Black side stripes
 

Why when i watch euro2004 game on cable to i get two thick black stripes up the sides of my picture. Yet when i watch it on terrestrial its fine?

Im watching it in 16:9

Re: Black side stripes
 

Thats the way the Beeb (not watched ITV) are sending it out, its a 4:3 pic in a 16:9 frame. thats the way the host countries TV company will be providing it.

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Bacause the pictures from Portugal are not in widescreen.

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IF you watch on EuroSport (when they have the game on) then they have it in full screen (although it might be a cut top and bottom job). And you need to put up with their commentators (beats ITV's though!)

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BBC and ITV are the same. But as i said, its fine on terrestrial but not on NTL. So seems to me NTL are screwing it up?

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It's the same on Sky, black bars on each side as it should be to maintain the correct aspect ratio.

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Terrestrial Digital or analogue? Analogue is only ever 4:3.
The pictures you have on cable are from Terrestrial Digital.

Still easier to blame everything on ntl. :monkey:

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terrestrail analogue fills the screen but NTL digital doesnt.

blame it on NTL???? So your telling me that it couldnt be processed to fill a screen correctly?

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Widescreen or 4:3 TV ?

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It's not NTL. The BBC are broadcasting 16:9 (with pillarboxing during matches) on all digital platforms. This is because all their studio stuff and graphics are 16:9, and they don't like to broadcast anything 4:3 these days at all.

Re: Black side stripes
 

widescreen

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Mine is the same, but it is just my TV stretching the picture on terrestial because I have 16.9 set as default. If you switch your TV to "auto" you will see exactly what is being transmitted, nowt to do with Ntl.

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hmmm is that how the widescreen TV decides what is the best size to use? I seen it on Digital where it changes size part way through a program, so wasnt sure if it was something in the signal that decided the screen size.

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Then you are using your TV incorrectly. BBC and ITV analogue broadcasts are 4:3. You are horizontally stretching and hence distorting the pictures to fit.
Your ntl box is sending the picture it recieves from the BBC, which is a picture with black bars down either side.

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mine is on auto

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How should i use my TV correctly?

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There is a signal sent by the STB (if fact, two signals) to tell your TV that it's sending a widescreen picture.

The purists claim that you should watch 4:3 content pillarboxed on a 16:9 TV. Most people don't though.

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Terrestrial broadcasts are in 4:3, set your TV to 4:3 with your STB turned off.
Then turn on the STB and your TV should then switch according to what the STB is sending to it.

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In your face, eight balls!

I should add that by "pillarboxed", I mean, with vertical lines left and right, in the same way the BBC are broadcasting the football.

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I dont set any aspect ratio on the TV. I just let it deal with the signal in the way it was designed to. Is that wrong?

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Its designed to show 4:3 pics in a 4:3 ratio, and 16:9 pics in 16:9 ratio. its not dealing with signals in the way it was designed to so i guess that would make it wrong.

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If you are ever* watching an analogue picture and it fills your screen, then what you're watching is actually stretched horizontally. In these instances, your TV should be set to 4:3.

A TV set to auto should do this itself. However, my TV doesn't actually have an "auto" option - on mine, I just select 4:3 as the default size, and it then changes itself when it recieves a widescreen switching signal from the STB.


* sometimes channel 4 show films in letterbox widescreen on analogue - your TV should zoom this image so that it fills your screen, albeit at a lower resolution.

Re: Black side stripes
 

How can you even say that when you dont know what the TV is? IT might be designed to show a 4:3 pic in a 16:9ratio by strethcing the outter edges. Seems way off the point. How ever i got the answer (i think). From what people have said it seams the Digital and terrestrial analogue are transmitted in different formats. Terrestrial 4:3 and Digital 16:9, however the digital signal when showing the portugese pictures can only fill 4:3 but its still transmitted as 16:9

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Because no manufacturer deliberately manufactures a TV which will deliberately distort pictures. Its not rocket science.

Re: Black side stripes
 

gary_580,

Post the make and model of your television, so some one can look into it, then hopefully these arguments can be resolved.

