Watching Irish channels on Widescreen

Widescreen

Folks,

I have a 36" Sony Widescreen TV. and have Sky Digital plus a terrestrial aerial.
When I am watching for example a rugby match on BBC on Sky the picture is perfectly proportioned ,graphics spot on etc... If I switch to RTE to watch the same match, the picture is not as well proportioned and the score details are almost off the top of the screen. Only way I can fix this is to set the picture to Widescreen. However then the players all look too short etc... Is this something to do with RTE not broadcasting their output in widescreen . If that is the case ,why sell any widescreen tv's here if the only genuine widescreen output is via Sky Digital!!

Can anyone elaborate on this please.

Thanks

carrolls

RTE have not reached the level of sophistication required to broadcast in widescreen, hence your difficulties.(and everyone who watches RTE) .
RTE would go back to 405 line broadcasting if it meant saving money.:D

ShaneOC

It is rather unfortunate that RTÉ are not yet broadcasting in widescreen. Some programmes (west wing) are broadcast with the black bars on top and bottow of the screen and widescreen viewers can use the 'zoom' function to get the proper ratio, however they really should be broadcasting in anamorphic widescreen like the BBC do and that would keep everyone happy.

watty

Of course the BBC "overdo" it by broadcasting 4:3 material "windowboxed" in a 16:9 anamorphic frame. True WS TV users don't need this and 4:3 TV owners that have a true WS (by height) reduction get a shrunk picture. All viewers get reduced resolution.

Why WS TVs?
DVDs are Widescreen anamorphic, though I just bought "The Great Outdoors" John Candy and Dan Akroyd, it is letterboxed in a 4:3 frame!

Actually if you are buying a WS less than 36" size, you might be better with a "high end" 28" to 32" 4:3 TV that does true 16:9 anamorphic by height scan reduction. It gives a Much superior 4:3 picture to a 32" WS TV, and almost identical size and quality anamorphic 16:9 to a 28" WS set. About 1/6th price of a 36" WS and 1/2 price of a poorer quality basic 16:9 28" WS set.

Check out picture screen HEIGHT when comparing. Quoted sizes are the diagonal, sometimes tube size and not actual visible picture!

BBC, UTV, C4 are only WS channels I watch. 90% of my WS viewing would be DVDs.

No Irish broadcaster transmits WS anamorphic.

Also RTE is a Public Service Broadcaster. Why should they have a service exclusive to a foriegn Pay TV broadcaster not regulated here?

I have 3 Digital receivers (inc Digibox) and ANALOG Satellite. All my Irish TV is via Analog TV aerial as I can't justify cost of Family Pack Sky. (IMO buying budget DVDs each month is better value).

watty

Also there is NO reason why a Late Night movie once a week could not be transmitted in Anamorphic on WS on Analog and Digital. No change needed.

4:3 only viewers would have a funny shaped picture, but in my experience most WS TV owners insist in "filling the screen" with distorted 4:3 material instead of the black bars at the side.


GET USED to the Black bars:

1) All the old 4:3 material won't go away.
2) Cinema WS often is not same ratio as 16:9 (even the common WS 1:1.85 cinema that looks 16:9 is slightly wider, overscan hides the small top and bottom bands, 1:2.35 is MUCH wider
3) Classic 1.66:1 WS does not sensibly fit 4:3 or 16:9 without black bars

If you don't beleive analog supports "anamorphic" make sure Digibbox is set to 16:9. Record some WS BBC on the VHS. On playback compare the TV's 4:3 and 16:9 modes.

Broadcast analog TV is of course about 3 times the quality of VHS.

watty

Unless the RTE has replaced ALL the old VHF transmitters, some actually are modified 405 line transmitters. Hence RTE's claim that if you can access a UHF analog transmission with good signal it is higher quality than the VHF transmissions. Do they have Nicam on all the VHF (or any) transmitters?


It's a long time since I saw 405 TV. I found a working one (no signal of course) in a house I was renting in 1990. I used to fix them. Later I would solder the dual standard 405/625 sets so as they only worked on 625 as the switch gave trouble.

ShaneOC

Originally posted by LurkingIcon
Also RTE is a Public Service Broadcaster. Why should they have a service exclusive to a foriegn Pay TV broadcaster not regulated here?

