I searched for other topics about this, didn't find any. I'm just wondering if all digital cable channels don't have widescreen. I've got an HD box and the HD channels are widescreen of course, but I'm wondering if I can get the regular channels in widescreen without stretching the screen. I know when I used to get cable without the box I got widescreen channels that weren't HD. What's up with that?

11/13/2005 8:54:31 PM

It was you tv streching the picture before.

In the advanced settings you can chage this if you wish.

I prefer the gray bars.

11/13/2005 9:01:08 PM

No, it definitely wasn't stretched. I checked it several times versus my non-widescreen tv. It was through a usb tv tuner on my laptop, I dunno if that had something to do with it, but I just wonder why the hell if it's possible to have widescreen non-HD broadcasts they don't have that...

11/13/2005 10:13:01 PM

Lets see. Probably because it wasn't recorded wide screen and the vast majority of TV's aren't widescreen.... that might have something to do with it.

11/13/2005 10:18:26 PM

hit the # button on your digital cable remote

11/13/2005 10:24:05 PM

Quote :

"no, it definitely wasn't stretched. I checked it several times versus my non-widescreen tv. It was through a usb tv tuner on my laptop, I dunno if that had something to do with it, but I just wonder why the hell if it's possible to have widescreen non-HD broadcasts they don't have that..."

huh? you checked what vs. the non-widescreen tv.

it's simple math, you cannot fit a 4:3 picture on a 16:9 screen without stretching or chopping part of the picture. Unless your TV does a panoramic view, which is just stretching the outer parts of the screen.

but i'd definitely rather have the bars than see shit stretched (although I'll go into zoom and chop off parts of the screen for some sports broadcasts).

11/13/2005 10:37:47 PM

^ I was hoping someone else would chime in. My comments fell on deaf ears the first time, so I didn't try to convince him otherwise. I HATE panaroma.

11/13/2005 10:41:29 PM

If your playing a movie on wide screen and your widescreen tv is set on 16:9, then is the movie double wide screened? i know that doesn't make much sense, but if you can understand what i'm saying let me know.

Cause we have a great plasma tv and i was just wondering what the best settings to watch a movie like kingdom of heaven or episode III would be.

11/13/2005 11:23:39 PM

^ that should be fine. You are telling the tv the input signal is 16:9. Most movies I have watched are in a different aspect ratio though so some bars are natural.

The problem is when you watch a 4:3 movie and your dvd player is set to 16:9. Most will just stretch the picture out instead of sending the 4:3 picture in a 16:9 signal so everything ends up looking fat. I use a computer to play dvd's and one of the nifty features of the Theatertek software I use is that it will preserve the aspect ratio for you much like the HD time warner box does.

11/13/2005 11:28:44 PM

I play most all my movies through a PS2 and the tv is always set to 16:9.

but when i watched kingdom of heaven the black bars looked terribly larger than they should. do i need to go in and tell the ps2 to play in widescreen aswell???

i searched and read the thread about the ps2 but it didnt help me much

11/13/2005 11:32:58 PM

I'm assuming when you got the TV you already made the setting in the PS2. Some movies have a really wide aspect ratio, while some others are "enhanced" for a widescreen tv.

4:3 = 1.3333
16:9= 1.77777
Kingdom of heaven has an aspect ratio of 2.35:1 so it will have some good size bars.

11/13/2005 11:39:36 PM

no i haven't changed any settings on my ps2 since getting the tv. its still set up to what i would assume is fullscreen from my days of playing it all the time at home.

11/13/2005 11:42:35 PM

http://www.thedigitalbits.com/articles/anamorphic/page2.html
http://www.thedigitalbits.com/articles/anamorphic/aspectratios/widescreenorama.html
Ok, I might be somewhat wrong on optimal settings. Look through those (its short) and you'll see.

