"I get material all the time from HD producers, who apparently are giving no thought to how their material will look on the millions of SD sets still in use."

Well, given that HD is16:9 or anamorphic format, and that you are also equating "SD sets" with 4:3 SAR, then there is a simple, compelling, and conventionally practiced (at least for broadcast) answer -- letterbox.

Pan and Scan? Well, given the option on one's remote, I bet 2/3 of the public will choose widescreen over fullscreen, regardless of their box aspect.

I take most of the viewer complaint calls at the station. If a program is letterboxed, some complain that we are "cutting off the top and bottom of the picture". If we centercut, we get complaints of "cutting off the left and right side of the picture". We broadcast full HD, use downconverted letterbox on our SD analog channel, but the cable companies take the HD feed and downconvert to centercut for their SD subscribers. So over the air analog, the viewer sees letterbox on the bedroom TV with rabbit ears. and the same viewer sees us centercut on the den TV hooked to cable. They demand we "do something" about it with a 50/50 split as to which should be right.

Then there are the DTV converter boxes that have 16:9, 4:3, stretched 4:3, and squeezed 16:9 modes. That's all our fault too. Why can't we make it right.

Ya can't win no matter what ya duz . . . . . . . .

To me, the most objectionable byproduct of the switch is watching 4:3 reruns (and there are 40 years worth) pillarboxed on a widescreen box. It just looks awful to me. Guess I'll have to get used to it, because the alternatives (stretch or vertical crop) are just as bad. . .

Oh jeez - the horrid picture of the Brady Bunch upconverted to HD just blew through my mind.

Seriously, what to do with the pillars is a long standing question. Black bars or something else?

In our newscasts (full HD studio) we handle the problem of legacy 4:3 news footage with motion background pillars, and it's sure acceptable looking. But it's only on screen for a few moments at a time. We shoot and edit all news currently in SD 16:9, but the upconversion is pretty impressive in the production switcher.

Most of the on-air commercials are still delivered to us in SD, and we make no attempt to add pillars or distort them, so they end up with just black side bars. Our commercial production team shoots in HD, with an eye for centercut, and we are now airing locally produced full HD spots. All supers and logos fit into the 4:3 safe area, however. Generally, any supers will have extended portions out towards 16:9, but nothing of importance will show up there.

I think it will be some years before 4:3 televisions will go away. There are so many viewers I talk to with standard def sets that are either hooked to standard def delivery by satellite or cable, or who have bought DTV converter boxes, and have no plans to replace those sets in the forseeable future.

I work in the business, but still only have standard def at home. Our big Sony CRT 4:3 TV is still going strong after 17 years. Certainly a true HD receiver will come some day soon, but for now we are saving the money. The Sony will go to another room to be hooked to a VCR and DVD for casual use in the future. Yes, I still have a bunch of stuff on VHS tape, and it won't look good on an LCD, I'm sure..

Speaking of that, has anyone seen an LCD that handles standard def without all of the cartooning artfacts? I know they have improved, but all of the models on display in stores are hooked to a high def source, so it's hard to get a feel for which models upconvert best. The plasmas we have at work look far better with standard def, so I might considr plasma over LCD.

Sorry to pop off topic.

Tom

I guess you are going to have to get used to it. I can't really understand why you would find it so objectional anyway. It's 4:3 and your widescreen TV is displaying it as a 4:3 image.

Pillarboxing 4:3 content on a 16:9 display is the ONLY way you're going to see the entire 4:3 program as it was originally intended. Letterboxing 16:9 content on a 4:3 display is also the only way you're going to get to see that as it was intended.

If the material was originally 4:3, then it should be displayed at 4:3 on a 4:3 display and pillarboxed on a 16:9 display. Conversely, 16:9 content should be letterboxed on a 4:3 display and 16:9 on a 16:9 display.

I don't like doing a center-cut or pan and scan on 16:9 stuff for display on a 4:3 set. If it's 4:3, then frame it for 4:3, if it's 16:9, then frame it as 16:9 and don't bother with the imaginary 4:3 safe area in the middle. It defeats the whole purpose of 16:9.

