What happened to my letterboxing?

[tsummerall]

I don't have an HDTV or HD service from Dish. (Someday soon perhaps.)

Anyway I have always been glad that HD shows that are shown on SD channels are letterboxed so the image doesn't get cropped.

Last night, however, I noticed a number of HD shows were suddenly cropped that didn't used to be on several different channels. The Office, South Park, etc.

Coincidence? Or something Dish is doing?

 

[mike123abc]

I have noticed this happening too. It seems to be the networks themselves doing it. My OTA stations are doing it now on the SD feeds.

I think the networks had planned on the Feb 17th end of analog and decided to move to widescreen and dropped the letterboxed SD streams. The local stations are just cutting the sides off and downconverting to make SD.

 

[CowboyDren]

If I were to guess, I'd guess that Dish is trading the unmodified SD analog signal for the (station-cropped) SD digital feed. This is especially likely if Dish is using an OTA collection point in your market instead of taking a satellite uplink directly from the station. You could call your local station to get verification.

 

[sca]

i know you said you dont have hd service, but do you have an hd receiver?
if so there is a format button, bottom left on the remote, which will change the screen format. once pushed, the format stays changed. try this to see if the picture is more to your liking.

 

[Mr Zulu]

I don't have an HDTV or HD service from Dish. (Someday soon perhaps.)

Anyway I have always been glad that HD shows that are shown on SD channels are letterboxed so the image doesn't get cropped.

Last night, however, I noticed a number of HD shows were suddenly cropped that didn't used to be on several different channels. The Office, South Park, etc.

Coincidence? Or something Dish is doing?

I've been noticing this too. My wife likes to watch Smallville. Here we can get this via the sat on 251 (I think that's the number) locally via OTA but still standard definition. In that past, both channels delivered us a 16:9 SD show that we'd zoom to remove the black frame. Smallville didn't have a new show for something like 2 months but when it came back on, the first recording was from 251. The quality was horrid and nearly unwatchable for one (used to be just as good as our OTA version and sound was a bit clearer) but also, we were getting a cropped 4:3 image. The cropping was obvious because when they showed 'Smallville" during the opening, the beginning S and ending e were at least partially off screen. At the time, I assumed it was all due to something Dish was doing. Afterall, it looked like that channel was now over-compressed as well.

The next week, I made sure it was the OTA version that we got recorded. While it was much easier to watch because the compression issues weren't there anymore, it was still 4:3 cropped with the S and E sticking off the screen again.

I can't think of any other SD programs we watch that are supposed to be 16:9 though.

 

[CowboyDren]

Saturday Night Live? Bones? Local 6PM news? Even Today on NBC is 16:9 now.

 

[Mr Zulu]

Saturday Night Live? Bones? Local 6PM news? Even Today on NBC is 16:9 now.

The point was about 16:9 in SD. We got all those you mentioned in HD. That's why I said I can't think of any other SD programs we watch that are 16:9.

Does that help?

 

[M Sparks]

Last year, my local CW was a letterboxed version of the HD feed...meaning that sometimes you would see letterboxed commercials INSIDE a pillarbox INSIDE a letterbox INSIDE a pillarbox.

Now, they seem to be just centercutting the HD feed, which at least fills the screen. Sometimes, the promos have graphics cut off the edges. I was in the hospital last week and observed the same thing on local cable, so it's the station, not DISH.

 

[CowboyDren]

Does that help?

We're missing each other, here. I wasn't asking about your HD OTA.

Desperate Housewives is on tonight; HD OTA will be full 16:9, as will HD satellite, depending on your market. If there's an SD OTA version of the channel (my CBS affiliate has an SD stream at 9.3), does the SD version letterbox, or does it crop? Is this different from your satellite feed of the SD version? This is how you know if it's Dish or if it's your station.

 

[Mr Zulu]

We're missing each other, here. I wasn't asking about your HD OTA.

Desperate Housewives is on tonight; HD OTA will be full 16:9, as will HD satellite, depending on your market. If there's an SD OTA version of the channel (my CBS affiliate has an SD stream at 9.3), does the SD version letterbox, or does it crop? Is this different from your satellite feed of the SD version? This is how you know if it's Dish or if it's your station.

We don't have any SD digital OTA version of our HD channels and as far as the analogue verions go, I haven't looked at them in a long time... have to switch over to the TV tuner which isn't as simple as it ought to be.

 

[retiredTech]

All my SD locals are now zoomed & cropped.
Since E* is now using HD local feeds and converting them for SD.
This is worse than letter box, because most network content isn't filmed(& edited) to work well for "pan & scan".
Lots of important content is missing because of slicing off the both sides of the picture.
SD viewers(by the way, far out number HD viewers) need seperate SD feeds for network shows.