Not a mock thread ... Is it time to drop the 4:3 safe zones

So why does much of the 16:9 equipped world now choose to ignore 4:3 safe areas ? The UK I believe has the highest saturation of 16:9 displays in Europe, yet Sky boxes, and many Freeview receivers come with 4:3 CCO as factory default.

> It indicates that UK broadcasters are mindful of the millions upon millions of CCO 4:3 viewers in the country.

Damn luddites.

If these particular "millions upon millions" of viewers had had their own way we'd still be watching 405-line monochrome.

Erm, every TV in our house is 4:3, not everyone can afford to upgrade to widescreen & not all TVs have the option to allow you to change them either

About the Freeview boxes being '4:3 default' errm.. when I bought my box, it gave me an option if my TV was 4:3 or 16:9. After I chose '4:3' and it scanned the channels. Then I had to press the 'Wide' button in order to choose between 4:3, 14:9 L, 16:9 L. Some boxes like Sagem doesn't even have the feature for 14:9 letterbox.

The freeview boxes we have were all 16:9 default when first started up (except for my Daewoo setpal one, which sadly bit the dust at christmas). The 4:3 on Digi boxes are terrible acutally, all corners get cut off.

Ha ha - brilliant. I remember when I was in the South of France and RAI weather came on the telly in the hotel - It's horrible: People complained about the BBC's graphics but Rai's are just awful. Basically all information comes from the person standing there - pretty much all you can see is where the clouds are - no temperatures, no rain, and those numbers all at the top are small, hard to read and confusing.

On another note...


This got me thinking - when it first came about we were promised it would "Make watching films better" - and what happens - we see the same thick black lines top and bottom, people get stretched, their heads half cut off, and then the telly starts flicking between aspect ratios by itself. And we have all these complicated safe areas to worry about, whereas before, all TVs were 4:3, so it was simple(r). And now, most people still have their Widescreen TVs in stretchy-more (techy jargon there), so it makes no difference.

So it really does beg the question: Why bother with 16:9 at all?

Well it's their own fault - those who have any common sense at all have set their telly up properly, and are now reaping the benefits.

the problem is two fold.

1 - everywhere else seemed to tie widescreen to HD. We didn't as we had quite a nice picture quality to begin with.
2 - widescreen TV + digibox = problems for people who don't read manuals.

Once we're either all HD or all integrated we'll be fine. it's this transitionary decade we just have to put up with.

Seconded. 4:3, CRT analogue TVs are still being sold (gasp!) and it's only as soon as every single new TV set is widescreen and digital that the safe zones can be safely dropped.

No, but every STB has the option to feed a 4:3 display with a 16:9 letterbox image.

Try eBay. I sold my old 16:9 Toshiba for �10 last week. A bit old now, but in full working order.

And the large majority are set up to display it in 4:3 full screen, either CCO or stretchyvision. If I set up my Nan's STB (which only has letterbox or CCO) to display in letterbox mode, she'd shout at me because the picture isn't filling the screen anymore. Telling her that she's seeing more will just get her arguing that she can't read what it says anymore.

People won't set their screens to 16:9 unless they have to, and the broadcasters won't make them because people will complain. This won't improve until virtually every TV screen (including portable, bedrooms, kitchens etc) are widescreen, but most people with 4:3 TVs are happy with them.