Setanta problems on widescreen

eirebhoy

I don't know how best to explain this. I'm just watching Liverpool v Auxerre atm and the 2 sides are cut off the screen so it's not actually widescreen. I noticed this has been the case with a lot of Setanta programs recently. Anyone know how to sort this?

Cheers.

subway

weird, epg says grand prix is on now?
the chanel im watching is showing golf tho.

how are you seeing football?

eirebhoy

subway wrote:

weird, epg says grand prix is on now?
the chanel im watching is showing golf tho.

how are you seeing football?

Setanta 1. It doesn't matter what the channel is though as all the Setanta channels are the same. Just depends on the program.

lafors

subway wrote:

weird, epg says grand prix is on now?
the chanel im watching is showing golf tho.

how are you seeing football?

Same as me, say GP but golf is on.
Liverpool vs auxerre looks fine, just its not broadcast in widescreen.
BTW the match is on Setanta 1
The golf is on Setanta Ireland (the one you get on basic NTL)
Setanta 2 is not showing anything atm.

Now the golf (setanta ireland), check out what it does to my tv, its unusual, it disappears during breaks, and during some programs, no idea why I get it.

eirebhoy

lafors wrote:

just its not broadcast in widescreen.

I think that's the best way to put it.

How come Setanta is the only station I've seen that don't broadcast some programs in widescreen? I've had the telly a year and this is the first time I've had this problem.

btw, I just found out on the soccer forum that the feed from France is 4:3.

lafors

eirebhoy wrote:

I think that's the best way to put it.

How come Setanta is the only station I've seen that don't broadcast some programs in widescreen? I've had the telly a year and this is the first time I've had this problem.

btw, I just found out on the soccer forum that the feed from France is 4:3.

Well ITV do the same for champions league (well they have up until recently afaik). It's really annoying. Though then you have TV3 who were showing the same match but stretching it to 16:9....horrible.....fat players

Mossy Monk

Looks better the way Setanta have done it, Black non animated sides but you would think they would switch the tv to 4:3.

mike2084

This started Monday, only noone spotted my thread...

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055122497

copacetic

Mossy Monk wrote:

Looks better the way Setanta have done it, Black non animated sides but you would think they would switch the tv to 4:3.

not sure they would want to do that Mossy? Their studio feed is 16:9 and most of their programming is too. Most people have a sky box set to 16:9 and the TV the same. When they get a 4:3 feed from a european channel then the correct thing to do imo is to show it as is with black bars (known as pillarboxed). This is normally how the BBC or UTV would do it too.

I'm not sure what the complaints are about really. It's a widescreen channel but the whole world isn't widescreen so they give you pictures that look correct.

You see this on a lot of sport coverage from Europe. However on most champions league games etc, the coverage is in widescreen as there is a standard look they are supposed to have.

irishtoffee

Setanta golf channel was grand last week now i have 2 black bars down the sides.

copacetic

irishtoffee wrote:

Setanta golf channel was grand last week now i have 2 black bars down the sides.

at the moment? the ads are fine anyway on sky..

edit: but the american feed isn't. Looks like whoever is sending the feed is 4:3. You can tell you are seeing the full picture available
as the graphics are fine.

eirebhoy

Is there any reason this only seems to be a recent thing? Even a football highlight show they had on yesterday was the same.

mike2084

Yes it's only this week. How do Sky do it that say their Premership games looks perfect on all televison types?

copacetic

Michael Walsh wrote:

Yes it's only this week. How do Sky do it that say their Premership games looks perfect on all televison types?

they film the premiership, so are in control of the format, that'll all be on widescreen on setanta too.

This week just looks to have had some soccer from Europe in 4:3 and a minor golf tournament from the states in 4:3.

Eirebhoy, that soccer highlight show, was it just the actual highlights? were they the ones from the same tournaments as we already said were 4:3?

eirebhoy

copacetic wrote:

Eirebhoy, that soccer highlight show, was it just the actual highlights? were they the ones from the same tournaments as we already said were 4:3?

I only watched about 10 minutes of it. I think it was called Global Football. It showed highlights from a few Copa America matches. I don't have a clue what I'm talking about really but if Sky can have perfect widescreen picture for the Copa America, why can't Setanta?

copacetic

i don't see what the couldn't have, assuming they have the same feeds, I didn't see that show though. Were the graphics sky graphics or did they look like local sth american ones?

However nearly everything I've seen this week on setanta has been widescreen apart from the liverpool games and tonights golf so I couldn't
say for sure.

Mossy Monk

eirebhoy wrote:

if Sky can have perfect widescreen picture for the Copa America, why can't Setanta?

Sky showed Copa America in 4:3, not widescreen. Me suspects you have your tv set to stretchy vision. If so then Setanta are doing you a favour by displaying programmes in the correct aspect ratio.

cupthehand

Again now in the Blackburn Inter-Toto cup match it really is most annoying, I hope to god they sort it out for the Premiership. Every pre-season friendly Ive seen on it so far has had the black bars down each side of the screen.

radiospan

cupthehand wrote:

Again now in the Blackburn Inter-Toto cup match it really is most annoying, I hope to god they sort it out for the Premiership. Every pre-season friendly Ive seen on it so far has had the black bars down each side of the screen.

Most people don't like the black bars at the left and right, but it is the only way of viewing 4:3 content on a widescreen TV "correctly" (ie - there is no cropping or stretching).

It's just that most European soccer games (except ones from UK, Ireland, Germany and Holland I think) are still in ordinary 4:3.

