4:3 TV broadcast is pretty much dead

D

docmirror

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Watching some of the USTA tennis match, and they have the mens game on. It's obviously in 16:9 format, and I have an older proj TV that is 4:3(old standard), it looks horrible. I've also noticed that all NFL games on Thur night were letterboxed and looked reasonable but much of the text info boxes to the side are blocked out.

Yes, I know the difference in video quality avail, and the different video standards, including interlacing and progressive. Doesn't help that I have a good working 60" 4:3 TV that I don't want to get rid of. It was made in the US, has a great picture, and good sound, I take care of it and clean the mirror at least once a year.

Sigh, I'm just an old fart with first world problems. And get off my lawn! :goofy:

<haha! I just flipped over to PGA golf and it looks like that's still in 4:3 for the old farts among us that watch the little white ball fly around.>
 
docmirror said:
Watching some of the USTA tennis match, and they have the mens game on. It's obviously in 16:9 format, and I have an older proj TV that is 4:3(old standard), it looks horrible. I've also noticed that all NFL games on Thur night were letterboxed and looked reasonable but much of the text info boxes to the side are blocked out.

Yes, I know the difference in video quality avail, and the different video standards, including interlacing and progressive. Doesn't help that I have a good working 60" 4:3 TV that I don't want to get rid of. It was made in the US, has a great picture, and good sound, I take care of it and clean the mirror at least once a year.

Sigh, I'm just an old fart with first world problems. And get off my lawn! :goofy:

<haha! I just flipped over to PGA golf and it looks like that's still in 4:3 for the old farts among us that watch the little white ball fly around.>
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Can your projector letterbox the 16:9 image? If not there are products out there which can do that and feed your projector. Might cost more than getting a new TV though. I was "fortunate" that my large screen CRT TV died about the time that large screen HDTVs were becoming affordable. You might have to re-think this in terms of how you've already gotten your money's worth from the old projector, just sayin.:yes:

BTW, there's plenty of 4:3 video out there but it's all old stuff or crap that nobody wants to watch. Nobody is gonna create new material with a 4:3 camera given the proliferation of HDTVs today. Consider yourself lucky that they haven't gone to larger aspect ratios yet.
 
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Anything that you have to use an analog converter box for is going to look like crap regardless of the format. Projection TV's are dinosours.

By the way, I don't own cable or dish. I just watch broadcast HDTV.
 
Sac Arrow said:
By the way, I don't own cable or dish. I just watch broadcast HDTV.
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The problem with digital broadcasts is the signal has to be perfect, so if you don't have nice outdoor antenna and are close to the broadcast antenna, you can't pick up the signal, or lose frames... I miss the analog days.
 
Nothing wrong with my S-video, except it's lower resolution than modern broadcast. It looks very good for what it was 20+ years ago. I have a cable box without any conversion from 16:9, so I get letterboxed which is ok as the screen is plenty big enough. Some modern stuff is only sent in 16:9, and it's expanded for 4:3, so it looks really foreshortened.

It's just - age.
 
teejayevans said:
The problem with digital broadcasts is the signal has to be perfect, so if you don't have nice outdoor antenna and are close to the broadcast antenna, you can't pick up the signal, or lose frames... I miss the analog days.
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That is true, it's an all or nothing deal pretty much. Fortunately I do have a nice, big assed antenna hung in the attic, and all the broadcast stations I watch are in one general location.
 
Wow...I don't miss analog TV one bit! I love the 16:9 hi-def picture. The newer hi-def TV's have overcome a lot of ills that were present with analog and the early rear projection TV's. No color gun convergence issues and no analog artifacts in the picture. Nope, I don't miss analog TV a bit. Now if they only had some good content worth watching. :rolleyes: ;)

Just kidding about the content. There is some amazing photography out there and sports broadcasts are pretty awesome in hi-def.
 
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I can't get over how cheap decent TVs are these days. I remember when the 25" color consoles were $1000 back in 1968. That like $6,800 today! You can buy a spectacular 90" HDTV for less than that today. A 25" will cost you $200 or less!

In other words, go get yourself a decent TV! You won't regret it.
 
