[eric_the_red]

I'm thinking of buying a widescreen TV before christmas.

I checked out the ds faq on about widescreen. It says that the reason widescreen makes people look fat is when the TV isn't set up properly.
It says if a 4:3 format is being broadcast, I have two options.... stretch the picture and get fat people, or have black bars down the side of my screen to see the picture in its proper aspect ratio without deformed people.

Personally I don't want fat distorted images so I'd go for the black bar option.
Can you people with widescreens tell me how much TV is actually broadcast in widescreen and will fill the picture?

[TheCableGuy]

Most BBC content is 16:9 (W/S) with mostly archive shows in 4:3. BBC News24 is widescreen all the time, but any 4:3 footage the use is cropped into 16:9.

Its the same for ITV,CH4,Five most programming is 16:9, with some american imports and news programmes being 4:3.

Hope that helps.

[eric_the_red]

So if most content is in 16:9, how come most of the displays I see in retailers or other people's houses have the squashed up people?

Quote:

Originally posted by eric_the_red
So if most content is in 16:9, how come most of the displays I see in retailers or other people's houses have the squashed up people?

well it need to be from a digital platform for a start to get the 16:9 image. Plus not all is WS, the main ones are, but the rest of the cable/sat channels arent, such as discovery, bravo, UK gold etc. but these may change some time in the future.

dont let it put you off though, all the UK (and aus) based sports is in WS, as are all the sky film channels (great ) and the new music channels. It will take some time for all channels to convert, god knows how long, but the benefits are much greater Of course its also great for DVD where 99% are in WS, but if you dont one, or any digital TV, there isnt much point really.

[Rodney]

Also if you have a large archive of 4:3 material, widescreen isn't really for you. 16:9 material looks fine letterboxed on a 4:3 display, but 4:3 material looks crap pillerboxed on a 16:9 display - also the 16:9 image is considerably smaller than the traditional 4:3 one.

[Milky Joe]

Quote:

Originally posted by eric_the_red
So if most content is in 16:9, how come most of the displays I see in retailers or other people's houses have the squashed up people?

Because, as said in the FAQ, most people sadly dont have a clue on how to set up a WS tv properly

[Stressed Eric]

JVC widescreen TVs have a ratio whereby when the normal picture is stretched people look normal, and it switches between widescreen/panoramic (as they call it) automatically when relevant.
First JVC product i have owned, it's relly very good!

[eric_the_red]

Thanks guys. Loads of useful info there.

I'll go out and get my TV and make sure I also get a digibox or an iDTV !

[CrystalAvenger]

Also if you have an XBOX, this system makes great use of a widescreen TV if you set it up in the system menu to say you have a widescreen set - better than the PS2 where setting '16:9' in the display options on the system configuration menu makes the system assume you'll want to zoom in to the 16:9 area (i.e. massive loss of resolution) and you have to switch the screen modes manually between games and DVD's depending on whether true widescreen modes are available etc.

[RichardS]

Quote:

Originally posted by Stressed Eric
JVC widescreen TVs have a ratio whereby when the normal picture is stretched people look normal, and it switches between widescreen/panoramic (as they call it) automatically when relevant.
First JVC product i have owned, it's relly very good!

This keeps the centre of the picture normal and stretches the sides so barely noticable - however I have it set to 4:3 to have the black bars at side.

To answer original question

BBC1/2/3/4, ITV1/2, Ch4, Five, E4 all broadcast in widescreen when the programme was made that way.
Sky One are starting to show widescreen and I imagine new programming both from here and US will be widescreen.
Sky Movies are showing w/s where possible and many in original aspect ratio which means you will still get black line at top and bottom.
Sky Sports live events at home are widescreen - e.g. Premier, nationwide FA Cup footy, rugby, cricket etc.

Theres more but can't recall at moment.

ITV had rugby world cup in widescreen, E4 have US stuff like West Wing and Six Feet Under in w/s.

