[mythtv-users] Is cable going widescreen?

[Jack Trout]

I see alot on my cable Provider, were if they are only provided a widescreen
version of the show, but its shown on basic cable, so analog, they will add
black bars to the top and bottom of the show, so on a 4:3 screen you only
have black bars on the top and bottom, but if you are watching on a
widescreen tv, you now have the 4:3 bars to the left and right, and thier
16:9 adjustment bars on the top and bottom.

My smaller bedroom television (Magnavox 19in widescreen) has a setting
called automatic for screen size, and it evaluates the black sections of the
screen from time to time, and zooms and shifts to keep the black bars to a
minimum. it does this often, and can get annoying shifting between
commercials or anything in which there are black edges.

My Larger 42in only has manual settings, in which they only really work for
broadcasts its recieving, if the signal coming to it is 1080p which my dvd
player and mythbox do by default the zoom settings are disabled. but for
broadcast tv, when they put the bars on I can normally zoom to the point
where the image fits.

Even in the OTA broadcasts, they have older footage or older equipment where
everything is not displayed in 16x9, sometimes they just let you view it in
4x3 and place black bars on the edges, more often they are placing thier own
banners and such in the unused portion of the screen allowing you to see a
16x9 image with the 4x3 program inside it.

What will be annoying for me is during bad weather or election coverage,
they havent upgraded thier overlay equipment, so your HD show typically gets
cut down to 4:3 and then they make it even smaller so they can add thier
rolling tickers and marquee updates.
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