Sky One on NTL - WTF is up with the picture?

seamus

Right this, is really starting to annoy me now.

For a long time Sky One showed certain shows in widescreen. Stargate being an example. 99% of people don't have/use widescreen TVs. Now, while this annoyed me only slightly, it didn't really make a difference, as you could still see most of the picture, and it didn't take anything away. The DOGS (is that the right name?) was even in the right place.

Now, for some crazy reason, they've changed to a kind of compressed widescreen. Like they've forced a widescreen show into a standard TV, and everything has become elongated vertically and distorted. The DOGS is halfway across the top of the screen at this point. It irritates my vision, and makes it difficult to enjoy shows.

Anyone know WTF is going on?

mike65

Is it continuous? UTV were always at this but only for a odd minute here and there when switching from the central feed to local ads.

/me runs of to check.

Mike.

seamus

Tis continuous, as I say, only for certain shows, but it's always there for these shows.

mike65

Well looking at er Scrubs its in 4:3 ratio on both analogue and digital. I Gues I'll have to watch later. Which shows apart from SG are squeeshed?

Mike.

celticfc

No crazy reason really from the sounds of it, they simply must be broadcasting a 16:9 animorphic picture instead Sky One's normal 4:3 "cropped" picture. I'd expect it will probably return to it's usual format in a matter of days. I haven't noticed it myself, mind you I haven't been watching Sky One much.

BTW moved to ICDG Cable forum, probably more suitable there.

seamus

mike65 wrote:

Well looking at er Scrubs its in 4:3 ratio on both analogue and digital. I Gues I'll have to watch later. Which shows apart from SG are squeeshed?

Mike.

I don't remember

It's not that many, but it's some of the more popular ones.

celticfc

Yea, it would only effect a handful of programmes as most of Sky One's output is non-widescreen.

Marcopolo85

celticfc wrote:

Yea, it would only effect a handful of channels as most of Sky One's output is non-widescreen.

Not so - many of the Sky One imports are widescreen. If you have your TV set to auto you will see the 'wide' prompt come up. Regarding the logo, it is not in the top left on a widescreen TV, as, if it was, it would not then be visible on a 4:3 TV - thus it appears to be in the 'wrong' place on a widescreen! And satellite braodcasters are notoriously fond of displaying their logos - particularly Sky One.

seamus

Seems they've messed up so, cos my TV isn't widescreen...

celticfc

Marcopolo85 wrote:

Not so - many of the Sky One imports are widescreen.

Yes granted, but the vast majority of Sky One's programming is in 4:3 aspect ratio. (Especially during the daytime) (All ad breaks too)

Marcopolo85 wrote:

If you have your TV set to auto you will see the 'wide' prompt come up.

Very few TV's (only very modern up-to-date ones) have format switching functions.

JDxtra

NTL are broadcasting 16:9 pictures as squashed 4:3 pictures on some programming on Sky One.

Ring 'em up and complain...

...more than likely though they will have no idea what you are talking about and will probably try and send an engineer around to your house!

seamus

Malcolm in the Middle too....

febreze

Sky One is being played out in stretched anamorphic widescreen in Dublin analogue cable areas. This is due to a fault with decoding equiptment used to decipher the digital signal. All programs which are broadcast in widescreen on Sky One such as Malcolm in the Middle (and most recently made programs) will appear to be stretched vertically so that people will look long and thin

pete

a "fault"?

long may it continue, so

much better than the usual stupid cropped 4:3 broadcasts

Very few TV's (only very modern up-to-date ones) have format switching functions.

Mine is 6 years old and has it.

Round Cable

I have a 6 year old philips TV in the kitchen, so with the analouge cable out there, all it takes is one button to place black bars at the top and bottom of the screen, I don't think you need the latest TV to do it.

Tennis

febreze wrote:

Sky One is being played out in stretched anamorphic widescreen in Dublin analogue cable areas. This is due to a fault with decoding equiptment used to decipher the digital signal. All programs which are broadcast in widescreen on Sky One such as Malcolm in the Middle (and most recently made programs) will appear to be stretched vertically so that people will look long and thin

Any idea when or if it might be fixed? Widescreen is great on the digital service on my widescreen TV but is really annoying on the analogue service on my non-widescreen TV.

Tennis

That's great thanks.

seamus

Nice one.

loyatemu

every TV i've owned in the last 10 years has had a widescreen button for compressing anamorphic pictures - at first I didn't know what the point of this was

sky currently looks great in widescreen!