DNS plus Locals: Is it possible?

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This station is weird, though. Like, on Comcast, you can tell that the station is in HD (of some kind) with the FOX feed, and then suddenly go SD for local programming, and it would be all full screen.
During Fox national programming on your Directv system does the screen have black bars on top and bottom?

It sounds like Comcast is doing some kind of flipping between HD 16:9 and SD 4:3 depending on program (if its Fox national or not)
 
I think I might be able to shed some light on this. It sounds like because this station has FOX on a subchannel, there is an issue with transporting it to DirecTV. More than likely, DirecTV is picking up the station over-the-air, and thus, poor quality SD is all that's available.

At the same time, it sounds like they have a fiber feed to Comcast (which is pretty common), and because the station can feed anything down this line they want, they are able to send them the FOX HD feed. If DirecTV was to arrange for a fiber feed from the station (which they do in many areas -- the station I work for feeds them via fiber), they could have it in HD as well.

The FOX network utilizes a feature of digital TV known as Active Format Description (AFD). You can read about it on Wikipedia, but in a nutshell, it is a signal that instructs *SD* gear on how to display the image. It can tell an SD device to letterbox the incoming 16x9 image, or center-cut it. Virtually everything on FOX is sent with the "letterbox" code, which is why it goes to a letterboxed picture during FOX programming. You may notice that on FOX Sports programming (check out the World Series for instance), they have graphics that utilize the full 16x9 area -- they're not crowded towards to center to protect 4x3 displays. They're able to do this because they transmit the "letterbox" code, which insures that people watching in SD (or an SD signal through cable or satellite) do not have the graphics chopped off.

Bottom line, I would say it's up to DirecTV to get a fiber feed to that station to get FOX in HD. If that doesn't happen, well, "moving" is a great option.
 
Sorry if I'm resurrecting this, but there MIGHT (MIGHT, as in, extremely slim chance) be a chance that something could happen with these subchannels soon if what I saw today is any indication.

When WTOV began broadcasting their news in HD, a lot of stuff that wasn't usually broadcasting in HD on that channel despite being advertised in HD format (such as Jeopardy and WOF) suddenly was (some of the local commercials suddenly got upgrades, too).

Well, WTRF has just launched (as in, Dec 29th, 2011) their news in HD. Of course, right now, the ABC feed was still in SD for the simulcast (for some odd reason, right now, the 7.1 feed is down on DirecTV (the "No need to call" screen, if anyone is familiar with that "tech difficulty" screen). They launched it with a slightly better graphics package (though they didn't change everything; the way they display the 7 day forecast is still in the same format, which is an absolute mess of clouds and crap that I'm surprised anyone can make out what's what) and a new music package.

Thing is, if what happened when WTOV went HD happens with WTRF and its subs, there could be changes coming for the FOX and ABC feeds, too. I'm having my fingers crossed, but knowing how WTRF has been, I doubt they'll change anything.

I've also heard a few other things that could either ease or complicate the situation:
  • Locals have the ability to enforce "non-duplicate" laws (not sure how corporations continue to be allowed to hold so much power) so they could be the only ones that a carrier is ALLOWED to give you in that area period. Not sure the specifics on these laws, but it could prevent DirecTV from doing certain things about situations like this.
  • WTRF has had a good relationship with Comcast in the past. Comcast had WTRF newscasts on their VOD service, even. This might be a sign that, unless what I hope happens actually does, that DTV might never get the ABC/FOX feeds, because Comcast might actually have exclusive rights to broadcast them in HD, as someone on another forum speculated. Then again, that sounds pretty far fetched that Comcast would be allowed to do such a thing (but again, I'm dumbfounded sometimes on how much power some of these companies are allowed to possess and what a crapload of money can do to the game).
But yeah, hopefully the launch of HD news on WTRF is a sign of fixes to come.
 
on your comcast box, hit power, not all on, (turns the box off leave the tv on) then hit guide, scroll down to 4:3 override, and i bet its set to stretch, which is correct, if you want your bars back, then set it to off, but stretching will keep the aspect ratio correct, this is not the same as using the hd zoom button. press power again to turn the box back on.
 
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