British Television (Widescreen)

hi there,

forgive me if this question has been answered before,
but why is all mainstream analogue output in uk in 14:9 letterbox?
can't british channels take the same step as german channels such as ARD and ZDF and output in 16:9 letterbox, so that:
1) there would be no 4:3 'safe areas' to worry about, and
2) to cater for the majority of british people who have widescreen tv's at home so that with these, all the screen can be utilised,
i mean, most people have broadband, and today most websites are very large, requiring a fast internet connection, so shouldn't this be the same with tv?

thanks,
b

Simple, some viewers hate deep black bars, so 14:9 is a compromise solution

if that's the case, why do 4:3 'safe areas', (and not 14:9) still exist?

For people who dont have a widescreen tv, so they can see all the graphics

sorry,
i wrote wrong,
why don't 4:3 'safe areas' change to 14:9 'safe areas'?

Initially of course that all was the case, but surely now it's time for the industry to take the next step and scrap the 14:9 compromise.


It's not going to be a standard of digital broadcasting (though some boxes offer 14:9) - so surely on analogue now it's time to broadcast all content in their correct ratio (either 4:3 or 16:9) - and for the digital refuseniks who don't like it, maybe it will finally make them switch - where generally speaking they can decide themselves how different aspect ratios are dealt with.


And even then though, either with the 4:3 Pan & Scan option, surely once DSO is complete in many respects it's time to say goodbye to the 4:3 safe area.

because Sky boxes don't give a 14:9 option and most morons still have it set to 4:3 with widescreen sets, thinking how wonderful it looks when everyone is fat.

It's 4:3 GRAPHICS safe, its 14:9 action safe.

Morons. Yeah that's about right

A number of times now I've set up boxes correctly for people and explained to them about 16:9 and widescreen etc, only to find that 2 weeks later I go back and they've changed it back because the correct 16:9 setting on a widescreen TV "didn't look right", and they actually preferred the squashyvision.

I give up!

Are there any counries other than the UK and Ieland who are still using 14:9? In Germany, France, Poland, Sweden, Norway and Denmark they are using 16:9 (letterboxed), while some other countries zoom in to 4:3. The US seem to use a mix of 4:3 zoom and 16:9. SVT of Sweden decided to scrap the 14:9 format in 2004, claiming that time had catched up with it.

And yes, trying to explain how people should set their widescreen sets is really a pain in the ***. Perhaps they are using the stretch setting to increase their self-esteem.

Many people are watching squashed images even when it is a real widescreen broadcast, meaning that they are watching a squashed image with large black borders in the bottom and top. As people don't seem bothered with this, there can't be too much troble with broadcasting 16:9 on analogue.

I'm always correcting other peoples TVs.


It's the shops that are the worst though - even now half of them still don't seem to set up the aspect ratios correctly - and I guess if they're not doing them right in store, those companies that also install and tune TVs probably are not doing them right either.

Sky Installers are also badly trained in this area. When I had the installer here to fit Sky+, he set it up to 4:3L, despite the fact I have a widescreen TV.

I think the main reason the European networks use full letterbox is because they broadcast in PALplus, so the black bars are actually used to broadcast aditional picture to make up a widescreen picture, whereas UK networks don't broadcast in PALplus, so it's not required.

Also because some people are watching digital on a small 4:3 set which they would have to squint at to see graphics were they watching it with their box set to 16:9 letterbox output.

Not that Channel 4 care; their graphics are always 14:9 safe but not 4:3.