E-x-a-c-t-l-y what I think.

Well, when our local movie theater installed their first 2.35:1 screen and CinemaScope projectors in the '50s, they handled the problem with full-length velvet maroon side curtains. The evening features would show in all their wide screen glory, then the side curtains were drawn in to cut the screen for the B-SciFi and Horror flicks at midnight.

While we're on the nostalgia subject, anyone remember those horrid seams in the Cinerama to single strip transfers?

Perhaps something like velvet maroon side curtains for widescreen TV sets could be an aftermarket project for some aspiring entrepreneur . . .

"Perhaps something like velvet maroon side curtains for widescreen TV sets could be an aftermarket project for some aspiring entrepreneur . . ."

There are maybe six people in the whole world that are bothered by this, you just happen to be one of them.

. . . and then there's something I just saw on TV at lunch . . . a standard def channel 4:3 in the middle of the 16:9 screen with a faux letterboxed commercial within the 4:3. Talk about odd.

John, in essence I agree with you 16:9 and 4:3 need to be presented in the appropriate format. The viewing public, however, watches on everything from a 5 inch set on the desk, to a 60 inch plasma on the wall. Most of the letterbox on 4:3 complaints, I suspect, come from viewers with the smaller sets, where the letterboxing gives the appearance of a very tiny picture. At least with the DTV converter boxes you have a choice of 4:3 centercut full screen fill or 16:9 letterbox.

I LOVE that idea of having curtains that can be drawn across the 16:9 sets for 4:3 shows! What a great concept. Then it's up to the viewer to decide about "pillars"..

"I LOVE that idea of having curtains that can be drawn across the 16:9 sets for 4:3 shows! What a great concept. Then it's up to the viewer to decide about "pillars"..

Thanks Tom, for seeing that my comments were light-hearted and part of a discussion of aesthetics.

If indeed I am one of only six survivors from the velvet curtain era, maybe we should form a club or something . . .

How many people really watch a 5" TV set? Unless you are planted on a couch actually focused and watching TV, you are most likely listening to the TV while you're doing something else. You only look at the TV when you hear something that causes you to turn to the screen to see what's going on. To me, this is why TV audio is often more important than the picture. You can get most of the information out of the Six O'Clock news without ever looking at the screen. Try watching the news with the sound off...

"Most of the letterbox on 4:3 complaints, I suspect, come from viewers with the smaller sets, where the letterboxing gives the appearance of a very tiny picture."

What's even worse, is the stuff that comes through letterboxed and pillarboxed -- IOW black all the way around a tiny picture on a 4:3 set. It seems like the cure is worse than the problem in this case. I think almost anyone feels "cheated" when they see this.

I preserve my sanity by watching the 6 o'clock news with the TV cut OFF.

I'm just recounting what viewers tell me. You would not believe some of the calls . . . like the one who has been searching for months for a battery operated converter box so she can watch DTV on her Sony Watchman. Telling her to buy a handheld DTV receiver does no good - it's gotta be that precious Watchman or nothing.

Or the one who got an F to RCA adapter so he could plug his RF output from the converter box into the video in port on the TV.

Or the one who bought 30db amplified rabbit ears and hooked them into a 25db preamplifier - they live less than 3 miles from most of the area transmitters. Guess what happened.

Or the one who bought a converter box, and when it arrived via UPS set the shipping box unpacked on top of the TV and expected it to work via osmosis.

"What's even worse, is the stuff that comes through letterboxed and pillarboxed -- IOW black all the way around a tiny picture on a 4:3 set. It seems like the cure is worse than the problem in this case. I think almost anyone feels "cheated" when they see this."

Yeah, I see that on my DVD recorder that has a QAM tuner on some of the downconverted HD channels on cable. It's a hoot.

