Ah well you dont see all of it before The Simpsons because it is put out in 4:3
Not necessarily
I may be wrong but isnt 4:3 = 1:1.333... and widescreen = 1:1.85
I know that everything uses a 4:3 safe area for the main action but the sides are still used, hence loss of information. It may be only cosmetic and does not add any action to the scene but gives it more grandure, hence enhances the overall feel of the ident as a whole.
If you found that hard to understand, i do looking back , i basically mean that the picture looks all cramped, zoomed and generally ugly. Possibly because it was originally made in widescreen and does not look as good enlarged. Maybe there should be 4:3 and a 16:9 sets of idents, even if they are only remade in both formats, it makes it look better but i love widescreen on nearly everything (as long as no cropping or stretching takes place)
You are spot on with your aspect ratios. 4:3 is 1.33:1 (the old cinema 'Academy' ratio) and 16:9 is 1.85:1 (known in the cinema trade as 'widescreen' or 'flat'). For this reason you still need a pan-and-scan copy of a CinemaScope film if you want to show it properly in 16:9FHA. Cinemascope (or 'scope') is 2.35:1 which in TV terms would be 22:9. As there is no shoot-and-protect policy for feature films - since give or take the odd inch all cinema screens open out to the same ratio - the title sequences usually have to be shown as an extra-deep letterbox, otherwise you'd lose the extremities of the captions. Likewise, if you don't pan-and-scan a tight two-shot, you can end up with two noses talking to each other!
Dan may also be referring to the fact that all BBC channels are transmitted in 16:9 - and it's up to your box to pick up the signal to change between 4:3 and 16:9 depending on your set-up.
So even when you see that ident in 4:3 - if you've got the know how then you can still see it in glorious 16:9.
Well, most of the time you
shouldn't
be able to see the symbol into the Simpsons in 16:9 however you set up your decoder. What normally happens is that if a programme is 4:3, the flag for the output aspect ratio switch & STB widecreen switching signal is set on the preceeding ident. There would be fade to black, AFD switch, fade up to symbol (flagged as 4:3) thus enabling the Pres. Director to do the famous one second mix into the clouds at the start of the Simpsons. You can't mix across an aspect ratio switch, it either has to be done as a cut or a down and up. The latter is usually the case because the automation will hold in black long enough to mask the switch on most newer STBs - although if like me you still have an old ITV Digital box, then you'll most likely see the switch once the picture comes back up from black!
The symbol would appear in the transmission suite in 16:9 FHA, but the output ARCs on both the digital and analogue chains would slice off the left and right extremities of the picture, so only the centre-cut-out would actually be transmitted. Likewise 4:3 programmes would appear in the transmission suite as a 4:3 pillar-box on the 16:9 raster, but the two pillars are sliced off in transmission, leaving the wide-screen viewer to decide how they watch the resulting 4:3 programme. If they're like me, they put the pillars back in!
There are exceptions to this. Often if films are transmitted as a deep letter-box then the symbol will still have a 16:9FHA/14:9LB flag with a down-and-up into the film masking the switch to 16:9FHA/16:9DLB as symbols tend to look silly in deep letter-box.
Hope this random rambling is of some use to someone, and I hope you understand it.... bu**ered if I do!
You can see it without the black-out on five. I've got it capped somewhere. When five show an imported program like Angel or Charmed which are in 4:3 you can see the actual switch when the program slide appears in and out of the ad breaks. The slide is 4:3 pillarboxed in a 16:9 frame and when the switch kicks in it shows centre crop. It maybe my box, its an old ITV digital one (Nokia Mediamaster 9850T) but its very noticable - i will post pics later if anyones interested, maybe even the video file.
BTW: I know my Nokia box has come in for a lot of stick, not here specifically, but a lot on Digital Sp but i would like to say for the record that i've had minimal problems and i'm using it with a indoor arial ( arial does not look right) and a booster and have only had 3 crashes in 2 years!
, i basically mean that the picture looks all cramped, zoomed and generally ugly. Possibly because it was originally made in widescreen and does not look as good enlarged. Maybe there should be 4:3 and a 16:9 sets of idents, even if they are only remade in both formats, it makes it look better but i love widescreen on nearly everything (as long as no cropping or stretching takes place)
arial does not look right) and a booster and have only had 3 crashes in 2 years! 