MickYoumans said:
Wow...I don't miss analog TV one bit! I love the 16:9 hi-def picture. The newer hi-def TV's have overcome a lot of ills that were present with analog and the early rear projection TV's. No color gun convergence issues and no analog artifacts in the picture. Nope, I don't miss analog TV a bit. Now if they only had some good content worth watching. :rolleyes: ;)

Just kidding about the content. There is some amazing photography out there and sports broadcasts are pretty awesome in hi-def.
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My convergence is as good as anything digital can produce. No issues with artifacts, ghosting, black levels, or otherwise. It's a fine TV with a fine picture(for the third time). The issue is the format change.

One thing I notice when I watch modern digital broadcasts is how much compression there is, and how the various receivers deal with the sectors where there is no data. Some have pretty good fill methods, others are shameful, with angled lines looking like sawtooth of varying gradients.
 
I have a nice Samsung digital plasma at my CO house which is 16:9 of course. I do like it for sports and movies. I might go shop for a big screen Samsung soon, but I hate to relegate my big old gun TV to the scrapheap of history. It has served me well - old friend.
 
I get annoyed watching those old 4:3 tv shows on my 16:9 sets...
 
LG 55" 3D LED here.

COD zombies or Killzone in 3D will freak you out... :yikes:
 
Sac Arrow said:
That is true, it's an all or nothing deal pretty much. Fortunately I do have a nice, big assed antenna hung in the attic, and all the broadcast stations I watch are in one general location.
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All 5 of them? Gotta be a pain having to swing that antenna around to catch the signal good. Reminds me of the 60's!! Do you have a UHF converter too?

Edit to add: I am not a digital freak. I do however have digital cable and a 42' LED set...nothing fancy and I watch it maybe 20 hours per week max.

:D

Mike
 
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docmirror said:
My convergence is as good as anything digital can produce. No issues with artifacts, ghosting, black levels, or otherwise. It's a fine TV with a fine picture(for the third time). The issue is the format change.



One thing I notice when I watch modern digital broadcasts is how much compression there is, and how the various receivers deal with the sectors where there is no data. Some have pretty good fill methods, others are shameful, with angled lines looking like sawtooth of varying gradients.
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Broadcast. as in OTA, is usually the least compressed source, comparatively Cable, and both major dish players, compress further from there.
 
First world problems...

I have Comcast, and only watch channel numbers 701 and up, which are the HD channels (well, as HD as can be with cable I guess).

As soon as Blu-ray won the HD format war, I replaced all my old DVDs with Blu-ray disks, and haven't bought a DVD since.

The home theater has a 1080p front projector, and I'm already feeling outdated and wanting to upgrade to a 4K Ultra HD projector, and probably would if there was any meaningful amount of 4K content on Blu-ray.

I thought 1080p was "it" when I installed this projector 4 years ago, but as with all technology, it keeps getting outclassed. I'm sure once 4K is a few years old, there will be an 8K, or whatever...

I used to get upset that everything I bought was obsolete a few years later, but now I just accept the fact that any piece of digital equipment will be outdated in 4 or 5 years. The only thing I bought back then that's still just as good today as then was the speaker system, which will probably last me 10 more years (or more) before I'd need to upgrade.

Yep - Definitely first world problems...
 
Only mildly related, but we're friends, right?

'Bout a year ago, I got a good deal on a 40" LCD TV for the bedroom, thus rendering redundant the last of our CRT TV sets, a ginormous, honkin' Sony (27"? Something like that) that we had bought in 1999 or so.

It still worked great, so I did not want it to go to waste, but did not wish to try to sell it (no real value there anyway), so I went to put it out by the curb to "self-recycle" to one of those families that troll looking for - well, stuff like this.

When I picked it up (oof, getting old! Or is it getting heavier?), the plastic case started... dissolving. It was just fracturing and coming apart in giant chunks. I got it to the curb, but it was by then held together with about half a roll of heavy duty packing tape, with some corrugated cardboard as a doubler.

Guess Sony bought a bad batch of plastic modifiers? Unexpected fail from them.

By the way, it got collected up right away. Hope it's working still...
 
I have a CRT TV in the bedroom. It's also the last of the breed with S-video input. Still works fine. I guess I should get rid of it, save some energy, but it works so well.
 
