ITV football never widescreen on VM / sky?
 

How come whenever footy is shown especially ITV there is never a widescreen version ?? take tonights match in 4:3, but then often if ITV2/4 show an alternative match that IS in 16:9 surely if ITV1 is the premium ITV channel it should show the best pic ????

Re: ITV football never widescreen on VM / sky?
 

Its not ITV's fault - when an British team are playing away, they use the feed provided by the host broadcaster.

Re: ITV football never widescreen on VM / sky?
 

It might sound ignorant but can't they "buy" a better proper feed? It doesn't seems to happen on Sky Sports Channel when a British team playing away.

Re: ITV football never widescreen on VM / sky?
 

Sky Sports can afford it. They get ££Ã ¡Ãƒâ€šÃ‚£Ãƒâ€šÃ‚£ from people paying to watch it, and more ££Ã ¡Ãƒâ€šÃ‚£Ãƒâ€šÃ‚£ from the adverts too. ITV only get the latter.

Re: ITV football never widescreen on VM / sky?
 

Getting the same on Freeview ITV1.

Re: ITV football never widescreen on VM / sky?
 

Fair point. One would hope ITV could pump in more money to get the full package rather than a "value" package. Is that all the quality they can get/afford with the so-called "exclusive" broadcasting right?

Since they are the only channel in England showing the match (as far as I know) I really dissappointed to have to watch it on a mediocre quality with no other option. SkySports is showing cricket right now me think.

May be ITV cut out some of those annoying commentors saving some money to up their bidding.

Re: ITV football never widescreen on VM / sky?
 

Just think - from next season, ITV have some of the FA Cup games and home England games. There's something to look forward to. :p:

Re: ITV football never widescreen on VM / sky?
 

I know. That's depressing. Think you can watch it on Setanta as well but the quality on some of the matches I watched previously is equally depressing. Wembley in a 4:3 just not right:dozey:

Re: ITV football never widescreen on VM / sky?
 

In Champions League football, the nation of the home club is responsible to provide the broadcast and hence the feed to other Nations.

Tonights match was being filmed by the Dutch in 4:3, not 16:9...

if the game had been shown on Sky Sports 2 or Extra, it would also have been in 4:3, because thats how they would have got the feed from Holland too.

Re: ITV football never widescreen on VM / sky?
 

historically these european games are broadcast in 14:9 which is a halfway house between 16:9 and 4:3

Reason for this is most broadcasters in Europe are(or until very recently were) broadcasting primarily in 4:3

14:9 is a halfway house between the 2. Meaning people who watch on a 4:3 system don't get the images truncated too much(To show 16:9 on a 4:3 system they use an ARC which in simple terms just zooms the picture in) Also means that people on a 16:9 system will still get slightly more.

It's frustrating I know, but as 16:9 becomes the norm I'd expect to see this go, especially when HD comes in proper as this is an exclusivley 16:9 format. However it will take time for the providers to do this.

IT's also worth bearing in mind that the providers are the local feed pool not Virgin or Beeb or Sky but the local provider.

In other words it's europes fault :)

Re: ITV football never widescreen on VM / sky?
 

If you mean the Liverpool match tonight I watched it on a mates TV in widescreen as he had to use the aerial feed as his trouble and strife was taping off the satellite so he couldn't watch it on SKY, so does that mean it looks like terrestrial is OK for widescreen?

Re: ITV football never widescreen on VM / sky?
 

it was a zoomed picture you had NOT widescreen ..... as there was both borders at the side AND top and bottom!!!

Re: ITV football never widescreen on VM / sky?
 

Never saw any borders, his TV is an old SONY CRT Widescreen set to SMART mode I think!

Re: ITV football never widescreen on VM / sky?
 

i still feel ITV is not dishing out enough money to get a good feed. Sky manage to show it in HD on all their UCL slot!

Anyone know any PSV fan live in Holland with widescreen (sounds tall order)? I just can't believe the Dutch only do 4:3 feed on their favourite sport.

Re: ITV football never widescreen on VM / sky?
 

There is another option. Sky could be taking that 4:3 feed, then zooming into the centre of it (as Smart mode on the TV does) and chopping off the top and bottom.

Re: ITV football never widescreen on VM / sky?
 

In that case may be ITV can do the same? Is that particularly difficult?

