# Is HD content always 16x9?



## bill-e (Apr 14, 2006)

Or are there times when it is 4x3? I notice for instance that some clips on ESPN are much higher resolution than others even when ESPN puts their banner in the 4x3 bar areas. Or is this just analog vs digital?


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

ESPN HD and ESPN SD are both digital. HD is given more satellite space, so when ESPN is playing an upconvert (with the side bars) it turns out better than the regular channels.


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## Nick (Apr 23, 2002)

By definition, HD content is originally recorded in a 16:9 aspect ratio. Bandwidth limitations imposed during transmission may cause a given program to be reduced to a 4:3 A/R. 

A few early HD tv models were in 4:3 A/R, but I haven't seen one around for several years, now.


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## derwin0 (Jan 31, 2005)

Nick said:


> A few early HD tv models were in 4:3 A/R, but I haven't seen one around for several years, now.


I saw a bunch of them in Circuit City last week.


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## cosmo (Mar 3, 2005)

derwin0 said:


> I saw a bunch of them in Circuit City last week.


whoops


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## bill-e (Apr 14, 2006)

Thanks All

I've had the 622 for a whole day and I still love it


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## olgeezer (Dec 5, 2003)

HD original content is 16:9. Transfered 35 and 70 mm film are usually OAR. Some examples: Hogan's Heroes 14:9, film based material prior to 1953 (the Robe) were mostly closer to 4:3. A person that knows once told me their are 54 film aspect ratios


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## LtMunst (Aug 24, 2005)

Nick said:


> By definition, HD content is originally recorded in a 16:9 aspect ratio. Bandwidth limitations imposed during transmission may cause a given program to be reduced to a 4:3 A/R.
> 
> A few early HD tv models were in 4:3 A/R, but I haven't seen one around for several years, now.


Some of the older movies on Voom are 4x3. See this pretty often with horror flicks from the 30's on MonstersHD and many of the Japanese Samurai flicks on KungFuHD.


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## derwin0 (Jan 31, 2005)

cosmo said:


> what model of receiver?


I said that I saw a bunch of newer 4:3 HDTV's (not receivers) in Circuit City, in response to a post about only a few earlier early models were in 4:3.


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## olgeezer (Dec 5, 2003)

derwin0 said:


> I said that I saw a bunch of newer 4:3 HDTV's (not receivers) in Circuit City, in response to a post about only a few earlier early models were in 4:3.


Actually the TVs may be any shape. Remember that 4:3 tvs, when showing HD images, will have bars on the top and bottom of the image.


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## Jim5506 (Jun 7, 2004)

bill-e said:


> Or are there times when it is 4x3? I notice for instance that some clips on ESPN are much higher resolution than others even when ESPN puts their banner in the 4x3 bar areas. Or is this just analog vs digital?


Some of the clips ESPN-HD uses are SD clips, so they add sidebars and show SD clips on the HD channel. ALL of ESPN-HD and ESPN2-HD transmission is HD, but often they upconvert SD material. It looks a little better than plain old SD.

If you see side bars it's SD.


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## rbyers (Jan 15, 2004)

Jim5506 said:


> Some of the clips ESPN-HD uses are SD clips, so they add sidebars and show SD clips on the HD channel. ALL of ESPN-HD and ESPN2-HD transmission is HD, but often they upconvert SD material. It looks a little better than plain old SD.
> 
> If you see side bars it's SD.


That may be true for ESPN, but HD is always 16 x 9. If the program content is 4x3 because it's an old move or tv show, the transmission is still 16 x 9, but the sending entity adds black bars to the sides of the frame. The actual content can be either SD or HD.


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## bimmerboy750 (Feb 28, 2006)

HD content is always 16x9... pillar boxes count as content!


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## dpd146 (Oct 1, 2005)

But not all 16x9 is HD.

The local fox affiliate here streches all their SD to fit 16x9. Drives me crazy, I prefer the "partial zoom" of the E* to stretching.


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

dpd146 said:


> But not all 16x9 is HD.
> 
> The local fox affiliate here streches all their SD to fit 16x9. Drives me crazy, I prefer the "partial zoom" of the E* to stretching.


It is probably fair to say that most 16:9 TV that is available via OTA or satellite sources in 1080i or 720p IS in HD regardless of it's source material. It may be an upconvert or processed through some compression or pixel robbing scheme but the image that is sent to your HD set is HD.

Or are we going to argue that the 4:3 center of ESPN/ESPN2 upconverts on the HD chanels are SD while the pillars are HD?

Is anyone using the 16:9 ED formats OTA (480p , 704 pix per line)? I'm thinking not. It would be a decent way to do 16:9 without stretching a 640x480p picture.


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## Jim5506 (Jun 7, 2004)

James Long said:


> Is anyone using the 16:9 ED formats OTA (480p , 704 pix per line)? I'm thinking not. It would be a decent way to do 16:9 without stretching a 640x480p picture.


PBS-HD does all their broadcasting in 16X9, but about half of it is 480p. They announce at the beginning of a program if it is high Definition or just wide screen. They are the only ones I have seen that use 480p widescreen.


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

My local station is 100% 1080i on the HD feed, so they must upconvert when PBS is doing 480p.


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## Larry Caldwell (Apr 4, 2005)

bill-e said:


> Or are there times when it is 4x3? I notice for instance that some clips on ESPN are much higher resolution than others even when ESPN puts their banner in the 4x3 bar areas. Or is this just analog vs digital?


The Winter Olympics HD coverage was mostly 4:3 with broadcast side bars. The signal was 16:9, but the content was 4:3.


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## whatchel1 (Jan 11, 2006)

Jim5506 said:


> PBS-HD does all their broadcasting in 16X9, but about half of it is 480p. They announce at the beginning of a program if it is high Definition or just wide screen. They are the only ones I have seen that use 480p widescreen.


Jim, we do a pass thru direct off the feed from PBS. We don't do 480p on the PBS HD channel. It is 1080i straight thru. We only convert it from satellite and send it out OTA 8 VSB on 5.3 channel. The 5.1 is 480 only. Operations Engineer for KTXT TV.


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## olgeezer (Dec 5, 2003)

whatchel1 said:


> Jim, we do a pass thru direct off the feed from PBS. We don't do 480p on the PBS HD channel. It is 1080i straight thru. We only convert it from satellite and send it out OTA 8 VSB on 5.3 channel. The 5.1 is 480 only. Operations Engineer for KTXT TV.


Which is the case with most digital stations. Remember when talking about SD and HD, the reference is to digital stations. The analog stations are still available and are an analog signal. Many PBS stations multicast. Locally they do 3 feeds. One is the national PBS HD feed, One is the digitized PBS schedule for our local channel and the third is I forget


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## Nethawk (May 17, 2006)

"Many PBS stations multicast." 

- olgeezer

Don't most broadcast stations anymore?

One of the HDTV's in my house is 4x3 aspect ratio (Zenith C36V22) - quite a beautiful picture, actually...


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## Jim5506 (Jun 7, 2004)

whatchel1 said:


> Jim, we do a pass thru direct off the feed from PBS. We don't do 480p on the PBS HD channel. It is 1080i straight thru. We only convert it from satellite and send it out OTA 8 VSB on 5.3 channel. The 5.1 is 480 only. Operations Engineer for KTXT TV.


My bad... I assumed since some of the broadcasts are obviously not HD that there was switching going on, but I guess the resolution difference comes from PBS up stream.


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