HD SIZING

[mdram]

occasionally i will tune into an hd station and see they are playing the show in standard tv size as letterbox

why dont they just throw it out in full wide screen hd?

sci fi seems to do this alot

 

[rockymtnhigh]

Because they are not broadcasting a HD show. If they "throw it out in wide screen HD" it will be an SD upconverted stretched. It won't be HD.

Why do they do it? Because they are cheap. And really don't care if they broadcast in HD.

 

[M Sparks]

Because they are not broadcasting a HD show. If they "throw it out in wide screen HD" it will be an SD upconverted stretched. It won't be HD.

Why do they do it? Because they are cheap. And really don't care if they broadcast in HD.

MDRAM's talking about letterboxed programming. Shows that were shot in widescreen, but there are no HD masters available.

And he/she's right...they should be upconverted. They wouldn't be stretched, they would be zoomed. You can do it yourself with your TV or STB, but they have much better upscalers than we do, and it's ridiculous that they don't do it.

I've experimented with this before...loaded some anamorphic DVD material into Premiere Pro and upscaled it with Red Giant Instant HD. The result was much better than just zooming.