FOX in Austin now using sidebars for 4:3

Archived from groups: alt.tv.tech.hdtv (More info?)

Happy to report that KTBC-TV Ch. 7/FOX in Austin has now switched to using
sidebars on their HD channel for 4:3 SD programming, rather than the hideous
stretch & bloat mode they have been using up to now. Anyone who gets the
station and appreciates this change should send them an email, via their
website, complimenting them on it.

BTW, I have also heard that they now have the money to upgrade their tower
for full power HDTV OTA, which they hope to have up and running by this
summer. Now, they are waiting on environmental approvals, which can be
problematical in this area. But, since the upgrades will be on the existing
tower in an existing tower farm, maybe there will not be too much hangup.

mack
austin

Archived from groups: alt.tv.tech.hdtv (More info?)

"Otto Pylot" <otto@bogus.address.invalid> wrote in message
news:200120051935036836%otto@bogus.address.invalid...
> In article <vTQHd.50450$Z%.26306@fe1.texas.rr.com>, Mack McKinnon
> <MckinnonRemoveThis@tvadmanDeleteThisAsWell.com> wrote:
>
>> Happy to report that KTBC-TV Ch. 7/FOX in Austin has now switched to
>> using
>> sidebars on their HD channel for 4:3 SD programming, rather than the
>> hideous
>> stretch & bloat mode they have been using up to now. Anyone who gets the
>> station and appreciates this change should send them an email, via their
>> website, complimenting them on it.
>
> If the HD programming has sidebars on a 4:3 set that means that the
> signal has been upconverted. The station "adds" the sidebar area to
> meet the 16:9 requirement and if your set is not 16:9 it still sees the
> sidebar area as having information and when it displays it, all you see
> is black.

My set is 16:9 and I was talking about 16:9 screens in my post. What
FOX/Austin was doing was using anamorphic wide-screen mode for SD
programming over their HD channel. So, instead of getting sidebars, we got
a distorted "wide zoom" picture on our 16:9 screens. Similar to what TNTHD
does with their SD programming, although they apparently also do some
upconversion on the picture.

Now, FOX/Austin presents SD on its HD channel the same way all the other
local channels do: in 4:3 with black sidebars -- an undistorted,
higher-resolution picture, since it has not been stretched larger and out of
shape. Big improvement.

mack
austin