# The transition to HD it the ultimate metaphor for the failure of all human endeavor **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [March 10, 2010, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-transition-to-hd-it-the-ultimate-metaphor-for-the-failure-of-all-human-endeavor/531977 "2010-03-10T16:04:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Vernon\_Vernons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/ce73a5/32.png) [@Vernon\_Vernons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Vernon_Vernons)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2010, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-transition-to-hd-it-the-ultimate-metaphor-for-the-failure-of-all-human-endeavor/531977/1 "2010-03-10T16:04:40Z")
Since High Definition television and video has been around for over 10 years now, I decided that it was finally time for me to upgrade all of my consumer electronics entertainment equipment to the 1080p HD spec for movie watching, television, and video games. I figured that costs had come down a lot, and that most of the kinks would have been worked out in a decade. To be polite, it’s just a complete clusterfuck, and one that really highlights pretty much everything wrong with modern consumer culture. I’ve never really understood why consumer culture still operates, for the most part, like it’s 1950 out there. In spite of the internet, in spite of all available technology for researching products and features and so on, it seems like your average consumer just sort of bumbles through the vast majority of their purchasing decisions - to say nothing of their actual usage of products once they get them home. It’s like everyone is a bumbling 1950’s housewife when it comes to using technology. An entire society of confused senior citizens trying to figure out ATM’s, except they’re bringing it down for the rest of us. The rest of this is that due to complete consumer ignorance and therefore lack of demand, “HD” is the most nebulous concept out there. It can mean anything from panned-and-scanned movies that have then been cropped and blown up to artifically fill a widescreen aspect ratio to 1080p Blu-Ray discs to just about anything in between. It’s become a marketing term that’s completely divorced from any actual semiotic **meaning** and attached to anything that it possibly can be attached to. This means that we’re just driven further from any sort of standard and can’t really trust anything. For many of us, “entertainment” is a very important thing - it’s our Art in the same way that others love Opera or Classical Music. Just as you’d be upset to go check out the Mona Lisa only to find it having been “reformatted” so you can only see half of her face, it’s really insulting and discouraging for me to specifically subscribe to HD cable in order to receive HD content, only to find that much of it is bizarrely formatted in a way that compromises the original content. I keep seeing movies that are now available in “HD” and I get excited, thinking that they’ve gone back and rescanned the original film print at a significantly higher resolution than was previous available. Instead, more often than not, they’ve taken an existing DVD or broadcast beta (or God knows what else) copy, blown it up so that it actually loses resolution and looks worse, and then unnaturally chopped it so that it’ll fit the widescreen aspect ratio. “HD” indeed - it looks completely horrible. The absolute worst that I’ve seen is when they’ll take a 3:5 formatted panned-and-scanned version of a movie that was originally in widescreen, then blow and crop the middle rectangle of THAT to create an “HD” version. It’s like going to the symphony only to find out that they’ve rearranged the Debussy piece for three vacuum cleaners and a kazoo for the audience’s “convenience.” I guess this is a pitting, but it just makes me sad more than anything. Nobody gives a shit about art (even the art - yes, the Art - that is an episode of “Twin Peaks”) that’s also “Entertainment” enough to do anything about it, and nobody even understands the goddamned technology that they use enough to understood that they’re getting shafted. And it makes things worse for all of us, especially those of us that care. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2010, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-transition-to-hd-it-the-ultimate-metaphor-for-the-failure-of-all-human-endeavor/531977/2 "2010-03-10T16:24:15Z")
As a recent HDTV purchaser, I agree completely. I absolutely hate the stretched programming so much that I frequently prefer to watch it on the non-HD channel with the black bars instead of the grotesquely distorted “HD” channel. I have been waiting for more true HD programming since Comcast introduced “Xfinity”, but so far, it seems to be a marketing scam more than anything else. ---
