Cropping on BBC News 24

I thought that cropping to 14:9 was bad, but at least it was watchable in 4:3 cutout mode. I didn't like the cropping of 4:3 material in the first place, but this is just dreadful!

Now it seems, that the BBC have decided to take it one step further with some programmes, and crop all 4:3 material to 16:9. If you tune into Click Online now, you will see that everything is cropped so badly that if you try and watch it using 4:3 centre cut out mode on your digibox, then you will notice that half of the text on the captions and everything else on the 'slides' where they show people's emails are cut off.

I hope extra hacking off the top and bottom of the picture isn't part of the new BBC News 24 "improvements"...

Alright, who are the idiots who chose 16:9? Yes, I'm sure you want to lose 1/4 of the original picture.

MHP had a simailr poll like this recently and all but 3 of the 70-odd votes went the correct way- to the pillarboxing 4:3. Why would anyone want to watch 4:3 cropped to 16:9? It looks AWFUL! 14:9 is bad enough. It's worse when the people who want to watch 4:3 in cropporama are the same who moan when films are shown pan/scan

Judging by the temporary nature of News 24 at the moment this is probably a mistake, especially is captions are being cut off

That is all very well, but 16:9 pillarboxing can cause just as many complaints as well as a lot of confusion, especially as it often appears 'postage stamped' on air

If it's done correctly, there's nothing wrong with a 14:9 pillarbox as long as the person ARCing the material takes note of any shots that don't work that way and it isn't just done as a blanket job. I ARC 4:3 material (news archive and non-BBC material) to 16:9 on a daily basis and it is rare that I find something that absolutely can't be done in 14:9 - so little is lost at the top and bottom and theres rarely anything very important in those sections of screen. If it is I'll wander downstairs and flip the arc over, I'll only use 16:9 cut out for material that is letterboxed.... thus chopping off the letterboxing

I perosnally think the only reason pillarboxing draws compalints is becuase they are seldom used and they don't know or understnad why there are there, not least because lack of education means many people buy a widescreen set and expect everything to be widesreen- which is not the case. If pilarboxing was used more and people were properly told why it's sued, it would probabally become just as accepted as letterboxes (as the's progressed to the point where films and US Drama can be shown 16:9 on analogue, and DVDs can be released full format.). So come on BBC and start properly introducing pillarbox!

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