But judging from the "original" 4:3 horibble qualityI don't know how much worse it would be to zoom and crop it. On SkySport HD the image quality anddetails were brilliant in other away match so I can't imagine that's the case.

I'm going down to my mate's flat to watch it on a Sony Bravia and will check what kind of quality we get on the Roma Manure game.

Re: ITV football never widescreen on VM / sky?
 

I watched it last night and initially it was 4:3 with large bands on the left and right. I played around with the V+ settings and hey presto go it into wide screen mode.

Original settings
Plasma TV set to FULL on HMDI input.
V+ set to 720 wide

New settings
TV set to wide
v+ set to 720

Picture now in wide, change back to original settings and it goes back to 4:3.

On the new settings nothing appears to be lost by any zooming effect, I don't have the technical knowledge to be able to explain why it works with the new settings, but it does work (for me anyway).

Setch

Re: ITV football never widescreen on VM / sky?
 

I would never stretch the picture to fit the screen all you see is short stumpy people. My TV is set to automatically display the format delivered 16:9 or 4:3

I must say though i saw the highlights of the Liverpool game on Sky tonight & it was in wide screen & didn't seem stretched. Wether they had their own cameras at the game or ITV chose to ignore a widescreen feed remains to be proved:confused:

The Man U pictures were decidedly blocky/pixalated as usual :mad:

Re: ITV football never widescreen on VM / sky?
 

As has been said, ITV and Sky are not responsible for the picture shape - it is the responsibility of the host broadcaster. When a match is played in Britain, the host broadcaster is either ITV or Sky, and the game is in 16:9 (and also HD on Sky).

The main issue here is what to do with the feed the host broadcaster provides if it's in 4:3. ITV, who naturally will have studio presentation in 16:9 choose to present the match in 4:3 in a 16:9 frame, so you get black bars down the side. This is fine if you would rather a 4:3 image stay in its correct form, but if you prefer stretching it then you need to change the settings on your box to 4:3 normal, and let your TV stretch the image.

Sky operate slightly differently. They take a 4:3 feed and zoom in on it, as well as stretching it slightly. They then put their own score graphics on it, which look as they should do. However, as the host broadcaster also puts the main graphics (ie. player name captions, yellow card captions) onto the pictures, these look hopelessly large when Sky treat the pictures in this way.

In my opinion ITV's method is better. I say this because if you prefer to maintain the correct dimensions of a 4:3 picture you can, and if you prefer to stretch it to fill a widescreen TV then you can just change the picture settings on your box. With Sky you get no choice, and are forced to watch their mangled pictures which, sadly, many readilt put up with.

And to answer one theory put forward on page 1 of this thread, Sky do not buy better quality feeds. They will be provided with the same feed that ITV would be provided with were they covering the match. Their HD channels just show their SD content, but upscaled. However, they're still not in proper 16:9.

ITV's picture quality, however, is an entirely different matter...

Re: ITV football never widescreen on VM / sky?
 

Just watched the game on SkySports HD between Chelsea and Valencia and the quality was superb in the widescreen with amazing details. SWP doesn't seem any shorter than usual, the goal doesn't seems any wider, and you can clearly see the cut on Ayala face when he took off his plaster. Oh and all those TV graphic just look about the right size to me.

I think it would be amazing if in theory Sky just upscale the same 4:3 feed they got like ITV's but still manage to broadcast it HD in such details. But then again I don't know what kind of feed resolution they getting and I'm applying my understanding of trying to blow up a low res image to be printed on a large paper, which probably doesn't work the same in live broadcast?

I do appreciate the ITV is available free for everyone have access to digital tv (anyone doesn't?). So they might need to accomodate the wider households still on 4:3? My mates got all the sky HD contents and his super large sony bravia make me a very jealous man.

Re: ITV football never widescreen on VM / sky?
 

Last night, I flicked between the two games on Sky Sports 1 and 2.

the Roma vs Man U game was being stretched from 4:3 to 16:9 after Sky's score over lay was put on. You could tell by the score graphic in the top left being visibly wider than the one overlayed on the Chelsea v Valencia Sky 2 game.

Re: ITV football never widescreen on VM / sky?
 

That's because it was in proper 16:9 and HD, because Sky were the host broadcaster.