[mythtv-users] MythTV and the state of US HDTV

Yeechang Lee ylee at pobox.com
Sat Feb 18 08:32:12 UTC 2006


Nick <knowledgejunkie at gmail.com> says:
> > Do the UK broadcasters do stupid things like ours ?. Show P&S 4:3
> > cut movies 'pillarboxed' 'cause they can't be bothered getting a
> > WS source (presumably they had the P&S 4:3 in their own archives)
> The BBC when showing 4:3 movies pillarbox them and send the signal
> out as 16:9 which is very annoying. Channel Five, who enjoy showing
> movies every night, appear to have amassed the largest collection of
> 4:3 transfer known to man, even of newer films, for which there is
> no excuse.

Here in the US there's a distinction between "network" and "affiliate"
broadcasts. Almost all first-run half-hour comedies, one-hour dramas,
and theatrical movies on the broadcast networks (CBS, NBC, ABC, Fox,
WB, and UPN), with the notable exception of most reality shows, have
been shown in full widescreen HDTV for some time. For example, CBS
will air "Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines" Sunday evening
nationwide; it will be a full-fledged, gloriously HDTV broadcast, as
all such network broadcasts of theatrical movies have been for some
time.

On the other hand, affiliates (individual stations) have wide latitude
on what they show outside the prime evening hours. So if my local CBS
affiliate decides to show some random 1993 movie from its library at
1am Sunday, it'll likely be in 4:3 because that's the format they
bought the copy in in the first place. Or if my local UPN affiliate
decides to rerun an episode of "Veronica Mars" to fill a hole on
Saturday night it might very well be in 4:3 because the station
doesn't yet have the equipment to properly record a HDTV airing, and
thus captured the episode in its original airing in 4:3 non-HDTV
format and resolution.

The flagship premium movie (HBO, Cinemax, etc.) and a few other cable
channels are in HDTV, but most others are still in non-HDTV, 4:3
format. (This includes most of the movie channels; for example, there
are a dozen CineMAX channels but only one of them is in HDTV.) I,
personally, can't wait for Turner Classic Movies, a channel that shows
pre-1970 (with the occasional worthy exception) movies 24 hours a day
and seven days a week commercial-free and properly letterboxed when
appropriate, to go HDTV. Of course most movies made before the
mid-1950s were shot in 4:3 anyway and so would be shown pillarboxed in
HDTV anyway, but they'd still have that glorious resolution we
currently don't see.

Overall, however, I have few complaints; in the two months I've have
MythTV I've recorded more than 1800GB of programming--almost all in
HDTV--including "Ben-Hur," "Shakespeare in Love," "Apocalypse Now,"
"The Green Mile," two Harry Potter movies, "The Incredibles,"
"L.A. Confidential," "Master and Commander," "Million Dollar Baby,"
"The Music Man," "A Passage to India," "My Fair Lady," "Shrek 2," and
many, many more. (Of course, I can't forget Hollywood masterpieces
such as "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure," "Can't Hardly Wait,"
"The Matrix Revolutions," "Scary Movie 3," and "School of Rock.") The
point is that thanks to MythTV, HDTV, and an enormous amount of disk
space, I have instant access to a programming library of a quality and
size simply unimaginable even a few years ago.

-- 
Yeechang Lee <ylee at pobox.com> | +1 650 776 7763 | San Francisco CA US


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