NBC Wrong Size

[chaddux]

Guys, you got him chasing stuff that he doesnt need to be doing.. Its not his tv, dish, or his nbc affiliate. Its the NBC NATIONAL FEED that goes out to all the affiliates... heres the deal.... someone at NBC when a program starts leaves in in standard definition - high def mode... ( I have noticed this too except on my hdtv I get the postage stamp) black bars on all sides! (942 in single user mode) The program plays as it should... then after the first commercial either the switcher automatically kicks in or someone hits a button.. for the sd feed you get the 4:3 full screen that you would normaly see. For the hd sets you get the full hd 16:9 picture. For some reason NBC is big on doing this. Its not your tv.. its just normal for nbc. For some reason NBC just likes doing that as on my SD tv's (510) and 2 (311'S) I will get the letterbox like you see then when the program switches to high def.. letter box gone.. Note: there are some programs on NBC HD that will display letter box on 4:3 tv's the entire time. This is the life of the digital era as we know it and get used to it because its not going away any time soon. The only way that you would be able to get rid of those letterboxed programming is to upgrade to an hdtv and hope that your local nbc affilate is braudcasting in hd. Its completly normal.

No, you're wrong bob. Obviously, you didn't read the entire thread. I already said what you said. That's not the problem here. His TV is zooming in when the program starts (eliminating the black bars and cutting off the left and right side of the program) and then zooming out when the commercial comes on and then zooming back in and continuing in that cycle. Many new Toshiba TVs have this option to eliminate black bars from letterbox presentations. If he can give me the model number (I think I know what it is), I can confirm this.

I have a SD TV and receiver and I see the black bars. Since he isn't seeing the black bars (and not seeing the left and right side of the program), that means his TV is zooming. His problem isn't the black bars: it's the lack of black bars and the lack of the left and right side of the program.

 

[goaliebob99]

I feel stupid now.. I thought that was the issue... yea then its a tv problem... Ok im admitting it out loud that Chad was 1000% correct. Its them 30,000 beers that I will be receiving on wednesday if what I said in the uplink thread comes true!

 

[chaddux]

I feel stupid now.. I thought that was the issue... yea then its a tv problem... Ok im admitting it out loud that Chad was 1000% correct. Its them 30,000 beers that I will be receiving on wednesday if what I said in the uplink thread comes true!

I thought that was the problem too, at first. After a bit more explaining and rdinkel's suggestion, I realized that wasn't the problem.

By the way, you might tell your wife to hide your keyboard before you start drinking those 30,000 beers. Drunken posts can be problematic.

 

[joedekock]

There is nothing wrong at all. What is happening is that certain shows especially in prime time are filmed and broadcast in a 16:9 HD format. NBC and other broadcasters used to convert the picture to a 4:3 SD, so you would not notice the difference. (ABC and CBS still do). They would do this by "cutting off" a little from each side and then fill the screen all the way to top and sides. Instead of doing this still NBC just broadcasts the HD signal over SD signal making it appear with the bars. So now instead of "doctoring" the picture to make it fit your 4:3 T.V. its just "down resed". (The resolution is less). Remember when you used to watch a movie in primetime on television, or on a VHS tape, you would see the caption at the beginning saying: "this film has been modified from its original version, it has been formatted to fit your T.V. screen". Well those days are gone and it is also becoming true for the HD shows. This is in hopes that people will go out and purchase an HD television to get the HD movement rolling more. Remember the FCC wants HD to be the standard by 2008 to 2010.

All commercials are still filmed and broadcast in 4:3 SD. So at a commercial break the bars disappear.

I hope this all makes sense.

 

[Cyclone]

My Panasonic plasma did the same thing. But it was a "auto zoom" feature. If the TV detected a letterbox show, it would automatically switch the "zoom" mode. When the letterbox material went away, such as a 4:3 commerical break, the TV would then switch back to normal mode. Since NBC shows more 16:9 SD than the other networks, it likely appears to be a NBC problem.

I'd suggested checking out some other channels with a lot of 16:9 SD programming such as NatGeo, Discovery (TLC), TCM, or Fox movie channel. See if acts the same on them when they show widescreen. If so, I'd think it is your TV's configuration.

