SKY 1 HD has bars at side

Kurn

I noticed that SKY 1 HD has black bars on the right and left hand side during certain programs, for example right now Simpsons is on, and there is a black bars on the side only. Any ides?

zaphodbeeb

The Simpsons is running (I think) for over twenty years. I don't know about the new / newer episodes but certainly most of it over the years is in 4:3 format rather than 16:9 widescreen.

Kurn

Thanks for the reply, new to HD so just checking.

watty

Before 1950s most Cinema wasn't Widescreen either. They went to WS and Colour primarily because of US TV. They had WS occasionally from early 1920s and Colour late 20s. but even in 1960s some films still Academy format and B&W.

Get used to black bars.

Also most decent films are wider than TV widescreen, so bars top & bottom.

Kurn

watty wrote: »

Before 1950s most Cinema wasn't Widescreen either. They went to WS and Colour primarily because of US TV. They had WS occasionally from early 1920s and Colour late 20s. but even in 1960s some films still Academy format and B&W.

Get used to black bars.

Also most decent films are wider than TV widescreen, so bars top & bottom.

Thanks watty, I know about the widescreen thing and am already used to it, I was just not sure about the screen size the Simpsons was in, as I had not seen it before. Thanks for the info and history lesson

Dr. Nick

Why did it take HD for them to change? We've had widescreen tvs for some time.....

watty

Some people stretchy vision of their TVs. I think many TVs don't allow that on HD as there is no 4:3 mode on HD transmissions. All 4:3 is Curtains (black bars at side). Of course these episodes on SD WS Tvs did have bars at side if the picture was set properly.

RTE has had the problem on RTE2HD on Saorview with 4:3 material that they don't have the formatting working yet and are not putting bars at side and thus Simpsons and other 4:3 content is horribly stretched to fill screen and it can't be fixed on TV. Hopefully their Playout system will be running soon (if they haven't fixed this already).

Dr. Nick

Simpsons prob never looked that stretchy-bad coz it's a cartoon I suppose

Dr. Nick

Dr. Nick wrote: »

Why did it take HD for them to change? We've had widescreen tvs for some time.....

The US really only went 16:9 when HD came in. I guess it's because they adopted HD earlier than us, or maybe they didn't see the point of 525-line widescreen.

watty

In this case they were correct. Huge waste of money and reduction in quality having WS on SD. It should have only been introduced with HD here.

murpho999

This is something I asked about Sky Atlantic and I don't fully understand it.

I watched an Episode 1 of Curb Your Enthusiasm on Sky Atlantic when it was broadcast and it was in 4:3 with annoying black bars.

Then I noticed it was on Sky Anytime and checked it out and that was in full 16:9 format, didn't appear stretched.

Have CYE on series link and all episodes are 4:3.

How can it be in 16:9 in Anytime then?