Comment "widescreen" letterboxing/stretching (Score 1) 839
I think that until _all_ TVs have 16:9 screens and _all_ studios broadcast unmodified/uncropped/un-letterboxed content, we'll have the following two problems:
The disparity in video formats and whether they "letterbox" a high-def program for standard-definition channels is frustrating. Most modern studios and news stations in the US are recording in HD, then either letterboxing it for SD broadcast (adding black bars on top and bottom to make it 4:3 aspect ratio), or cropping the left and right side of the image to get the 4:3 image. The former is horrible for people with HD sets that can't overscan (scale up the side of the image so it fills the screen, eliminating the black bars) and you lose effective image resolution... I wish someone would drill it into their heads that letterboxing HD content is BAD for SD broadcasts. Your camera crew should try to capture actors and action within the central 4:3 area of the image so you can crop and scale your HD content for people with SD TVs or receiving SD channels.
Even more frustrating is when I go to a public place with widescreen TVs showing standard-def channels (in 4:3 format), S-T-R-E-T-C-H-E-D to 16:9, so everyone looks fat and square-shaped graphics become rectangles. Half the widescreen "HD" TVs sold now are able to overscan properly, and the other half can't at all (they just stretch the image). A few good brands can do a "panorama" transform, which is a compromise, but makes diagonal lines look curved. There really is no legitimate reason for a TV to stretch a broadcast image horizontally, yet everyone thinks they NEED to do it to "fill" their wide screens with a 4:3 SD image. It boggles me that so many people purposely distort the image just so it can appear "widescreen".