I got a w/s earlier in year after thinking about it for a couple of years - I'd say that if you are having to replace TV anyway then definatley go for w/s, I wouldn't go back - just hoping that US sports get on w/s soon and then I can enjoy watching those even more!

Also the newer progammes on UK Gold etc are in 14:9 - thats when you get the small black bars at top and bottom, theres a mode to zoom this to get rid of the top/bottom bars so you are just left with slight bars at the sides.

[David (2)]

One of my relations has just bought their first Widescreen tv's. But, he doesnt really get on with it. They have a DVD player, but they have only had that for 6 months, and they just dont have that many DVD's to play on it yet. And, they dont have any form of digital tv signal (freeview, Sky, Cable). As DVD and digital tv signals are the only way to get proper (16:9) picutures that fill a widescreen tv without modification, they dont get much Widescreen stuff to look at. I think many people think that....

1) All tv's are now "digital" as in they can pick up freeview without a box. This is far from reality. 70% of tv's being sold do not have any digital tuner (freeview, Sky, Cable) built in, and will required connection to a decoder box.

2) You can get Freeview reception anywhere through an existing aerial. This is not the real world. Many people will require an aerial upgrade for technical reasons, quality reasons, and due to weak freeview signals. Some places can't get Freeview even with a big new aerial on the roof.

3) All pictures on all systems (digital and non-digital) can produce proper 16:9 widescreen images - which is not the case. Only "digital" systems such as DVD, Hard disc recorders, Freeview, Sky Digital, and Digital Cable can provide 16:9 widescreen signals.

4) All content on any said "platform" is now produced in Widescreen form, and any existing content has been converted to 16:9 Widescreen. This is not the case. Many "digital" tv channels are not in widescreen. For example, Sky News, CNN, Motors TV.


Only the other day I was in one shop, and the people behind me were buying a new tv and DVD player. The shop assistant asked the couple if they already had a scart cable at home to link this new stuff together. The couple did not even know what a scart cable was, let alone what it did.

And the reason why so many tv's in shops produce stretched pictures is due to the entire shop being feed an RF signal, and without scart you can't get proper 16:9 pictures. The best you can do is Letterbox and put all the widescreen sets into "zoom" mode. So most are in "stretch mode" or even "wide 16:9" mode when infact the signal is 4:3 (square). And naturally, many people think that if it's a widescreen tv, then you must keep the set in "widescreen mode" regardless of the signal.

Dave

[Rich2k]

It's nice to see that the Football World Cup in 2006 will be broadcast entirely in widescreen too.

http://www.sky.com/skynews/article/0...943194,00.html

[David (2)]

Quote:

Originally posted by Rich2k
It's nice to see that the Football World Cup in 2006 will be broadcast entirely in widescreen too.

http://www.sky.com/skynews/article/0...943194,00.html

.......except for those people receiving analogue tv signals....since naturally thats not possible.

Dave

[Rich2k]

It will probably be broadcast in 14:9 then.

The article does say

Quote:

Regional broadcasters may still be able to broadcast the World Cup on the traditional format, but it will be derived from widescreen shots.

which means the broadcaster themselves will have to crop it.

[David (2)]

The statement starts by saying "The 2006 football World Cup will be broadcast entirely on widescreen television format, FIFA has announced". Only further down does it talk about broadcasting it in "traditional format".

While most people on these forums will get the meaning straight away, you can easily imagine many more people just reading the headline and thinking - O, I need a widescreen tv! After all, it says quite clearly "entirely on widescreen" in the headline. This is why there are so many confused people out there (see my earlier post). The company I work for is fairly small, but we could not put on any of our products a statement which was wrong or misleading like that.

Dave

[Rodney]

At least it'll make a change from the last World Cup which was billed by British broadcasters as "The Widescreen World Cup" only to find a few days before the tournament that all feeds out of Japan were in 4:3 format! All locally sourced studio shots were 16:9 but anything from the stadium was pillarboxed for tx.

[kas]

If you only have analogue reception don't bother with w/s.
Personally I have a Sony widescreen IDTV and wouldn't now be without it.
KAS

[Kevo]

Quote:

Originally posted by Rodney
also the 16:9 image is considerably smaller than the traditional 4:3 one.