Sky is not the only digital platform in the country. RTÉ should have anamorphic widescreen available to NTL and Chorus' digital customers as well as Sky. An exclusive service is not required.

watty

Sorry, ShaneOC, I forgot that some people do actually get a (digital) service from Chorus and NTL.

Except certinally NTL has a reputation on Digital, I hear, of messing up even BBC WS by using an Analog feed ....

If Chorus and NTL can't reliably deliver UK Anamorphic......


Point taken. Technically RTE /TV3 /TG4 has no excuse.

Actually EVERYTHING (or mostly) commisioned or made by TG4 from day1 is originated/recorded in 16:9 anamorphic WS. It isn't their fault I suppose that RTE isn't broadcasting it!

Stark

Yeah this is a pet peeve of mine. People just seem to love watching distorted images on widescreens! In the house where I live, even when something is being broadcast in letterbox, they leave it stretched out instead of zooming so that you see both the black bars and the stretched image!!

Personally I usually zoom 4:3 material, losing out on top and bottom sections of the screen. Actually some DVDs do that, you buy your 4:3 tv program on dvd, and you find bits cropped so the DVD can be advertised as "widescreen presentation". Grrr.

Sky One broadcasts in anamorphic on Chorus and Sky Digital. Bit annoying on a 4:3 tv where you see the picture all squashed, but on a widescreen tv it's great. Unfortunately on NTL analogue in Dublin, they only broadcast the Pan&Scan picture so we have to watch 4:3 content on our widescreen even though the programme was filmed in widescreen.

Is it possible to get anamorphic widescreen on NTL analogue?

watty

Originally posted by k.oriordan
<snip>
Personally I usually zoom 4:3 material, losing out on top and bottom sections of the screen. Actually some DVDs do that, you buy your 4:3 tv program on dvd, and you find bits cropped so the DVD can be advertised as "widescreen presentation". Grrr.
<snip>
Sky One broadcasts in anamorphic on Chorus and Sky Digital. Bit annoying on a 4:3 tv where you see the picture all squashed, but on a widescreen tv it's great.
Is it possible to get anamorphic widescreen on NTL analogue?

Not True. Google on "Film matte". Cinema Film is shot on larger area than is shown in Cinema/DVD version or 4:3 TV version. Many (but not all) WS Anamorphic DVD are the original cinema matte. For VHS and original TV release they Pan and crop to 4:3, but may not fully crop sides, instead choosing to open top and bottom "matte" to get the 4:3 shape.

Sometimes the DVD may just be the 4:3 transfer, not the Cinema "OAR" (Original Aspect Ratio). Sometimes it may be Cinema "OAR" letterboxed in a 4:3 frame to force 4:3 viewers to see whole image, without anamorphic transfer.

But they never (to my knowledge) "pretend" it is WS when it wasn't.

"Willow" is a good example of film with true original cinema format on DVD, but "opened" matte vertically to aviod cropping sides too much on VHS, so if you VERY familar with the VHS, it does indeed seem "chopped off" top and bottom. In fact the VHS had top/bottom never seen in cinema!

The legal VCD 4:3 version of orignal Star Wars is example where they could not or did not open the matte enough, so it is badly cropped at sides and camera appears to ping-pong compared with WS version. I'll be getting the WS DVD of that this autumn.

Most DVD players won't do pan&Crop unless the info is on the Anamorphic DVD (or rarely both versions on disk). Usually the only working options are anamorphic or letterbox.

On ALL digital reception boxes (Cable, Satellite, MMDS, DTT etc) you set one of three options in the box install menus:

1) 16:9 or Widescreen. This is actually "as is" or "raw" and is for WS TV a *AND* 4:3 TVs that can reduce height for anamorphic. Best quality.

2) 4:3 Letterbox. The received digital signal is resampled in vertical direction to less lines (lower quality/lower resolution), and missing lines replaced by black lines, if the anamorphic transmission flag is set.

3) 4:3 Crop. Not same as Pan & Scan, though looks similar. Image is chopped off at sides and resampled horizonatlly. You lose image and quality.


Broadcasters won't broadcast ANY anamorphic on any analog system as the viewers without anamorphic capable TVs (includes some 4:3 TVs, not just WS models, typically Sony, Philips and Mitsubishi "better" 4:3 models). As indicated all Digital reception devices have the HW & SW and menu option to "resample" anamorphic WS to 4:3 for non-anamorphic TVs.

