Channel 4

Let's hope they make better use of the time than C4 have with it's Big Brother hours.

Another moan about C4 but a complete waste of the V Festival rights - just three hours live on 4 Music yesterday, and about that over the two days on C4, plus 90 minutes of highlights each night. When 4 Music launched they had live coverage most of the day for both days and as C4 are streaming three stages live online it seems a waste not to air more across C4, 4 Music and perhaps E4. Unlike previous years they haven't got Big Brother to schedule around either.

Channel 4's 'creative renewal' has pretty much not happened has it? What hit has it had this summer?

Beaver Falls

That's hardly been a breakout hit, although probably around the same as the first series of Misfits, so still a good bet for a second series.

C4 though has been disapointing - they really should have reclaimed the 10pm slot for drama (as it used to be until a few years ago) by the time Big Brother returned but focused far too much on cheap documentaries like Seven Days which flopped or US versions of British shows (the Jamie Oliver Revolution thing, Ramseys Kitchen Nightmares) which didn't fair much better. The Killing too has been wasted in a competitive 9pm slot - would be much better placed at 10pm IMO.

I see that Channel 4 are now broadcasting old 4:3 episodes of The Simpsons in 16:9 (with black bars at the sides). I can't think what else Channel 4 show that is in 4:3 but are they doing this for all 4:3 stuff now? This is on satellite.

On analogue (yep, that things still going), The Simpsons is shown in 14:9 with black bars all around the picture.

On 4HD it always has done. Perhaps this means they have switched to the SD channel being a downgraded version of 4HD?

I believe it's been broadcast in that format on Freeview for some time (same as the BBC), so it could just be a minor fault which meant it wasn't ARCed on analogue or satellite.

I noticed an episode in the week went out like that but I assumed it was in error. It still might be, the +1 dog today was clearly the 4:3 version. So something has gone wrong somewhere.

Wrong AFD flag?

I know that for BBC channels, everything is cached to server in 16:9 - this means 4:3 material gets ARCed first, and is played out in pillarbox (12P16) mode. Then, depending on the platform, it gets ARCed again in the transmission chain. (I can never remember which way round it is - I think on DSat, it gets ARCed back to full-frame 4:3, while DTT goes out in letterbox and the box will ARC it itself if it's set up for a 4:3 TV)

With a few episodes of Only Fools and Horses on BBC One recently, the wrong AFD was set - so on analogue, they were being ARCed back to 14:9, so had a thin black border on all sides. (We didn't get to the bottom of whether it was human error or a techical glitch)

I don't know if Red Bee use the same arrangement for Channel 4, but it's possible the same fault has occurred there.

Personally, I think they should be doing this for all 4:3 content, at least once DSO is complete.

Why? Who benefits from it?

Exactly - one of the features of digital TV is supposedly letting the viewer decide how such content is watched. A shame really though they didn't have the foresight for 2.35:1 images too - it's unfortunately down to the broadcaster not the viewer whether they are pillar boxed or cropped.