If you really want the picture to take up the full screen: in your Sky box, press Settings, and in Picture Settings change the Picture from 16:9 to 4:3 for these games on Setanta. Your TV should then stretch the 4:3 picture to fill the screen.

Make sure you change it back to 16:9 afterwards though, or else you'll lose a lot of the picture on proper widescreen programmes.

eirebhoy

Mossy Monk wrote:

Sky showed Copa America in 4:3, not widescreen. Me suspects you have your tv set to stretchy vision. If so then Setanta are doing you a favour by displaying programmes in the correct aspect ratio.

I think you've sussed it. I have my TV set to wide. I've never actually noticed my picture looking "stretched" before so I much prefer it the way Sky Sports had it. I'll change the Sky settings the next time I have this problem with Setanta.

mike2084

I've done a bit of digging and manged to figure it out. On 12.560H there are now two versions of Setanta Sports 1 on the transponder. It turns out one is a UK version and one is an irish versions. The differences are ads and a few programmes such as today's golf. The problems that we have been describing are only on the Irish version and as they mainly show the same stuff you could always tune it in and watch on that.

Aquos76

Problem with that method though, would be the Sat 3pm games which are due to go out on Setanta 1. They would be blocked on the UK version.

cupthehand

yes just had the same side bar problem actually watching Under 20 World Cup Final on BBC2 Scotland so went back and changed the digibox setting to 4:3 and the picture went "full-screen"

Also why couls someone tell me when like watching the Darts now on Sky Sports 1 in 16:9 mode, the on screen graphics are so far in, if you get what im saying and if you bring up the programme info it says its been braodcast in widescreen

Mossy Monk

Premiership will be widescreen anyway so problem wouldn't be noticable on that .

mike2084

Aquos76 wrote:

Problem with that method though, would be the Sat 3pm games which are due to go out on Setanta 1. They would be blocked on the UK version.

Hopefully they will have that sorted out by then - may be handy in the meantime.

copacetic

cupthehand wrote:

yes just had the same side bar problem actually watching Under 20 World Cup Final on BBC2 Scotland so went back and changed the digibox setting to 4:3 and the picture went "full-screen"

Also why couls someone tell me when like watching the Darts now on Sky Sports 1 in 16:9 mode, the on screen graphics are so far in, if you get what im saying and if you bring up the programme info it says its been braodcast in widescreen

in the first case you are just stretching your picture so it won't look right, but if it works for you I guess it's a method.

On the graphics, broadcasters have to allow for people who don't have widescreen sets, so they generally keep graphics in the safe area of 4:3 so everyone can see all the graphics.

You'll see the same on RTÉ for instance.

mike2084

I see tonight that the black bars disease has now spread to Setanta Golf.

Mossy Monk

Hardly a disease if it shows the channel in the correct ratio. But I do wonder why they don't give people the choice.

dkane

The really strange thing about the Setanta 4:3 broadcasts is that if you change the viewing angle on your sky box to 4:3 you get the same as leaving it on 16:9 just with even thicker black bars on the 2 sides.
Usually changing to 4:3 on any other channels that show 4:3 feeds in their 16:9 broadcasts (BBC, ITV, ATR, NASN etc) stretches the picture and hides the bars but not Setanta

eirebhoy

dkane wrote:

The really strange thing about the Setanta 4:3 broadcasts is that if you change the viewing angle on your sky box to 4:3 you get the same as leaving it on 16:9 just with even thicker black bars on the 2 sides.
Usually changing to 4:3 on any other channels that show 4:3 feeds in their 16:9 broadcasts (BBC, ITV, ATR, NASN etc) stretches the picture and hides the bars but not Setanta

It works for me...

Anyway, judging by a couple of recent Celtic matches I watched the quality has improved a lot. I remember watching the SPL last year on my standard 28" telly and the picture was "squeezed" in rather than stretched. Hopefully it won't still be like that as I like to watch the Sunday matches on Setanta Ireland in bed.

mike2084

Mossy Monk wrote:

Hardly a disease if it shows the channel in the correct ratio. But I do wonder why they don't give people the choice.

Wrong choice of words, but I would like the choice of viewing setup.

stevejcraven

I don't know why but the black borders on the sides bother me in a way that borders on the bottom and top never did.

An option of what way we'd like to watch something would be nice.

Brewster

Yes I find the black bars down side most annoying. I was watching the Celtic Spartak Moscow game yesterday and despite numerous attempts to get rid of them I couldnt. I changed picture setting on Sky from 16:9 to 4:3, I changed the secondary settings just below and it didnt make a jot of difference. I changed the actual TV settings but to no avail?? Its so annoying.

Yet when watching a game on BBC with the black bars, changing the picture settings from 16:9 to 4:3 got rid of bars??

Has anyone any suggestions why it doesnt work on Setanta channels??

Mossy Monk

Because it is how Setanta are broadcasting, only they can change it.

cupthehand

Could we organise a mass emailing of their feedback department complaining about the widescreen issue or something like that, maybe that would encourage them to rectify the situation. The coverage of Toulouse - Liverpool yesterday was very amatuerish due to the "black bars".

There's alot of people now forking out €18/month and they least they deserve is a full screen picture, Setanta have to get their act together and realise they are now one of the big broadcasters regarding sports in this and indeed other countries and so therefore must give the best possible service to the customer. Would Sky have this happen.....I think not.

eirebhoy

Mossy Monk wrote:

Because it is how Setanta are broadcasting, only they can change it.

Changing from 16:9 to 4:3 on Sky Settings works for me. I think the vast majority of people would prefer the video "stretched".