I agree, Mark. I was going to make a posting similar to John's last night, but I realized that I was engaged in legacy thinking; afd is just as useful with a 4:3 set as a 16:9 one. AFD permits, as Adam alluded to, the broadcaster to dynamically define the active video frame, and it's not just usable for signaling 16:9 or 4:3, but 1:2.21 and any other as well, and gives the receiver enough information to figure out how to render the largest possible image based on the screen size of the receiver. The lack of it being mandatory -- to this point, anyway -- is another one of those 'mini-failures' on the road to digital broadcasting, along with the dialnorm dropped ball, the effective banning of multiple audio decoders (in otherwords, seriously limiting AC-3 flexibility), lipsync and [add your own.] As for the coupon-box lack of afd, what do you expect of 'government cheese?' John Willkie -----Mensaje original----- De: opendtv-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:opendtv-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] En nombre de Mark Schubin Enviado el: Thursday, December 27, 2007 10:44 AM Para: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Asunto: [opendtv] Re: New Philips HDD/DVD recorder John Shutt wrote: > I don't think that is as big an issue since the NTIA coupons are > intended for STBs to be used with NTSC 4:3 displays. And if a broadcaster decides to use AFD to intermix 16:9 and 4:3 material, what does a non-AFD box deliver? TTFN, Mark ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 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.