So, do i date myself if i say I used to got to the movies and watch the saturday "serial" westerns for kids? Maybe I can get in on the ground floor of the VCC (Velvet Curtain Club).

Well, where I come from, two people make a club. I think we could add John Meyer as an honorary member, possibly Grazie would be interested, but I think youngsters like Kelly would have to apply for membership, perhaps having to undergo watching 20 hours of Tom Mix movies as a rite of initiation.

The VCC it is!

I can't remember what serial we saw. I'm thinking it was more like a Lost Planet or Rocket Men From the Moon type serial, but darn if I can remember. That would have been in the early to mid-50s. There was a theater nearby that still showed that kind of stuff, but I'm guessing a lot of it was leftovers from earlier times. They even showed Flash Gordon sometimes. That was a late 30s serial. It's very hazy, as I was quite young, but I do remember going with a friend.

Oh, i'm applying for sure! Just not sure i agree with "youngster". Actuarially speaking i'm certain i'm in the second half of my life now.

I recall a poster we used to have here by the initials of BB who adamantly argued that 4:3 pillarboxed on a 16:9 set was an affront to mankind and sensibility, and that it was inconceivable that our level of technology hadn't come up with some way of changing the screen to match the material's shape. He would have purchased the velvet curtain attachment in a heartbeat.

Those were fun posts to read!

"Those were fun posts to read!"

Yeah, maybe fun for you!.... :)

"Yeah, maybe fun for you!.... :) "

Well, since you put it that way, John, you can join too! Rumor has it you meet the age requirements . . .

"I recall a poster we used to have here by the initials of BB"

I bet it's been five years. I wax nostalgic . . .

Speaking of matching screen to material, have you seen that mode in some of the newer sets where you can do a slow 4:3 stretch to 16:9? I'm not talking about merely horizontally stretching the 4:3 to 16:9, but gradually stretching the picture. It seems to work this way - the main (center) part of the 4:3 aspect is retained, but from about 2/3 of the way out in each direction, a slow, gradual stretch happens to fill out to 16:9. I guess the theory is that the talkng head will not be morphed into a fat face, but the portions off center can perform a s-l-o-w stretch without anyone noticing. It's really wierd to watch a car chase across that screen. The cars go from long and lean on the left, to squashed in the center to long and lean on the right.

Football games? You can imagine.

Yet more fun with mirrors.

EDIT: Kelly, you are more than welcome to join. I'm only into the 2nd half of the next two thirds of my life, so I might be on the edge of qualifying myself. I guess we need to elect musicvid as president of the society, with all of the notoriety and responsibility that entails, as he originated the concept. I could be treasurer, but you would not want to trust me with a large sum of cash.

> Pillarboxing 4:3 content on a 16:9 display is the ONLY way you're going to see the entire 4:3 program as it was originally intended.
> Letterboxing 16:9 content on a 4:3 display is also the only way you're going to get to see that as it was intended.

I couldn't agree more. A few years ago I started buying only the widescreen versions of movies and my kids use to complain because of the letterboxing on our 4:3 TV. Now that we have a widescreen TV they forget about Dad's forethought in buying widescreen versions and now they complain when they view and older full screen DVD's. As plasmavideo said, Ya can't win no matter what ya duz . . .

I say view the content in the aspect it was originally intended. I hate 4:3 center cut. At least with 4:3 burned-in letterbox I can still use the zoom on my TV to make it full 16:9. But once you cut the center to 4:3, it's lost forever. The people with 4:3 sets will dwindle away. Moving forward with all 16:9 content is the only sensible solution.

BTW, I love the curtain idea. I remember those theaters. Maybe we can make some animated HD curtain pillarbox backgrounds. ;-)

~jr

All cinemas who take film projection seriously still have "curtains". They're black moveable masks which today are moved by the automation systems the same way as the lenses are changed on the projector.
Why you have those in a cinema and not on a TV is with film projection the edge of the gate is out of focus on the screen and if any crud gets caught in it it'll be seen moving around on the edge of the screen, yuck.

Bob.