On 4/27/2010 1:48 PM, Manfredi, Albert E wrote:
Pan & scan requires someone (not a set-top box) to do panning & scanning. Set-tops can do their own center cut, which is hardly ideal if there is important content on the sides.Mark Schubin wrote:The majority of TVs in the U.S. are fed analog signals from cable and satellite set-top boxes.Yes, but as cable systems go all-digital, the situation would be exactly the same as my upstairs TV, fed from a Digital Stream STB via an S-video connection. Whether the monitor is 4:3 (as it used to be), or 16:9 (as we have now), the STB handles the situation perfectly. Wide screen anamorphic 16:9 is displayed full screen on a 4:3 monitor, I guess using pan and scan, and it fills the screen of a 16:9 monitor.
We made two big mistakes with regard to aspect ratio in the transition.First, we chose to make the default shape 16:9 instead of 4:3. It is relatively easy to derive 16:9 from a 4:3 frame. Both have common sides, and, therefore, characters enter and leave the frame at the same time in both formats. That's not the case when 4:3 is derived from 16:9. Kerns Powers of RCA Laboratories, the person most responsible for the acceptance of the 16:9 aspect ratio, apologized at an NAB convention ten years later for not taking into account cinematographers' common-sides techniques.
Second, we began the transition before Active Format Description (AFD) was in place, and we have yet to make it mandatory. Where AFD is in use and works, different aspect ratios are easily accommodated. Where it isn't, pictures are butchered.
The issue of whether 16:9 is the "right" aspect ratio is much less significant. With common sides and AFD, any input and output ratio can be appropriately accommodated.
Without common sides and AFD, we will ALWAYS have aspect-ratio issues, even when 99.99% of TVs are 16:9. Many great movies were intended to be seen in a narrower-than-16:9 aspect ratio.
TTFN, Mark
A digital cable STB feeding a TV set via analog interface should behave the same way? No? Bert ---------------------------------------------------------------------- You can UNSUBSCRIBE from the OpenDTV list in two ways: - Using the UNSUBSCRIBE command in your user configuration settings at FreeLists.org - By sending a message to: opendtv-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the word unsubscribe in the subject line.
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