11/13/2005 11:48:19 PM

that is a damn good guide


great find

11/14/2005 12:16:24 AM

I'm not retarded, my picture definitely wasn't stretched, I even broke out a tape measure to check it. I can't prove it now, but I guess you've all confirmed that it's irregular. I guess I'll break out my usb tv tuner and see if it will work on my cable now. I know it worked out of the wall in my apt. in Raleigh, who knows what I'm getting out of the wall here in NYC.

But, I had a 16:9 picture on it with extra picture on the sides.

11/14/2005 12:27:47 AM

Quote :

"I'm not retarded, my picture definitely wasn't stretched, I even broke out a tape measure to check it. I can't prove it now, but I guess you've all confirmed that it's irregular. "

what the fuck would a tape measure have to do with it? Are you measuring somebody's face to determine whether it is the right proportion? You can't determine what's stretched and what isn't using a tape measure.

and it's not irregular, it's not feasible.

11/14/2005 12:53:18 AM

588 doesn't know what he's talking about.

11/14/2005 1:00:22 AM

588, before you hooked up your hd box, your television WAS stretching the picture. Its hard to believe, but the algorithms are really good and not noticeable if the right one is selected.

now, your hd box is providing an HDTV feed to your television through component cables for ALL channels. because of that, your television CAN NOT stretch any channels.

Your only option is to get an audio splitter and s-video cable, hook up the s-video to another video input and one of your sets of audio cables to its audio.

now when you want to watch "true" hdtv channels you select your component-in video. When you want to watch normal cable channels, you switch to your s-video and tell your tv to stretch using whatever algorithm you prefer. This usually depends on the picture that the channel is displaying. If it is displaying a standard 4:3 picture, i prefer wide-zoom. If it is displaying a 16:9 black-barred picture, then zoom is the best option.

[Edited on November 14, 2005 at 1:11 AM. Reason : s]

11/14/2005 1:09:56 AM

^ uh, like I said the HD box will do it for you in the advanced settings or you can change on the fly like gonzo said.

11/14/2005 1:16:06 AM

i've tried to access advanced settings and to the best of my knowledge there are no such things available to me

[Edited on November 14, 2005 at 1:19 AM. Reason : s]

11/14/2005 1:17:31 AM

Really? that sucks. Do you have the one with the firewire enabled?

For me press settings, then hit 'A' for more settings... its in there somewhere. Also allows you to choose 720p instead of the default 1080i is your tv can support it.

[Edited on November 14, 2005 at 1:20 AM. Reason : . ]

11/14/2005 1:18:14 AM

no idea. i have no use for firewire connection to my cable box

11/14/2005 1:20:19 AM

^^ that's the way mine is too.

btw, i love threads where some dumbass asks a question and mentions something they've done before, you tell them in so many words that they are in fact a dumbass and what was really happening and then they come back with the "i'm not a dumbass, i got a tapemeasure" shit.

makes me LOL.

11/14/2005 8:59:43 AM

I used a tape measure to measure to see how fucking far the network insignia was from the corner. I'm not stupid, jesus, I know what I saw, I guess it's just something weird with my tv tuner, I know I've seen some special on tv & how it's recorded and it's always scaled back. You think they have two fucking cameras right beside each other when they record in HD and in normal?

I was just asking if anyone else had seen this or not. Guess no one has.

11/14/2005 6:54:07 PM

^ depends. For a lot of sports they do. You can always tell when they switch to a non HD camera.

11/14/2005 6:56:52 PM

Okay, since you were all so nice about answering the question, here's my proof:


Now, you tell me that picture's stretched... I'll get some more clear evidence if needed. I know there's nothing on the sides, but at least you see what I'm talking about, god damnit. hehe.

