# Why is ESPN HD always in pillar box?



## Lord Vader (Sep 20, 2004)

Why does ESPN HD always broadcast HD games in pillar box, with the ESPN logo on the left and right side of this pillar box?

It doesn't matter if I change between Native On or Off, either, or if I change to crop, stretch, etc. The HD broadcast always is with those annoying ESPN pillar boxes.


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## Earl Bonovich (Nov 15, 2005)

Are you sure the game is in HD?

They don't broadcast Sunday Night football, or the college bowl games they had... with pillar boxes.

Neither is SportsCenter

And no... nothing you could do on the box will change that.
Because ESPN is sending a pre-formated 16:9 image


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## DonCorleone (Jan 29, 2006)

Earl's right: it only happens when the game is in SD. For some reason, all of today's games are in SD, which is extremely frustrating. I've been waiting for 3:30 to watch the CBS or ABC games because they're in HD.


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## Lord Vader (Sep 20, 2004)

Earl Bonovich said:


> Are you sure the game is in HD?
> 
> They don't broadcast Sunday Night football, or the college bowl games they had... with pillar boxes.
> 
> ...


Yeah, it's in HD, Earl. The guide indicated it, and when I tuned to it, my TV automatically indicates what resolution is being transmitted (1080i, 720p, etc.). It stated 720p when I tuned to the game. When I switched to my HDVR2, for example, it then stated 480i, correctly indicating it was an SD transmission.

My Onkyo receiver upconverts everything to 720 from 480, but even with that feature turned off, ESPN HD still always shows HD broadcasts with their stupid logo pillar box. BTW, it's only the games that are this way. When I watch SportsCenter HD, it's full screen like it should be.


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## Earl Bonovich (Nov 15, 2005)

It is possible that something was wrong today.
That they had planned (hence the guide data), that it would be HD...

But something happened and it wasn't.

ESPN could have been upconverting their feed, and still pushing out a 720p feed to you.

So you may have been getting a 720p signal, but that doesn't necessarily mean the actual game was HD.

I know on Monday Nights, the Football games were widescreen 16:9 in HD


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## Lord Vader (Sep 20, 2004)

Yeah, I recall that the MNF games were full screen, but everything else in HD seems not to be, at least the BB games aren't. I compared the PQ between the SD and the HD feeds. The former are much worse while the latter were as I would expect with HD--crisp, sharp, etc. It's just the size of the screen that's weird.


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## Chandu (Oct 3, 2005)

Lord Vader said:


> Why does ESPN HD always broadcast HD games in pillar box, with the ESPN logo on the left and right side of this pillar box?
> 
> It doesn't matter if I change between Native On or Off, either, or if I change to crop, stretch, etc. The HD broadcast always is with those annoying ESPN pillar boxes.


Funny that you should start this thread now, just after I bumped a 1 year old thread about exactly identical topic : Praising ESPN now that they aren't blindly slapping "ugly bars" for ESPN-HD / ESPN2-HD anymore.

http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?t=76359


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## Lord Vader (Sep 20, 2004)

I didn't see that Chandu, sorry, but at least I'm not alone in this. I think.


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## Chandu (Oct 3, 2005)

Lord Vader said:


> I didn't see that Chandu, sorry, but at least I'm not alone in this. I think.


No need to apologize, I just found the coincidence highly amusing.

You're definitely not alone in this. If you look at that old thread, I made exactly identical complaints as you, in a rather vocal manner. I called ESPN and raised a bit of stink about this last year. And now I'm noticing that it has actually paid off. At least it did with Australian Open coverage. You're claiming that you're still seeing the problem, while I've noticed that the situation has improved in 1 year. I'm not sure which exact telecasts you're watching, but they must not be same as what I'm. You may want to call ESPN and complain about it, just as I did last year.


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## Lord Vader (Sep 20, 2004)

I figured it was probably because the broadcast wasn't in HD, but every single basketball game I've seen that is indicated as HD has those sidebars. Every one of them.


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

Games that are not in HD have those sidebars... assuming you don't have your receiver misconfigured to overlay sidebars on everything.

There are lots of things on ESPNHD that are not actually HD... but I'm watching a basketball game right now (Duke vs Clemson) that is in HD, widescreen and all.


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