Re: Black side stripes
 

Now im really confused. If stretching a 4:3 picture to fit a 16:9 screen isnt distorting the picture what is it?

Panasonic TX32PD30

Re: Black side stripes
 

Its the way you are using it. It has been setup to stretch the pictures, in normal operation it won't.

Re: Black side stripes
 

While the experts are here, if I switch my STB to RGB my widescreen TV always stretches the picture to fill the screen no matter whether it is a widescreen program or 4:3 (and it makes no difference what aspec setting the TV is on!). Is there any way to get the STB to send the black sidebars for broadcasts that are 4:3?

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What make is your TV, Tod?

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Tod do you have AV control set to on? And are you using the TV out scart on the back of the STB and not the VCR out.

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I have a Panasonic TV. AV control is set to on, and I am pretty sure I am using the TV out scart from the STB, I will check however as you ask.

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Not sure about Panasonic TVs but on my Sony there are 2 options that set widescreen settings. The first one was called "Auto Format" and was the one that would detect black bars and zoom them off-screen. The one that was causing my TV to display 4:3 pictures in stretchyvision was called "Format Correction" and acted independently of "Auto Format". You may want to check the settings on your TV to see of there's anything similar there.

Re: Black side stripes
 

My panny has Auto, Zoom, 16.9, 4.3

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I'd say 4:3 would probably be the best setting then. It should switch to 16:9 when the STB tells it to.

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Thats the way my Thomson works, and what I suggested in post 18.

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What? You think I actually read your posts? ;)

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:p: :p:

No I think you have to get someone to explain them to you :D

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Duh! You got me there :rofl:

Re: Black side stripes
 

The whole point of this thread was to discuss why when the TV is displaying a picture in a format that the STB tells it too does it have black bars down the side.

Interestingly enough i noticed last night that if i watched the football on Eurosport or ITV analogue the black bars werent there. They were only there on ITV digital. Why is it correctly displayed on Eurosport and not ITV digital.

Re: Black side stripes
 

*sigh*

Eurosport and analogue ITV (and analogue BBC) show pictures in 4:3, the resolution they get from the host broadcaster.

The digital versions of both ITV and the BBC use a 16:9 display, because that's how they film the studio stuff, and so *the BBC and ITV themselves* add the bars on the right and left, to the broadcast. The STB isn't putting the bars in, it's just showing you the pictures it's receiving, black bars and all.

The side-issue that this thread got pulled onto was that actually, having bars left and right on a widescreen set is the correct way to view 4:3 content, rather than having it streched to fill the screen...

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Unfortunately when my TV receives an RGB signal 4:3 mode is disabled. The only way my TV displays the black bars on the side in RGB are when channels send the black bars (like BBC1 does with the football).

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I think that is what it is supposed to do. If the STB forwards the black bars to your TV then you should see them - if the channel had no bars in the first place the TV will just display what it gets sent from the STB (filling the whole screen).

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Shame the STB can not add these black bars, but I guess it would be too complex with some channels sending them and some not.

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I've read most of the comments in this thread, but none fully address the problem as I SEE IT.

Ok it is a 4:3 picture transmitted by the host country TV company, in a 16:9 frame broadcast by BBC/ITV in digital format - hence the black bars. But to my eyes this 4:3 picture LOOKS like a 16:9 picture compressed into a 4:3 frame because all the players tend to look like matchstick men, and the perspective seems wrong. I'm sure if it was possible to stretch the 4:3 picture back to 16:9 format everything would look 'normal' again!!

Has anyone else noticed this?

I may be wrong, perhaps I've been watching s-t-r-e-t-c-h-e-d pictures on my panasonic TV for too long. (panasonic call it justified - where the left and right edges of a 4:3 picture are distorted to fill the 16:9 widescreen)

On a second point can anyone explain why the left and right blank areas on football matches from BBC are black, but the same areas on ITV/ITV2 seem to have a golden glow? (NO its NOT a problem with my TV)

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OK, this is the last one. The Beeb have added black to the picture. ITV have added the gold curtain effect.