\/I don't know off the top of my head how to put pictures in a thread so I stole that from another thread



[Edited on November 14, 2005 at 7:27 PM. Reason : ha]

11/14/2005 7:20:31 PM

you're not being very clear.

the image you linked was 4:3 but you said originally that it was a 16:9 image

11/14/2005 7:22:32 PM

your original image was:



cheater. you can't edit shit like that

also, what part of

Quote :

"Its hard to believe, but the algorithms are really good and not noticeable if the right one is selected. "

did you not understand? do you think that math and engineers are totally useless? if we could just stretch an image we would, but there is quite a lot of sophistication that goes into converting a 4:3 image to 16:9 without significant picture degradation

[Edited on November 14, 2005 at 7:32 PM. Reason : s]

11/14/2005 7:25:46 PM

The linked picture is indeed stretched.

There are no channels that broadcast 16:9 but not HD. FOX used to but went HD last year. Now, if its not HD, its 4:3 SD. I am curious what channels you believed to be widescreen that werent HD though...any specific channels?

11/15/2005 5:19:39 AM

Quote :

"Now, you tell me that picture's stretched"

If you can't look at that dude's face and tell that it's stretched...well you've already proved that you don't have a clue what you're talking about, so I guess I'll say we don't need further proof of your idiocy.

11/15/2005 5:45:52 AM

you just proved without a shadow of a doubt that you are a dumbass.

11/15/2005 8:25:50 AM

What are you trying to say? All domino's pizza employees look like that.

11/15/2005 9:17:06 AM

OT: What programing is in surround sound through TWC, but not in HD? I got digital cable last week with the SA 8300 box, but I have not found any content yet with surround sound.

11/15/2005 9:30:39 AM

look at these two pictures and tell me which one looks "normal"

16:9 - original


same image constrained to 4:3


the new 4:3 image is clearly "correct"

11/15/2005 9:36:34 AM

of course the picture is going to be fucked up because it is on the god damn preview channel

half the fucking screen is the guide

and that commerical is 4:3 because it is on during football

worst thread ever

11/15/2005 9:43:00 AM

I may see why hes thinking this though....that TV Guide channel screenshot has gray bars on each side of the commercial, indicating that perhaps it should be 16:9, as the one on TWC does not. The commercial on TWC isnt squeezed or stretched though, its just cropped to fit the space alotted. The real question though is why do you care if the TV Guide channel is 16:9 or not, why not use a real channel with some decent content as an example?

And Kruznby, premium channels like HBO and Showtime have broadcasts available in DD 5.1, as well as Encore East which you get for free. I imagine that On Demand channels have DD 5.1 as well. Im fairly certain that all of the digital channels in the 100s only carry Dolby 2.0 though.

11/15/2005 10:49:51 AM

i tell my HD cable box (8500) to output all aspects and resolutions and let my TV (hitachi RPHDTV) handle them all. for 4:3 material i have the TV stretch it to 16:9 and it does an excellent job. this TV's stretcher is top notch, its really tough to tell and no one has ever asked/wondered if anything as abnormal when stretched. the cable box's 4:3 stretch is piss poor btw

11/15/2005 11:00:17 AM

I'm sure I could google the various ways of stretching, but what is it that your tv does that you like so much? The only thing I've ever seen is straight up stretching (which I agree, looks like shit) and that weird thing where they stretch the center of the picture a little bit and the sides a lot. That looks decent on most tv shows and movies, but you can really tell something's weird when watching a basketball or football game.

11/15/2005 11:09:16 AM

^yeh, ive seen both of those too. the cable box seems to just be a strait linear stretch which sucks. and i've also seen where teh middle isnt stretched and the sides are which is weird too. i dont really know how my tv works. maybe some interpolation w/ a little side stretch mixed in. like even a round station logo in the far corner like CBS will look 98% round while stretched on my TV. *shrug*

11/15/2005 11:32:59 AM

magic.

11/15/2005 11:35:33 AM

i hate the gray bars of twc

gimme black, please

11/15/2005 11:41:38 AM

^ Grey is supposed to be much better if your set has burn in issues.

11/15/2005 9:22:32 PM