Disney Cartoons on Channel 5

Channel 5 are showing two 5 minute Mickey Mouse cartoons today (you have missed the first one, the second is on at 4:35) from 1948 and 1937. Its interesting that they are showing these at all, when was the last time a terrestrial channel showed any cartoon as a filler?

The first one was shown in 16:9 with Mickey Mouse themed bars down the sides of the picture. The cartoon itself looked very clean too, so I guess it has been digitally remastered at some point. It also included a disney.com graphic at the end. Why would Disney distribute the cartoon in this way? Can't American channels show 4:3 content properly any more? I know Channel 5 can, as they are currently showing a Disney live action film which is in 4:3 (despite being made in 2001).

I believe it part of a Disney Afternoon on Ch5,

American TV has mostly moved over to HD now* and in HD there's no 4:3, everything must have 'pillarboxing' like you describe. Many channels put graphics on their 'pillars' rather than leave them black like is the norm here (BBC Knowledge used to do this in the early days)

The issue here is probably to do with switching during programmes. A programme is either delivered in 16:9 or 4:3 and then the appropriate widescreen switching is asociated with the whole. However sometimes a channel will package up a old programmes within a newer one or with presenter links - all in 16:9. In that case the whole thing has to be transmitted either 4:3 or 16:9... switching during the programme is tricky and messy.

If these aren't stand alone programmes then that's probably the case, although if they are remastered Disney items it might be that they're making them like that for the US market


*some over the air stations have SD side channels and there are still SD cable channels

I thought it might be something to do with how America have rolled out HD and 16:9 as part of the same thing. What do we do with 4:3 stuff shown on HD channels in this country? For example, when Channel 4 or Sky One show pre-HD The Simpsons. Do they show these in pillarbox too or are HD boxes just as capable of outputting a 4:3 picture as a SD one?

The swines there edited the cartoon Down!

I'm not familiar with 'Mickey Mouse Lonesome Ghost' but I did see a wipe (between the scene with Mickey Mouse on the phone and arriving at the haunted house) which looked a little too modern. What was cut out?

Its interesting that Channel Five are allowed to have a Disney afternoon. What would OFCOM say if they had a Heinz or Coca-Cola afternoon? They had a programme earlier that was not much more than an advert for their new film.

Mickey smoking on a relaxing Marlboro, sqeaking how he's in "flavor country".

Clearly you've forgotten about Fiat Night!

I don't think its that much different than when the BBC used to show Disney Time or everytime Disney appeared on ITV they always had a Disney Presents frontcap, no other film studio/broadcaster gets the same treatment,

Good to see films like Aladdin being shown on Terrestrial TV, there are some Disney films that are never shown, it's nice for a Sunday afternoon though.

I wish there would repeat Song of the south

There is no official 4:3 HD standard - all 1080i/p and 720p HD content officially has to be a 16:9 raster. Thus if you broadcast 4:3 content in HD you have to pillarbox it (or worse - stretch it). Sky1 HD, E4HD, C4HD and all the non-sport channels pillarbox 4:3 SD (and occasionally some 4:3 films transferred in HD) content as they can only broadcast 16:9 in HD.

Sky Sports HD channels are the odd ones out - they stretch 4:3 SD content rather than pillarboxing - presumably because their sports viewers are expected to complain more about black bars than wrong-shape pictures - and they assume they've been watching the wrong shape in SD for years?

Sky's HD boxes DON'T pillarbox 4:3 SD broadcast on SD channels when you watch them in 1080i or 720p modes though - so SD 4:3 stuff broadcast SD is often stretched. If you watch in AUTOMATIC mode SD is output as 576p (with pants deinterlacing) but also with HDMI aspect ratio switching signals that many TVs will accept, and this is the only way of watching 4:3 SD channels broadcast in SD on an HDMI connected set. Annoying that the box won't output 576i and let the TV de-interlace (576i was a late addition to the HDMI spec) and won't let you chose to pillarbox in 1080i or 720p (as most US boxes do) as switching between 1080i/720p and 576p usually takes a second or two and the OSD on many TVs flashes up - which is annoying when surfing between SD and HD channels (I've got all the HD channels as Favourites so I can surf them with the Blue button on the Sky remote)

Oddly ESPN pillarbox, even on the SD version they do, ESPN America does too, but Classic doesn't, probably due to the fact most of what they show is 4:3.

Can't remember the last time there was a pillarboxed UEFA Champions League on ITV, alot of people kicked off about that for some reason.