A bit more news, either good or bad depending on your TV.
The signal seems to be a 16:9 480i , this looks great on a widescreen TV and is displayed as 16:9 with top/bottom bars on most SD (4:3) TVs but some SD TVs will not do the correct "anamorphic stretch" on 16:9 pictures so the picture is distorted. (This problem was first seen with some early Sony 4:3 HDTVs when they were given a 16:9 HD signal).
DirecTV is deciding what to do about this problem. They may continue broadcasting the existing signal, or they may change to transmitting the 16:9 letterboxed inside a 4:3 frame. If they do that, those of you with widescreen TVs will see a 4:3 picture with sidebars to fill the 16:9 screen, and black bars top and bottom; you will need to use your zoom control to expand the picture to fill the screen.
The signal seems to be a 16:9 480i , this looks great on a widescreen TV and is displayed as 16:9 with top/bottom bars on most SD (4:3) TVs but some SD TVs will not do the correct "anamorphic stretch" on 16:9 pictures so the picture is distorted. (This problem was first seen with some early Sony 4:3 HDTVs when they were given a 16:9 HD signal).
DirecTV is deciding what to do about this problem. They may continue broadcasting the existing signal, or they may change to transmitting the 16:9 letterboxed inside a 4:3 frame. If they do that, those of you with widescreen TVs will see a 4:3 picture with sidebars to fill the 16:9 screen, and black bars top and bottom; you will need to use your zoom control to expand the picture to fill the screen.