[opendtv] Re: Learning From the Veterans - local news in HD

  • From: "Manfredi, Albert E" <albert.e.manfredi@xxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: "opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Tue, 27 Apr 2010 16:24:35 -0500

Mark Schubin wrote:

> Here's a quick example:
>
> There's a 16:9 show with a 4:3 segment (e.g., for the recent
> obituary of the actor who played the Munchkin coroner, there's a
> segment of "The Wizard of Oz").
>
> Without AFD, that segment on a letterboxed 4:3 TV becomes "postage
> stamp," surrounded by a black border. With AFD, the 4:3 TV might
> get the 16:9 part of the show as letterbox and the movie clip full
> screen.
>
> And, if the old footage was something the producers decided could
> be trimmed, then AFD would allow a 16:9 TV to see it without the
> pillarbox bars, too.

Okay, that makes sense. For the common everyday case, such as CNN shown on wide 
screen displays as short and fat people, simply transmitting the SD CNN as 704 
X 480 anamorphic would solve that problem nicely. (I read somewhere that CNN is 
going HD. That too will solve the problem.)

> If you look at something like the American Cinematographer
> Manual, you will see that common-sides aspect-ratio accommodation
> does NOT use a vertical center cut. You do not, therefore, get too
> much sky.

Mark, maybe I'm not using the correct technical terms; my argument is purely 
geometric. If you show common sides, then the 4:3 image will either show too 
much vertical content, or the 16:9 will look like the image viewed through a 
microsope. (Slight exaggeration.) What other possibilities are there? When 
movies went to wide screen, they went that way to show more of the scene than 
the previous 4:3 movies, no? So I'm suggesting, when people BUY wide screen 
displays, they also are looking to see more of the scene. The article that 
started this thread also alludes to this, when talking about the design of the 
news set, and acknowledged that they have to limit the usefulness of the sides.

Imagine watching HD football with the common sides approach. You get nice 
closeups of the players, don't you? You don't get the wider view of the 
stadium, that you'd expect compared with your old analog set.

>> 2. The 16:9 image will not take advantage of the greater
>> resolution the 16:9 HD monitors have.
>
> You assume the same resolution in capture and display. Common
> 1080-line HDTV is 1920x1080. In the Paramount Pictures version of
> 4:3 capture, the digital masters would be 1920x1440. So how would
> there be a loss of resolution?

The common sides image has to be viewable on low res 4:3 analog sets. Which 
means, no matter what the capture resolution was, the horizontal view connot 
contain more detail than analog sets can show comfortably. So wide screen 
displays cannot display any more content per screen width than the low res 
analog displays. You have lost the benefit of the higher res.

Bert
 
 
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