SCCutler said:
a ginormous, honkin' Sony (27"? Something like that) that we had bought in 1999 or so.
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We just gave away our big honkin' Panasonic (31") of the same era, it still had a fantastic picture for a CRT TV. One of the movers wanted it. (we weren't going to move it to the new house)
 
The 19" Goldstar TV I used in college during the mid-80's is on the loft in the barn. Rabbit ears are taped to the back. Dang thing worked perfect when put into storage. Never know when it might come in handy. Wait, that's never gonna happen :nonod:
 
MickYoumans said:
I don't like the way they look if you try to stretch them to the 16:9 width, but if I leave them at the 4:3 ratio, no problem.
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I HATE stretching! It reminds me of the bad old days of EGA cards in computers, when it was a real struggle to get graphics to display correctly. The new TV standard was supposed to improve picture quality, not degrade it! (There's more to picture quality than resolution.)

What really bugs me is when cable TV channels stretch 4:3 pictures to fit the 16:9 format, and my equipment doesn't seem to have the capability to undo it. It's especially annoying when they do it to historical footage of WW II. It makes the soldiers look like midgets, and it gives tanks the form factor of Cadillacs. The elliptical wheels look comical, too.

When I finally get around to buying a new TV, I'll try to get one that has the capability of undoing that.
 
EppyGA said:
Why can't cable be HD?
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I'm pretty sure the HD channels are 720, not 1080. They certainly don't appear to be as good as Blu-ray 1080p. I haven't checked the resolution settings I'm getting on cable, but just from eyeballing it, it appears to be 720.

Also, to me, HD includes the audio portion, such as the lossless formats (DTS-HD Master Audio or Dolby TrueHD) on Blu-rays. Can't get lossless audio over cable, I don't think.

I think Comcast has some channels available in 1080p now, but I haven't checked into it. Until cable or satellite can deliver full 1080p with lossless audio, it'll never be truly HD to me.
 
Snagged from Wiki on "HDTV":

Contemporary systems[edit]
Main article: Large-screen television technology
In the US, residents in the line of sight of television station broadcast antennas can receive free, over the air programming with a television set with an ATSC tuner (most sets sold since 2009 have this). This is achieved with a TV aerial, just as it has been since the 1940s except now the major network signals are broadcast in high definition (ABC, Fox, and Ion Television broadcast at 720p resolution; CBS, My Network TV, NBC, PBS, and The CW at 1080i). As their digital signals more efficiently use the broadcast channel, many broadcasters are adding multiple channels to their signals. Laws about antennas were updated before the change to digital terrestrial broadcasts. These new laws prohibit home owners associations and city government from banning the installation of antennas.
 
docmirror said:
<haha! I just flipped over to PGA golf and it looks like that's still in 4:3 for the old farts among us that watch the little white ball fly around.>
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What? You must not be seeing the topless cheer-leaders that they have lining the sides of the frame to "spice it up." I guess they get cut off in 4:3.
 
LoneAspen said:
I'm pretty sure the HD channels are 720, not 1080. They certainly don't appear to be as good as Blu-ray 1080p. I haven't checked the resolution settings I'm getting on cable, but just from eyeballing it, it appears to be 720.

Also, to me, HD includes the audio portion, such as the lossless formats (DTS-HD Master Audio or Dolby TrueHD) on Blu-rays. Can't get lossless audio over cable, I don't think.

I think Comcast has some channels available in 1080p now, but I haven't checked into it. Until cable or satellite can deliver full 1080p with lossless audio, it'll never be truly HD to me.
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Content comes from the provider. If the provider provides 720 that's what the Cable Co has to rebroadcast. The major networks have chosen that since it allows them to broadcast multiple streams at the same time. With a UHF antenna and a digital ready TV here in the ATL area. for instance, the local FOX affiliate has at least three channels to tune, 5.1, 5.2, 5.3.
 
EppyGA said:
Why can't cable be HD?
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It can.

It's all in how they choose to utilize the bandwidth of a chunk of copper. Most HD on cable systems is 4 Mb/s slower than the OTA broadcast they compressed it down from when they leave it in "HD" format.

They wanted the bandwidth for six more shopping channels.
 
denverpilot said:
It can.

It's all in how they choose to utilize the bandwidth of a chunk of copper. Most HD on cable systems is 4 Mb/s slower than the OTA broadcast they compressed it down from when they leave it in "HD" format.

They wanted the bandwidth for six more shopping channels.
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Nate, I know exactly what they do or don't do after having spent a lifetime in the business.

I was asking the poster I quoted why he felt it was so. ;)
 
EppyGA said:
Nate, I know exactly what they do or don't do after having spent a lifetime in the business.

I was asking the poster I quoted why he felt it was so. ;)
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No way for me to know that. But duly noted. ;)
 
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