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Question About USA Presentation

16:9 or 4:3 (March 2021)

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TI
TIGHazard
james-2001 posted:
all these adverts seem to really be doing is encouraging people to get their doctors to prescribe them stuff they don't really need.


Yep, that seems to be the point
PE
Pete Founding member
james-2001 posted:
I don't entirely see the point

...
Quote:
all these adverts seem to really be doing is encouraging people to get their doctors to prescribe them stuff they don't really need. And pay through the nose for it.


think you've answered your own question there
NJ
Neil Jones Founding member
james-2001 posted:
I don't entirely see the point in advertising prescription drugs anyway, when you need something your doctor will prescribe it for you, all these adverts seem to really be doing is encouraging people to get their doctors to prescribe them stuff they don't really need. And pay through the nose for it.


Actually in a lot of cases you can get a cheaper equivalent over the counter, so rather than pay £9.35 or whatever it is in England, you can pay £4 or whatever for some generic medicine that does exactly the same thing, with the same key active ingredient(s).
PA
paul_hadley
I’ve always found it incredible they mostly didn’t have 16:9 broadcasts on network TV until HD.
RE
remlap
Inspector Sands posted:
Neil Jones posted:
I believe there are copious adverts in the US that have been running for many years with little change. Those would have been 4:3. Over here adverts have been required to be 16:9 since (I think) 2000? May not be such a requirement in the US. Plus of course doing modern commercials in 4:3 makes them stand out more, from looking at the video you linked to anyway.

The other difference is that in the US there was never really such a thing as 16:9 SD, so if an advert was made in SD then it will be 4:3, if it was made in HD it'll be 16:9.

There was I remember FOX and PBS being SD 16:9 in the early 2000s and I remember it also causing a lot of confusion.
TI
TIGHazard
remlap posted:
Inspector Sands posted:
Neil Jones posted:
I believe there are copious adverts in the US that have been running for many years with little change. Those would have been 4:3. Over here adverts have been required to be 16:9 since (I think) 2000? May not be such a requirement in the US. Plus of course doing modern commercials in 4:3 makes them stand out more, from looking at the video you linked to anyway.

The other difference is that in the US there was never really such a thing as 16:9 SD, so if an advert was made in SD then it will be 4:3, if it was made in HD it'll be 16:9.

There was I remember FOX and PBS being SD 16:9 in the early 2000s and I remember it also causing a lot of confusion.


I think it was probably down to local affiliates.
LL
Larry the Loafer
james-2001 posted:
I've noticed there are a fair few adverts in the UK with a faux-4:3 pillarbox effect these days. I guess it's no different to the faux letterboxing we've had on adverts and music videos for decades.


Most of the 4:3 adverts here are done for stylistic purposes, trying to encapsulate a certain era and using the appropriate aspect ratio to reflect it. Not that most viewers would give a toss either way.

As a side note, I had to explain to my Dad why Bruce Forsyth and his Price is RIght models suddenly looked slimmer when Challenge started airing widescreen episodes from 2001. I thought we were past that whole phase, but there you go.
IS
Inspector Sands
remlap posted:
Inspector Sands posted:
Neil Jones posted:
I believe there are copious adverts in the US that have been running for many years with little change. Those would have been 4:3. Over here adverts have been required to be 16:9 since (I think) 2000? May not be such a requirement in the US. Plus of course doing modern commercials in 4:3 makes them stand out more, from looking at the video you linked to anyway.

The other difference is that in the US there was never really such a thing as 16:9 SD, so if an advert was made in SD then it will be 4:3, if it was made in HD it'll be 16:9.

There was I remember FOX and PBS being SD 16:9 in the early 2000s and I remember it also causing a lot of confusion.

Some station's DTV sub-channels were too I think, but it's rare
MI
mici0123
remlap posted:
Inspector Sands posted:
Neil Jones posted:
I believe there are copious adverts in the US that have been running for many years with little change. Those would have been 4:3. Over here adverts have been required to be 16:9 since (I think) 2000? May not be such a requirement in the US. Plus of course doing modern commercials in 4:3 makes them stand out more, from looking at the video you linked to anyway.

The other difference is that in the US there was never really such a thing as 16:9 SD, so if an advert was made in SD then it will be 4:3, if it was made in HD it'll be 16:9.

There was I remember FOX and PBS being SD 16:9 in the early 2000s and I remember it also causing a lot of confusion.



Yeah, FOX used Widescreen extensively AFIAK and even advertised it as "High Resolution digital TV"
https://www.engadget.com/2006-07-13-fox-widescreen-is-not-hd.html
SE
seamus
steddenm posted:
Hi

I've been watching a lot of the episodes of The Price is Right on CBS on YouTube recently (example: https://youtu.be/BUWd0XQS3FE) and have noticed that the show is broadcast on 16:9 HD yet commercial breaks are mostly in 4:3.

Is there any reason for this or just the local syndication not having 16:9 versions of the ads?


At least on WCBS-TV in New York, nearly all advertisements are 16:9 1080i have have been since around 2010. I think in the video you're citing from 2012, it may have been broadcast on a CBS station in a smaller market, where local ad producers were either producing ads in 4:3, or the station did not have the capability to insert ads or local news productions in HD.

Outside of the large cities, it took until 2016 or 2017 for most smaller markets to make the jump to local HD production - they were able to pass through network productions in HD well before then though.

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