Most of the news that comes out of NAB isn't that interesting to consumers, but these new
MPEG encoders from
Motorola have a cool new feature that we're excited about as HD fans. As much as we love HD, we accept the fact that most of the world is still living in SD, and sure, for the most part that's there problem. But where is our problem is that many of the programs we watch are produced with SD viewers in mind. The biggest example of this is when sports are framed for the 4x3 aspect ratio of SDTVs. This is really obvious on a football game when we're waiting for the ball to be hiked, and the camera is aimed to ensure there's nothing to see on the sides. While this ensure SDTV fans aren't missing any of the action, those with a wider perspective usually get to see grass in that extra realestate we paid for. Well, these new encoders feature Active Format Description (AFD) which can automatically decide if the content should be letterboxed or cropped. This way the producer can rest easy when directing his camera operators to frame for 16x9, without worrying about all the SD fans at home complaining cause they can't see the action. Of course this means they'll just complain about the black bars, but that's for another discussion.
[Via
Media Experiences 2 Go]
posted Apr 14th 2008 11:18PM
Saturday Night Live currently does this. If you watch on a SDTV, you get letterboxing, but if you watch on a HDTV, you get the full 16x9 frame, which national NBC by the way looks absolutely gorgeous via OTA for me.
-Brian
all i have to say is if you dont want the black bars, stop complaining and buy an hdtv
Yes, so you can ditch letterboxing and embrace pillarboxing on all the legacy 4x3 content. :)
It would be GREAT if this becomes widely used. It stinks when I've got a basketball game on in beautiful High Definition and I keep asking myself...why are they showing me half of the backcourt on one side of the screen and the first 3 rows of fans behind the hoop on the other? It's at least good to know this issue has been recognized.
NICE. It's about time.
edit your copy