Stark

4:3 Crop. Not same as Pan & Scan, though looks similar.

What's the difference?

JDxtra

By the way, here's the 'bull' reply I got from RTE as to why they are not broadcasting in Widescreen (received last November)...

Thank you for your e-mail.

However, you are probably aware that there is no accepted / agreed International widescreen format. BBC and Sky use a widescreen 16:9 and some of ITV is also part 16:9. RTÉ does produce some programmes in this format but RTÉ's network does not support this
16:9 ratio.

Again, thank you for your query and interest in RTÉ.

Kind Regards

Brigitte
RTÉ Communications

Just bang off an email to info@rte.ie and complain about the lack of widescreen if you want something done about it...

watty

Originally posted by k.oriordan
What's the difference?

1) For 4:3 "crop"

Take 16:9 anamorphic picture and chop equal amount off each side. Assuming 720 pixels width, resample each part line back to 720 pixels. You now have non-anamorphic 4:3. Resolution is reduced.


2) For 4:3 "pan&Scan"

AFAIK no Digital receiver does this.

2a) Studio Pan & Scan.
The "editor" views the film "open matte", the whole original frame (it might be real film or digital HD Video). He moves a 4:3 frame around the image, it need not be central Left/Right nor Up/Down, i.e. He can "Pan" the 4:3 frame on the original image for best composition. If two people at opposite sides of 2.35:1 cinema WS talking, he can switch from left/right as person talks (fast pan). He can also zoom in or out by "opening" matte vertically (if possible) and take in both persons at same time but have more extranous detail top and bottom of frame. (even occasionally accidently getting a Mic Boom).

Sometimes an offending object "out of shot" on WS, but "in shot" on 4:3 zoomed out with matte opened top/bottom is retouched out.

Then a full resolution print / transfer is made from the edit list (Film for TV, VHS, "4:3 Full screen" DVD etc).

Obviously a Studio edited "pre transfer" 4:3 pan&scan of WS is much superior to a digital receiver's simple "crop the sides" and resample approach.

2b) DVD Pan&Scan from Studio edit track.
I have never seen this, but it does exist and most DVD players support it.
On the the DVD player there are 3 options in Setup:
i) 16:9 (This is like Digibox) this works for Anamorphic WS and 4:3 material on a 16:9 TV and on 4:3 TVs that support Anamorphic. In fact like digibox, this mode does nothing.

ii) 4:3 Letter Box (This is like Digibox). On 4:3 it does nothing. On WS Anamorphic it resamples vertically (losing sharpness) to give the entire image on a 4:3 only mode TV.

iii) 4:3 Pan&Scan (Not like Digibox). With most Anamorphic DVDs and most DVD players this will give Letterbox! Some players, if there is Anamorphic ONLY information, will crop as the Digibox does....

BUT there are two further options:
iiib) The Studio 4:3 Pan&Scan version is also on the DVD (two whole versions of the film, yes they do this!). The DVD player automatically plays this instead of the WS anamorphic version. This is not common.

iiic) The DVD has only the WS anamorphic version. There is also a control track that says where to pan (no zoom, no opening the matte, just left / right) before cropping and resampling! Obviously this is better than what a Digibox does. But I don't know of any titles that have this information. In theory perhaps this can be transmitted on Satellite/Cable/MMDS/DTT digital TV too as the DVB standard does seem to allow most things also in the DVD standard, an infact the DVB standard has more resolutions than DVD supports (which is why some transmissions recorded as MPEG2 direct to disk can't be authored to DVD without re-encoding).

Widescreen

I think I will mail RTE about this. It is not good enough that they cannot broadcast in widescreen format. Why are they always languishing behind with the technology but ahead of the possee in the massive licence fee they charge. Since the licence fee rise not one improvement has been noticed by me in the RTE service. For example ,by them not having the widescreen technology I am therefore watching the Rugby on BBC. They have lost a viewer. They should care about these things and get there act together.