In what way?

[Rodney]

For a given screen size the 4:3 image is going to be a lot bigger on a proper 4:3 set, rather than pillerboxed on a 16:9 set. Probably not important if you don't have much 4:3 material, but if like me you have over 1000 VHS tapes from the last 17 years nearly all in 4:3 it doesn't make much sense to go down the 16:9 route! The trick is to buy a 4:3 set that will allow the frame size to be collapsed for 16:9 broadcasts, this gives you full resolution in the 16:9 aspect ratio on the 4:3 tube, rather than just 3/4 resolution. Basically it's the way our 9" monitors operate in work where you can switch them 16:9 for widescreen cameras and 4:3 for fullscreen cameras, and have full resolution in either format.

[CrystalAvenger]

Take your rotting old VHS tapes to a car boot and start replacing them with widescreen DVD's then

It's quite simple really

On a serious note, when switching from a 4:3 set to a 16:9 set, my advice would be to get a widescreen set of a size 3-4 inches bigger to get the eqivalent size you would have had in a traditional shape.

For example, if you would like a widescreen set that is a close match in size to a 21" normal shape TV (when showing 4:3 footage in 4:3 Centered mode anyway), then go for a 24" model. If you want to go for something a bit bigger than that, go for a 28", and if you like a massive 28" traditional shape TV, then go for a 32" 16:9...

[kev]

Quote:

Originally posted by RichardS
This keeps the centre of the picture normal and stretches the sides so barely noticable - however I have it set to 4:3 to have the black bars at side.

To answer original question

BBC1/2/3/4, ITV1/2, Ch4, Five, E4 all broadcast in widescreen when the programme was made that way.
Sky One are starting to show widescreen and I imagine new programming both from here and US will be widescreen.
Sky Movies are showing w/s where possible and many in original aspect ratio which means you will still get black line at top and bottom.

Five still have a number of programs in 4:3, but everything they have aquired since the rebrand has been 16:9 and apparently they are getting 16:9 programming as the rights are renewed

On my 4:3 tv i am noticing more and more widescreen programmes, espeically those in full 16:9 letterbox (mainly new american imports) rather than the horrid compromise (can't wait for the next setpal OSD to have 16:9 letterbox all the time )

[tichtich]

Analogue TV may not look too bad on a widescreen TV, providing it has a 14:9 mode. Although I have a widescreen (28") IDTV, I often watch analogue channels while recording a digital programme to DVDR. (The IDTV only has one digital tuner, so can't record one digital channel and display another at the same time.) Most analogue TV seems to be 14:9 now, and this fills most of my screen in 14:9 mode. The black bars at the sides of the 14:9 frame are only about 1.25" wide. I Also watch 4:3 programmes (whether digital or analogue) in 14:9 mode, so they are zoomed to fit a 14:9 frame. This means I lose a bit off the top and bottom of the picture, but there's no distortion and I prefer this to the smaller picture of 4:3 mode.

In fact, I can leave my TV in 14:9 mode most of the time, and it will automatically switch to 16:9 when receiving a widescreen programme. (Unfortunately it sometimes screws up and has to be set to 16:9 manually.)

Films are often broadcast on analogue TV as a 16:9 letterbox in a 4:3 picture. My TV will automatically zoom the letterbox up to fill the screen, though there may be a good few seconds delay before it recognizes the letterbox and does the zoom.

I expect most widescreen TVs can do this kind of thing, though the details vary from one TV to another, and they may not behave well in the default mode. The default mode for my TV stretches 4:3 pictures to 16:9, the dreaded stretchyvision.