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ok maybe i missed somit but is widescreen on in the stb settings on it in in 4:3 or 4:3 pan and scan?

in the visual settings on the stb

watched the england match the other day though ntl and fine here.
toshiba widescreen

Re: Black side stripes
 

Very, very last one. If you are watching on 4:3 letterbox or 4:3 Pand S then you won't see black due to signalling from the programme companies. I hope this is what you meant.

Re: Black side stripes
 

I'm certain the narrowness is just perception. If you want to check it out, go to your viewing options and select 4:3 pan and scan on the stb.

The BBC do this black bar stuff all the time with the 4:3 international feeds they get on grandstand. The superbikes and motogp are always presented in this way. I think there are standards that mean they cant switch aspect ratios during the same program so just have to pad out the sides of the picture or (as on CBBC, stretch it), although I have heard a different explanation that the BBC's new editing suites for news, sports and childrens programmes are incapable of doing this anyway but I haven't seen any evidence to back that up.

Re: Black side stripes
 

I would agree with it being perception - a number of time when I have watched a 4:3 picture on a widescreen TV in 4:3 mode it has taken me ages to convince myself that it is not squashed - I think it may have something to do with the fact that the whole screen is not being used and is a sort of optical illusion.

Re: Black side stripes
 

What I was wondering was would it be possible to make use of this wasted space by pushing the 4:3 picture over to the left and have, say, a reults ticker on the right?

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Yes they could, as BBC or ITV are adding the side black to the transmission the transmittied picture is effectivly black-football-black, not football with the STB adding black.

So yes it could be football-stats on the screen.

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I get this problem on most channels now since they did this software upgrade never used to get it before . To be quite frankly I'm PI-soff with it

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What problem?

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it's not a problem you are seeing the picture in the exact ration it is being broadcast in and you don't have to press on buttons on the TV or STB to see it correctly. Can't understand what the problem is really.

It's the old widescreen video issue where people thought they were missing part of the film because there were bars there when in fact they were seeing more of it.

I prefer the bars means i get a proper picture and it's clearer as well.

Re: Black side stripes
 

But the crux of the matter is why dont the bbc mntion this before transmitting a event then hundreds of people would not call into ntl and complain when its not a issue they can help with, when i was there it took ages to explain this to people and some still cancelled because of it stating ' my mates sky does not do it' ... well their mates flipping sky was not set up right so all his 16:9 was getting put out in 4.3.

For those of you with a issue regarding this there are 3 options.

1. Simply go to the stb settings and change from 16.9 to 4.3 for the duration of the match.
2. set your tv 4.3 all the time so your viewing picture is wrong all the time.
3. contact all of the other countries broadcasters and explain that you have black bars on your tv because of them and they should update to the 16.9 standard uk dtv uses. :) ;)

Re: Black side stripes
 

I have a 4th option: get used to it. I don't even notice the bars any more.

Re: Black side stripes
 

Exactly!

Black bars I can get used to.
Horrible stretched pictures I cannot.

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why did you buy a wide screen TV then if you dont notice the edge 2 inches of the screen?

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I fell for the hype. Personally, I don't think there is enough true 16:9 content to make a WSTV worthwhile at the moment (I don't have a DVD).

But back to the point, when I first got it the black bars really bothered me. But now they don't. Oddly, the wife was watching QVC the other day and I instantly noticed it had become widescreen. QVC always used to be a reliable 4:3 channel for testing widescreen signalling; I'm going to have find a new test channel now.

Re: Black side stripes
 

Sky News for the time being, also ITV News are good test channels, as presently they both tx in 4:3.

~Jon

Re: Black side stripes
 

what do you mean by test channels?

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Channels that you can guarantee are always in one format, so you can check the STB and/or TV are working properly. (I use News24 for an "always wide" test channel).

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I think UK Gold is fairly safe as a 4:3 test channel for the moment as far as switching is concerned, but they do broadcast stuff letterboxed to 14:9 sometimes.