 

[bpickell]

I don't think its the tv. I am seeing the same thing. It's only on NBC. I have four widescreen settings and not one of them will show the whole picture. I believe it is a problem with the national feed. I noticed this a while back while watching ER, I noticed that you only get a partial view of the peacock logo. It almost looks like an 8 in the lower right corner. No matter what settings you set the tv on you can not get the whole picture, unless I switch to my HD tuner and watch it in HD.

By the way my tv is 16X9 and does not have auto zoom.

 

[waltinvt]

I think you're both partially right.

Some of it's a result of how NBC handles the switch between actual HD programing and the variations of what happens during commerical breaks, like whether the ad is 4:3 or 16:9.

Somewhere in the HDTV's menu there's probably an option to automatically change aspect ratios, which if set will have the screen jumping around, trying to keep up with the changes.

 

[SummitAdvantageRetailer]

Someone feels vindicated. But it can't be just 2 people to report this problem with NBC.

 

[chaddux]

No, joedekock and bpickell, you are wrong. I've already explained this to goaliebob. If you would read the ENTIRE thread, I wouldn't have to explain this again. I'm going to use big letters and red coloring so you can see it.

The problem isn't that he has the black bars. We know the black bars are normal. We know the black bars are normal. We know the black bars are normal. Don't say again that the black bars are normal. We know the black bars are normal. It's the fact that he DOES NOT HAVE BLACK BARS when he is SUPPOSED TO HAVE BLACK BARS! When a widescreen program starts, HIS TV IS ZOOMING IN which eliminates the black bars AND ELIMINATES THE LEFT AND RIGHT SIDE OF THE PROGRAM. THIS IS NOT NORMAL BEHAVIOR.

The problem is not with the national feed or EVERYONE would have this problem. Everyone doesn't have this problem so it is not a national feed problem. IT IS A PROBLEM WITH HIS TV. As I've already said, most new Toshiba TVs have a feature to automatically zoom when a letterbox presentation begins. He has a Toshiba TV and, most likely, that's what is happening.

 

[chaddux]

There is nothing wrong at all. What is happening is that certain shows especially in prime time are filmed and broadcast in a 16:9 HD format. NBC and other broadcasters used to convert the picture to a 4:3 SD, so you would not notice the difference. (ABC and CBS still do). They would do this by "cutting off" a little from each side and then fill the screen all the way to top and sides. Instead of doing this still NBC just broadcasts the HD signal over SD signal making it appear with the bars. So now instead of "doctoring" the picture to make it fit your 4:3 T.V. its just "down resed". (The resolution is less). Remember when you used to watch a movie in primetime on television, or on a VHS tape, you would see the caption at the beginning saying: "this film has been modified from its original version, it has been formatted to fit your T.V. screen". Well those days are gone and it is also becoming true for the HD shows. This is in hopes that people will go out and purchase an HD television to get the HD movement rolling more. Remember the FCC wants HD to be the standard by 2008 to 2010.

All commercials are still filmed and broadcast in 4:3 SD. So at a commercial break the bars disappear.

I hope this all makes sense.

No, joedekock and bpickell, you are wrong. I've already explained this to goaliebob. If you would read the ENTIRE thread, I wouldn't have to explain this again. I'm going to use big letters and red coloring so you can see it.

The problem isn't that he has the black bars. We know the black bars are normal. We know the black bars are normal. We know the black bars are normal. Don't say again that the black bars are normal. We know the black bars are normal. It's the fact that he DOES NOT HAVE BLACK BARS when he is SUPPOSED TO HAVE BLACK BARS! When a widescreen program starts, HIS TV IS ZOOMING IN which eliminates the black bars AND ELIMINATES THE LEFT AND RIGHT SIDE OF THE PROGRAM. THIS IS NOT NORMAL BEHAVIOR.

The problem is not with the national feed or EVERYONE would have this problem. Since everyone doesn't have this problem, it is not a national feed problem. NBC is not going to broadcast with half of their logo cut off. IT IS A PROBLEM WITH HIS TV. As I've already said, most new Toshiba TVs have a feature to automatically zoom when a letterbox presentation begins. He has a Toshiba TV and, most likely, that's what is happening.

 

[joedekock]

No, joedekock and bpickell, you are wrong. I've already explained this to goaliebob. If you would read the ENTIRE thread, I wouldn't have to explain this again. I'm going to use big letters and red coloring so you can see it.

