Spike TV HD and UFC Unleashed Picture Format

[jsowder]

OK so I've racked my brain long enough, maybe one of you can answer this question.Spike TV HD airing UFC unleashed on my HR21 shows the broadcast in 1080i (blue light on front is on) but the picture is displayed like a normal square picture not wide screen. The icon in the bottom right corner says Spike HD and the picture seems very clear. Now if I watch the same exact channel and they are airing special UFC event, it is displayed in wide screen.
Why is that? Is there some setting I don't have set correctly?
My settings are
720 ON
1080 ON

Native OFF (I tried both ON and OFF)

My Samsung LNT4661FX is set to Just Scan (basically looks at the incoming signal and chooses the correct format). I have a few more settings, 16:9, Crop, Stretch. The only setting that changes the picture worth noting is Strech which pulls the picture to the sides simulating a wide screen picture but the image ratio is incorrect.

Why does Spike not air most fights in wide screen?

Help you HD geeks!

 

[rad]

Spike's HD signal is always 1080i, never changes even if the source program is a standard def program, which is what you're seeing, this show is in standard definition which is only 4:3 image.

 

[jsowder]

Interesting, what's more interesting is when I Stretch the picture it looks very close to an HD picture, hence my question.
So an email to Spike asking they record all the matches in HD is in order?? (yes I am joking like they care what the heck I think!)

Thanks for the info