[mythtv-users] Is Wider better?

[Michael T. Dean]

On 05/10/2007 08:32 AM, Jonathan Rogers wrote:
> On Wed, 2007-05-02 at 13:19 +1200, Steve Hodge wrote:
>   
>> In my setup I get widescreen content via a satellite set top box. The
>> set top box has been told that I have a widescreen tv, so that it
>> doesn't introduce any letterboxing of it's own. I then capture the
>> output with Myth. It's captured at ( e.g.) 720x576 but it's capturing
>> the full widescreen frame. When I play it back on my plasma I get a
>> proper widescreen picture without letterboxing or pillarboxing and I
>> don't need to mess with zoom modes etc.
>>     
>
> So, does that setup work because the channel you're receiving from a
> satellite always has 16:9 video?
>   

Some countries use WSS.  See (from earlier in the thread) 
http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/mythtv/users/267286#267286 .  Some 
STB's do the same cropping that Myth does for you.

> What's annoying to me is that though ATSC was designed with widescreen
> in mind, all the local channels I've seen only broadcast proper 16:9
> streams when it's HD (720p or 1080i). All the SD streams are 480i and
> 4:3, even though many of those shows are letterboxed, since they started
> out as 16:9. It seems to me that 720x480 or 704x480 should look as good
> as DVD-Video, but the ATSC broadcasts never do because of the
> letterboxing and low bitrates. This is especially common on PBS.

But, if the source material is letterboxed 480i, any transformations 
they do on the video can be done by you.  And, you're not going to get 
very different quality either way (sure they could spend more time 
pre-processing than you can during real-time playback, but you can 
always transcode offline).  In other words, when they originally got the 
show from the network, they probably got a 480i letterboxed version.  
Even though they can now do real widescreen, they're probably not 
getting a new copy to broadcast.

Mike