At 7:49 PM -0700 5/27/04, John Willkie wrote: >I find it hard to believe that a 4:3 set actually is HDTV, since the only >HDTV table 3 formats are 16:9. What makes these sets qualify? Because they >can handle MP@HL video? Then, why not display HDTV content natively? > Too much Tequila John? You really are off the wall today. The display is decoupled from the source in Digital TV. All sets must accommodate all ATSC formats, as well as legacy 4:3 525 line sources. Thus by default, any screen (aspect ratio) will have some unused areas if the source is displayed accurately (some sets fill the screen by distorting or cropping the source. What's more, no lithographed display can display all formats natively, unless you want them to be presented in windows (i.e. 640 x 480, 854 x 480, 1280 x 720 and 1920 x 1080); image scaling is a prerequisite for any ATSC conformant display. Let's say the display is based on a lithographed technology with 1280 x 1024 samples (a common workstation format with a 1.25:1 aspect ratio). If you prefer, we could use a 1600 x 1200 panel that is 4:3. Now tell me that these displays are incapable of using a 1280 x 720 subset to display HD properly... Regards Craig ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 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.