Mossy Monk

Originally posted by jdempsey
However, you are probably aware that there is no accepted / agreed International widescreen format. BBC and Sky use a widescreen 16:9 and some of ITV is also part 16:9. RTÉ does produce some programmes in this format but RTÉ's network does not support this
16:9 ratio

brilliant

channelsurfer

actually jdempsey i banged off an email to info@rte.ie a few weeks ago in regard to ER been reduced to 14:9 from 16: 9 widescreen and all i got was a reply saying that they get hundreds of emails every week and will be in touch. i asked what their widescreen policy was also. so will post reply if i get it. they must have made a policy decision to abandon er in its original bought in format and take away some of the picture for the benifit of those with 4:3 tvs bit annoying for me personally with a widescreen where i can zoom in and take out the black bars( i know i loose some of the picture but its better than rte's poor effort)
typical rte they only do things by half measures.

Originally posted by LurkingIcon
U Do they have Nicam on all the VHF (or any) transmitters?
.

I doubt that there is any VHF transmitter that isn't nicam.
Kippure and Mount Leinster, both receivable here are nicam on one and N2 and have been for years as is mulaughanish in Cork.

Gadgie

Originally posted by jdempsey
Brigitte
RTÉ Communications

Good old Brigitte! Still banging out her nonsense I see! When I emailed RTE to complain about the on-screen furniture they introduced, I was told by good old B herself "You may not need [to know which channel you are watching]... but some of us do!"

SRB

Of course the BBC "overdo" it by broadcasting 4:3 material "windowboxed" in a 16:9 anamorphic frame.


Apart from the CBBC stand, I can't say I've noticed this happening on a regular basis. I can understand why they do it on the likes of I Love the 1980's programmes - it would annoy the hell out of me to have the bulk of the prog in 16:9 while the inserts would bounce back to 4:3 and would look terrible on a 4:3 tele, which most viewers still use....

thrillseeker

RTE can broadcast in widescreen on the Sky digital platform. I saw some programs in anamorphic widescreen during their tests prior to the launch on the EPG.

Isn't something to do with the satellite output having to be the same as the terrestrial output for some reason?

Why create programs in widescreen and then not broadcast them in the correct format?

The rugby coverage recently has been terrible with the picture quality from Lansdowne Rd. being appalling, whilst over on BBC there was crystal clear anamorhic pictures with the added attraction of having a Sherwin-free commentary.

Widescreen

That's interesting. If thats the case the only reason I can think of for them not broadcasting the widescreen format is that that when the RTE deal was originally done with Sky the broadcast format on Sky Digital had to be same as terrestrial. Thats why we get the same crap teletext service as well. To be honest I rarely watch RTE on Sky Digital as my terrestrial signal is just as good. However, if they broacasted in Widescreen of course I'd watch. Why are we always lagging behind over here. This problem is obviously due to sub standard staff in RTE, who basically don't care.

watty

Originally posted by Glenn
Good old Brigitte! Still banging out her nonsense I see! When I emailed RTE to complain about the on-screen furniture they introduced, I was told by good old B herself "You may not need [to know which channel you are watching]... but some of us do!"

Got a very insulting email from her yesterday regarding RTE plans for "new" Digital Text on Sky platform. IMO broadcasting WS source as anamorphic on Chorus/NTL/Sky and now trial Three Rock DTT is more important than a Sky specific "text" service that, given BBC/Sky efforts may be less useful than the existing (entirely digital) Teletext.


Teletext is actually quite good. I use BBC World TV Teletext for same stories, but faster access than the Slooooow BBCi with its painfull menu navigation.

The four "fast text" links on ordinary TVs work well, and my PC satellite card and Palcom DSL4 satellite receiver both "cache" the entire magasine. The PC lets you export a web site and navigate sub pages. Both allow naviagation and "click" on the 3 digit numbers on a page.

The Digibox "Interactive" messes up someone watching in another room or VHS / PC PVR / standalone DVD recorder. Teletext done on your TV does not affect recording or any other viewer in house.

Both Sky News text and BBCi text are Far, Far too slow and have no extra content compared with the teletext they replaced.

BBC dropped all news / info teletext from BBC World / BBC Prime and just had program listings. Much is still missing, but at least the news pages have been restored.

I don't get RTE on Satellite (no sub) but I have it on Palcom and PC card to get the Teletext pages even faster than the FastText does it.

watty

Having worked with RTE staff and knowing some ex RTE tech staff, the techicnical bods are NOT the problem. They are on a par with BBC really. It is the "bean pushers" and administrators probabily that cause the problem.

Oh, duh, now I'll never get an RTE job! :-)