The problem isn't that he has the black bars. We know the black bars are normal. We know the black bars are normal. We know the black bars are normal. Don't say again that the black bars are normal. We know the black bars are normal. It's the fact that he DOES NOT HAVE BLACK BARS when he is SUPPOSED TO HAVE BLACK BARS! When a widescreen program starts, HIS TV IS ZOOMING IN which eliminates the black bars AND ELIMINATES THE LEFT AND RIGHT SIDE OF THE PROGRAM. THIS IS NOT NORMAL BEHAVIOR.

The problem is not with the national feed or EVERYONE would have this problem. Since everyone doesn't have this problem, it is not a national feed problem. NBC is not going to broadcast with half of their logo cut off. IT IS A PROBLEM WITH HIS TV. As I've already said, most new Toshiba TVs have a feature to automatically zoom when a letterbox presentation begins. He has a Toshiba TV and, most likely, that's what is happening.

I see where I was wrong. I know what you mean about the TV having different proportionate sizes for a SD signal. But in his question he says that the screen zooms in on the picture. So he starts with the 16:9 over 4:3 picture, but then it gets zoomed in? Is this a Toshiba technology where it can zoom in on a SD signal? The way most tv's work is if it is not a 720p or 1080i signal, it stays fixed to the SD proportioned screen size you set up in the T.V.

 

[sA :: Shaggy]

Wow its amazing what you can read when its in really big letters and colors. Thanks for that it helped my mostly because i didn't read the entire thread

 

[kn6k]

I noticed the situation ( as described in the original post when I lived in the Monterey/Salinas DMA. KSBW did that zoom with the nbc logo cut off, however KNBC-LA did NOT do this. It looks to me like it was something the stations do. MY tv at the time had no zooms or aspect ratio controls.

 

[goaliebob99]

@party Glad im not the only one who thought that way ... (im sharing beers now )

 

[chaddux]

So he starts with the 16:9 over 4:3 picture, but then it gets zoomed in? Is this a Toshiba technology where it can zoom in on a SD signal? The way most tv's work is if it is not a 720p or 1080i signal, it stays fixed to the SD proportioned screen size you set up in the T.V.

You've almost got it. He has a regular 4:3 TV, not a widescreen. It's actually a regular 4:3 signal that is showing a widescreen presentation in letterbox (just like watching a widescreen DVD on a regular TV). The technology is for watching widescreen presentations on regular TVs. It's to "fix" widescreen letterbox presentations. A normal SD presentation is essentially a widescreen presentation with the left and right sides cut off and no black bars. The black bars are just used to fill the dead space created by the mismatched dimensions of the presentation and the TV. This technology essentially tries to show a widescreen letterbox presentation as if it were a regular 4:3 presentation: it zooms in on the area that would be shown in a normal 4:3 presentation which eliminates the black bars (but also chops off part of the left and right sides) to make it appear as if it was a full screen presentation. The problem is that Toshiba has apparently used several different names for this feature in the menus, even in the same product line (older versions of the same product called it something different than new versions in the same product line).

 

[kn6k]

chaddux, I noticed what he was seeing and my tv HAD NO controls for or ability to zoom or change aspect ratios, it was a 15 yr old sony 27" without even s-video

 

[mattb]

I noticed the local NBC station here in Columbus runs Leno and Conan in WideScreen now their both Broadcasted in HD! It dont seem to bug me though on my old school SD TV.. Guess I am used to DVD's in that format.

 

[bpickell]

If it's just a Toshiba thing. Then why does my neighbor with a Mitsubishi widescreen see the same thing as me. Also a co-worker with a 42" Sony Widescreen same problem. My aunt 55" Sony Same problem.

I don't think its a Toshiba thing. I'm not going to be rude and belittle you. But I never once said anything about black bars.

By the way auto aspect ratio is turned off.

 

[bpickell]

Here are the 5 settings on my TV (I tried all of them).

0 - Natural The image is displayed Close to its originally formatted proportion
1 - Theater Wide 1 For 4:3 Format Program
2 - Theater Wide 2 For 16:9 Letter box program
3 - Theater Wide 3 For 16:9 Letter box program with subtitles
4 - Full For 16:9 source spreezed (4:3) program (None of the picture is hidden)

Again auto aspect is turned off

 

[bpickell]

Using the 0 - Natural setting puts bars on top and on the sides. The logo is still cut off