**Author:** ![Rhythmdvl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/85f322/32.png) [@Rhythmdvl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rhythmdvl)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2010, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-transition-to-hd-it-the-ultimate-metaphor-for-the-failure-of-all-human-endeavor/531977/3 "2010-03-10T16:41:39Z")
> [@Fear\_Itself](#): > > As a recent HDTV purchaser, I agree completely. I absolutely hate the stretched programming so much that I frequently prefer to watch it on the non-HD channel with the black bars instead of the grotesquely distorted “HD” channel. > > I have been waiting for more true HD programming since Comcast introduced “Xfinity”, but so far, it seems to be a marketing scam more than anything else. Isn’t that user error? I don’t know about other systems, but my receiver (which does the HDMI switching), cable box, and widescreen set all have options to zoom, expand, etc. When something occasionally doesn’t look right, it’s a matter of finding the right settings. YMMV. ---
**Author:** ![Munch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/munch/32/5281_2.png) [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2010, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-transition-to-hd-it-the-ultimate-metaphor-for-the-failure-of-all-human-endeavor/531977/4 "2010-03-10T16:50:48Z")
> [@Vernon\_Vernons](#): > > I keep seeing movies that are now available in “HD” and I get excited, thinking that they’ve gone back and rescanned the original film print at a significantly higher resolution than was previous available. Instead, more often than not, they’ve taken an existing DVD or broadcast beta (or God knows what else) copy, blown it up so that it actually loses resolution and looks worse, and then unnaturally chopped it so that it’ll fit the widescreen aspect ratio. “HD” indeed - it looks completely horrible. The absolute worst that I’ve seen is when they’ll take a 3:5 formatted panned-and-scanned version of a movie that was originally in widescreen, then blow and crop the middle rectangle of THAT to create an “HD” version. Can you tell us what movies have done this? I keep hearing mention of it - but without titles, there’s nothing I can avoid. ---
**Author:** ![Vernon\_Vernons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/ce73a5/32.png) [@Vernon\_Vernons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Vernon_Vernons)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2010, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-transition-to-hd-it-the-ultimate-metaphor-for-the-failure-of-all-human-endeavor/531977/5 "2010-03-10T16:55:24Z")
> [@Rhythmdvl](#): > > Isn’t that user error? I don’t know about other systems, but my receiver (which does the HDMI switching), cable box, and widescreen set all have options to zoom, expand, etc. When something occasionally doesn’t look right, it’s a matter of finding the right settings. YMMV. No, it’s not user error. This might actually be the most egregious example, and I completely forgot to mention it in my post. Many stations are actually pre-stretching SD content so that it “fills the screen” and then putting an “HD” label on it. Absolutely hideous and mindblowing. This content comes across as a 720 signal and it can’t be “unstretched” - it’s not the result of a setting but is the nature of the actual original signal they’re transmitting. Though I completely refuse to watch stretched programming as a matter of principle, my TV (a high-end Samsung) has significantly better stretching algorithms so even _if_ I wanted to stretch the picture, I’d rather do it on my end than rely on their shoddy distortion. ---
**Author:** ![Vernon\_Vernons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/ce73a5/32.png) [@Vernon\_Vernons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Vernon_Vernons)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2010, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-transition-to-hd-it-the-ultimate-metaphor-for-the-failure-of-all-human-endeavor/531977/6 "2010-03-10T17:03:26Z")
> [@Munch](#): > > Can you tell us what movies have done this? I keep hearing mention of it - but without titles, there’s nothing I can avoid. Oh, sorry if I gave the impression that it was something for sale - I mean movies that are broadcast on cable. The most recent one I can remember is \*The Truman Show \*. ---
**Author:** ![BubbaDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bubbadog/32/333_2.png) [@BubbaDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BubbaDog)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2010, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-transition-to-hd-it-the-ultimate-metaphor-for-the-failure-of-all-human-endeavor/531977/7 "2010-03-10T17:06:23Z")
> [@Rhythmdvl](#): > > Isn’t that user error? I don’t know about other systems, but my receiver (which does the HDMI switching), cable box, and widescreen set all have options to zoom, expand, etc. When something occasionally doesn’t look right, it’s a matter of finding the right settings. YMMV. Its actually the opposite of user selectable stretching. My TVs can take SD content and zoom it up to 5 different ways. But if the program provider stretches the SD content I really have no way to compress it back to its original size. So my program is shown to me with fat faces and out of proportion props. Many channels leave the program in its original form but some of the cable HD channels try to make any content fill the screen and you end up with a grainy picture. ---