[GDK]

Quote:

Originally posted by Rodney
For a given screen size the 4:3 image is going to be a lot bigger on a proper 4:3 set, rather than pillerboxed on a 16:9 set. Probably not important if you don't have much 4:3 material, but if like me you have over 1000 VHS tapes from the last 17 years nearly all in 4:3 it doesn't make much sense to go down the 16:9 route! The trick is to buy a 4:3 set that will allow the frame size to be collapsed for 16:9 broadcasts, this gives you full resolution in the 16:9 aspect ratio on the 4:3 tube, rather than just 3/4 resolution. Basically it's the way our 9" monitors operate in work where you can switch them 16:9 for widescreen cameras and 4:3 for fullscreen cameras, and have full resolution in either format.

No! No! No! No! No! Utter rubbish. Completely arse-about-face!

The basis for comparison is wrong and ignores the fact that almost all new stuff is made WS.

You can watch 4:3 equally well on the correct size WS set.

As time goes by, inevitably the percentage of WS in a video collection will increase. Rodney's suggestion is backwards looking. If you follow Rodney's advice you end up with a display optimized for 4:3 and less than optimal for 16:9. i.e. You'll get a big 4:3 image, sure enough, but you'll also get a small 16:9 image.

Rodney, you've been fooled by those marketing tricksters. You know, the one's who made the diagonal of the tube, including the black border, the measurement everyone uses to compare screen sizes. That's why a 24" WS sounds as if it should be bigger than a 21" 4:3 set (it isn't when properly comparing like for like).

As recently mentioned in another thread, to correctly move from a 4:3 screen to a 16:9 screen you must compare the height of the tube so as to make the 4:3 image displayed on a 16:9 tube at least the same size as it was on the 4:3 tube. You can't simply go off the diagonal measurement.

Get a 16:9 set with a tube big enough to display 4:3 at the size you're used to now. That way you'll get big 4:3 and big 16:9.

The best of both worlds.

Graeme

[tichtich]

Quote:

Originally posted by GDK
As recently mentioned in another thread, to correctly move from a 4:3 screen to a 16:9 screen you must compare the height of the tube so as to make the 4:3 image displayed on a 16:9 tube at least the same size as it was on the 4:3 tube.

But that's not a useful comparison when choosing what to buy, because the prices are very different. A 16:9 TV will cost a lot more than a 4:3 TV of the same height. If you compare two TVs of the same price and quality, you will get a significantly bigger 4:3 picture on the 4:3 TV than on the 16:9 TV. Also, the letterboxed 16:9 picture on the 4:3 TV may not be much smaller than the full-screen 16:9 picture on the same-priced 16:9 TV. Last time I looked (when I bought my TV 3 months ago) it seemed that 16:9 TVs were overpriced in comparison to 4:3 TVs.

Nevertheless, I personally would recommend spending the extra for a 16:9 TV (I did) if you can afford it, as 16:9 is certainly the shape of things to come. If you can't afford a decent sized 16:9 TV, I would suggest waiting a while if possible. I'm sure prices will come down.

[GDK]

I made no mention of price. When you're working out what to go for, you should be at least be aware of what the ideal is even if you then decide to compromise on the grounds of price.

I was describing what anyone must do to ensure the 4:3 image on the WS set isn't any smaller than what they're used to. If you do anything less, you must accept that you're taking a backwards step on your 4:3 picture.

The whole area of screen size is something of a con anyway, since the price is based around a bad measurement of screen size. Firstly because it included the non-display black border and now because it doesn't properly address the two aspect ratios.

You have to realise that price is elastic and is largely set by the market's expectations. Those expectations are affected by the marketeers, who, in this case, "fixed" the measure by which we all value TVs.

People expect to pay a bit more for a 28" screen than they would for a 25" screen. Hence the prices reflect that. If the 28" happens to be WS, they'll expect to pay a bit more for that as well and so the price reflects that too. What Joe Public doesn't realise - and this is where the con lies - is that a 28" WS set gives a smaller 4:3 image than the 25" 4:3 set. You actually need to go to 32" WS to get roughly the same size 4:3 image. But a 32" WS set costs considerably more than a 28" WS set. Why? Because people think 32" is a lot bigger than 25"! Silly isn't it? (BTW, I'm not denying that 32" CRTs cost more to make, just not as much more as people generally think).

Graeme