**Author:** ![Munch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/munch/32/5281_2.png) [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2010, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-transition-to-hd-it-the-ultimate-metaphor-for-the-failure-of-all-human-endeavor/531977/8 "2010-03-10T17:09:13Z")
> [@Vernon\_Vernons](#): > > Oh, sorry if I gave the impression that it was something for sale - I mean movies that are broadcast on cable. The most recent one I can remember is \*The Truman Show \*. Ah. My cable provider (AT&T U-Verse) does a good job of clearly labeling movies broadcast in HD on HD channels, and doesn’t label SD broadcasts on HD channels. Just because it’s on TNTHD doesn’t mean it’s in HD unless the guide has a big “HD” label on it. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2010, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-transition-to-hd-it-the-ultimate-metaphor-for-the-failure-of-all-human-endeavor/531977/9 "2010-03-10T17:39:29Z")
> [@Rhythmdvl](#): > > Isn’t that user error? I don’t know about other systems, but my receiver (which does the HDMI switching), cable box, and widescreen set all have options to zoom, expand, etc. When something occasionally doesn’t look right, it’s a matter of finding the right settings. YMMV. No. Some so called HD channels expand 4:3 programming to fill the 16:9 HD format. HGTV is one example with their home remodelling programs, which were shot in 4:3, but on the HGTV\_HD, they get expanded to fill the extra screen space. There is nothing the user can do to un-expand the programming. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2010, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-transition-to-hd-it-the-ultimate-metaphor-for-the-failure-of-all-human-endeavor/531977/10 "2010-03-10T17:54:47Z")
I’m not planning to go HD any time soon - I like my tv and movie stars to have smooth, beautiful skin, and to not be able to see their razor burn and pimples. My somewhat-related complaint for the technology in this thread is the DVR we bought - it refuses to record a significant number of shows because of blocking signals originating at the station. When it does record, it’s much better than our old VCR, but we’re still using our old VCR to record because of the signal blocking issues. Bah, I say - BAH! ---
**Author:** ![Inbred\_Mm\_domesticus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/aca169/32.png) [@Inbred\_Mm\_domesticus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inbred_Mm_domesticus)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2010, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-transition-to-hd-it-the-ultimate-metaphor-for-the-failure-of-all-human-endeavor/531977/11 "2010-03-10T18:13:25Z")
> [@Fear\_Itself](#): > > No. Some so called HD channels expand 4:3 programming to fill the 16:9 HD format. HGTV is one example with their home remodelling programs, which were shot in 4:3, but on the HGTV\_HD, they get expanded to fill the extra screen space. There is nothing the user can do to un-expand the programming. I only use an antenna to pick up digital/HD content so I haven’t experienced what you are dealing with, but a lot of the digital channels will automatically stretch to fill the screen. I just set my aspect ratio on a Samsung (2 years old) HDTV to 4:3 and it looks normal. I haven’t noticed that any signal can override what my TV is set to. ---
**Author:** ![Machine\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2010, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-transition-to-hd-it-the-ultimate-metaphor-for-the-failure-of-all-human-endeavor/531977/12 "2010-03-10T18:29:25Z")
> [@Vernon\_Vernons](#): > > Oh, sorry if I gave the impression that it was something for sale - I mean movies that are broadcast on cable. The most recent one I can remember is \*The Truman Show \*. I saw them do it to _Heat_ a few weeks ago. They cropped the original movie to fill up a 4:3 screen, and that’s apparently what they showed on SD channels ever since ~1996, when the movie came out. Then they took that same cropped SD version of the movie, and stretched it to fit an HD screen, and sent it out on an HD channel. So it’s _Heat,_ but cropped, resampled, and distorted. That was some fuzzy fuzzy shit, man. I generally don’t watch the full-length movies that come in over the cable; I prefer renting a Blu-Ray instead, where the quality comes through unimpeded. For cable content, I stick with TV shows (e.g. Scrubs, The Good Wife, the olympics) and news. ---
**Author:** ![c\_goat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f4b2a3/32.png) [@c\_goat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/c_goat)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2010, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-transition-to-hd-it-the-ultimate-metaphor-for-the-failure-of-all-human-endeavor/531977/13 "2010-03-10T19:07:19Z")
> [@Fear\_Itself](#): > > No. Some so called HD channels expand 4:3 programming to fill the 16:9 HD format. HGTV is one example with their home remodelling programs, which were shot in 4:3, but on the HGTV\_HD, they get expanded to fill the extra screen space. There is nothing the user can do to un-expand the programming. The worst is shows like House Hunters, where they don’t even stretch it evenly. It’s only the edges that are stretched so when they pan across a room the furniture distorts as it comes in and out of the sides of the screen. At least shows that stretch evenly I can override by setting my TV to 4:3 mode. This semi-stretch crap I can’t do anything about. ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2010, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-transition-to-hd-it-the-ultimate-metaphor-for-the-failure-of-all-human-endeavor/531977/14 "2010-03-10T19:19:51Z")
> [@Vernon\_Vernons](#): > > It’s like going to the symphony only to find out that they’ve rearranged the Debussy piece for three vacuum cleaners and a kazoo for the audience’s “convenience.” Damn, thats funny! ---
**Author:** ![DCnDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dcndc/32/2842_2.png) [@DCnDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DCnDC)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2010, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-transition-to-hd-it-the-ultimate-metaphor-for-the-failure-of-all-human-endeavor/531977/15 "2010-03-10T19:31:36Z")
> [@Fear\_Itself](#): > > There is nothing the user can do to un-expand the programming. Sure there is. Push the button on your TV’s remote that’s labeled either “Aspect Ratio” or more commonly, “Zoom,” until the screen content is the appropriate dimensions. ---
**Author:** ![QuercusMax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/8baadc/32.png) [@QuercusMax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuercusMax)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2010, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-transition-to-hd-it-the-ultimate-metaphor-for-the-failure-of-all-human-endeavor/531977/16 "2010-03-10T19:42:02Z")
> [@DCnDC](#): > > Sure there is. Push the button on your TV’s remote that’s labeled either “Aspect Ratio” or more commonly, “Zoom,” until the screen content is the appropriate dimensions. That assumes it’s a linear stretch. What these stupid channels do is to leave the middle almost untouched, but stretch out the edges. If you were to adjust it back to the normal aspect ration, the center would be squished. ---
**Author:** ![Machine\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2010, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-transition-to-hd-it-the-ultimate-metaphor-for-the-failure-of-all-human-endeavor/531977/17 "2010-03-10T19:53:01Z")
> [@DCnDC](#): > > Sure there is. Push the button on your TV’s remote that’s labeled either “Aspect Ratio” or more commonly, “Zoom,” until the screen content is the appropriate dimensions. This is like making sausage. Out of sausage. You buy an HDTV because you want to see high-quality, high-resolution content, and then you get this stuff that’s been put through a meat grinder before it gets to your eyes. It’s craptastic. ---
**Author:** ![Kiros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/439d5e/32.png) [@Kiros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kiros)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2010, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-transition-to-hd-it-the-ultimate-metaphor-for-the-failure-of-all-human-endeavor/531977/18 "2010-03-10T20:00:32Z")
Stay away from TNT and TBS and you avoid probably 80 or 90 percent of the bad scan/zoom issues. Those Turner networks…! _shakes fist_ ---
**Author:** ![Hampshire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hampshire/32/4887_2.png) [@Hampshire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hampshire)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2010, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-transition-to-hd-it-the-ultimate-metaphor-for-the-failure-of-all-human-endeavor/531977/19 "2010-03-10T20:25:06Z")
> [@Kiros](#): > > Stay away from TNT and TBS and you avoid probably 80 or 90 percent of the bad scan/zoom issues. Those Turner networks…! _shakes fist_ Amen. They really don’t know what the hell they’re doing half the time. My kid wanted to watch Chitty Chitty Bang Bang which was supposedly being broadcast in widescreen HD on a Turner channel. It was in widescreen HD allright. On my 16:9 screen they put a 4:3 picture in the middle of the screen. On this they showed the widescreen version of the film with black bars on the top and bottom. W…T…F? So now I’ve got this mini HD widescreen movie floating in a field of black. “Just zoom in” you say? Sure, now I’ve got a nice blurry picture of the movie that is supposed to be HD resolution. ---
**Author:** ![Merneith](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/57b2e6/32.png) [@Merneith](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merneith)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2010, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-transition-to-hd-it-the-ultimate-metaphor-for-the-failure-of-all-human-endeavor/531977/20 "2010-03-10T20:38:11Z")
I recently picked up a small tv - 24", 720p, widescreen. I’ve been watching the widescreen HD channels almost exclusively. I have my screen set to show things in widescreen settings and if I need to watch a non-HD channel, I’ll change the screen setting to 4:3. Every now and then, my DVR will tape a show and it appears in sort of widescreen box. Like it still has the 16:9 ratio but there are two inch black bars around it on all four sides. What’s going on with that? I’m never sure if I should resize for 4:3, or zoom, or whatever. It doesn’t seem to be 4:3, but it also doesn’t seem to fill the whole screen. It doesn’t happen often but I’m not sure what triggers it. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-transition-to-hd-it-the-ultimate-metaphor-for-the-failure-of-all-human-endeavor/531977.md?page=2)