The only real point to it all is the first two words of what you just said:
“You buy.”
That’s the reason the label HD is slapped all over everything. It’s also the reason it all isn’t more clearly explained. Consumer technology has to appear easy to use; it doesn’t have to be easy to use.
I have a brand new Vizio 42" 120hz set with four ‘zoom’ settings (full, stretch, zoom1, zoom2) and none of them will compress a 1080i broadcast that has been stretched by the broadcaster.
For example, TBS-HD shows “Friends” in the evening. It was recorded in 4:3, but TBS stretches it to fill 16:9, and broadcasts it in 1080i. None of my zoom settings will compress it back down to 4:3. Does yours?
So it turns out that not everyone can see a difference between regular TV and HD, and I’m* one of them; apparently most of the people who don’t see a difference are women. While I can notice the strangely stretched aspect on some HD channels, the picture quality has no noticable difference to me at all, even on the HD channels my dad pays extra for. After 50 repeations of “why aren’t you watching the show in HD” and him flipping the channels between the two and asking “you really don’t see a difference?!” he’s finally accepted that while he and my brother note an improvement, neither my mother and I notice one at all.
So, count me as one of the people who doesn’t get the fuss at all.
*my vision tests as normal, but I can’t see anything in any of those old Magic Eye posters & books, and my ablility to differentiate colors isn’t great either, so one of those things might come into play too.
I’m not DCnDC but yep, I can compress TBS back to 4:3 on my TV. It’s because I use an HD cable box hooked up to my TV via component (analog) instead of HDMI (digital). The digital connection gives me no aspect options on the TV but the cable box itself has some options as well. Of course, nothing can fix the fish-o-vision perpetrated by Scripps Networks (HGTV, Food Network, etc.).
It’s a learned trait. Try watching 3-4 HD movies a week, and pretty soon you’ll start noticing the difference. 
I can see the difference, but I often prefer the SD version, IF i can get it on a CRT. I can sit as close to a one of those and never notice any pixelization. The only time HD is better is when you have those fuzzy straight lines, like in sports. And I don’t generally watch sports.
I remember before HDs even existed and I thought sticking computer games on a TV made them look a heck of a lot better. And. to this day, 1024x768 on my CRTs looks better than even the much higher native resolutions of an LCD.
All that said, I find it doesn’t take too long to get used to fuzzy squish vision, so if I have a choice between the way this thread says fake HD is handled, and my own stretched and upscaled SD, I’ll probably pick the latter.
Who decided to launch a new format at the start of a recession? Who decided to launch another (3D) in the middle of a recession?
I buy my TVs at repair shops. Once HDs become available there, I might get one.
I understand what you are saying, but I look at in a different way. I have a big ass Plasma. It makes the good material (sports, bluray movies) look out of this world awesome. I sometimes find myself watching a football or basketball game just because it is so damn clear and beautiful. They have these travel shows on HDnet in which they fly over different countrysides in a helicopter. It is simply gorgeous, you can see the wrinkles on the shirts that are hanging out on clotheslines as they fly over the Italian coast.
The downside of having a big ass plasma is that it makes the not so clear material that looked pretty good on my 460p 34 inch CRT look absolutely crappy. It is like putting on good glasses for the first time or turning on the lights in a bar at 2:00am. Somethings are going to look good, and somethings are going to look imperfect. You take the good with the bad. Someday, all channels are going to be awesome full screen HD, but it is going to take awhile.
There’s something seriously wrong if you can’t tell the difference, especially when viewing them side by side. It’s night vs. day.
I have mine hooked up through HDMI and my Samsung lets me put TBStretch in 4:3 to make it look right. Although there was some setup I had to do on the cable box to make sure it didn’t modify the source signal at all, and basically just passed it through to the TV without reformatting it. Maybe that has something to do with it. By default the box would turn everything to 1080i on the output side.
I know that’s not it, because I can view SD channels in 4:3, 480p without changing anything on my TV, and they are not stretched.
Ah, so that explains the weird wavering.
So what are the options? We probably can’t make HGTV or whatever other channel is stretching 4:3 SD programs to 16:9. If you want to watch the show, (not that I understand why anyone would want to watch House Hunters…) you either put up with the “fish-o-vision” or you watch the SD channel and run the risk of image retention caused by the black side bars or you take a chance with your TV’s own internal anamorphic stretch.
Of course, if you really want to see some seriously screwed up aspect ratios, check out PBS. They seem to like taking HD programs and lopping off the sides to fit 4:3, then the lopped-off programs get letterboxed to look like HD. Worse, when this goes out as HD, it’s windowboxed - a wee postage stamp of an image floating in an ocean of black bars all around. Something like Antiques Roadshow becomes “iques Roads” and half its original size.
That’s not that big of a risk these days.
Yup. Between the controls for my TV and the controls for my cable box I can manage some setting or combination of settings to make anything look normal. There’s “Zoom” controls on the TV remote and the cable box remote, and my TV remote also has a “Resolution” button. Obviously everyone’s setup is going to differ, I’m just saying that I am able to get a proper image on any channel. The HGTV thing I have not seen. Perhaps my cable provider is doing something yours is not?
Can you tell the difference in this picture? (Warning: the picture is fairly big)
If so, your dad & brother might just be watching an SD broadcast that’s been scaled to HD (like what’s being talked about here), and tricking themselves into thinking it looks better.
I just have to say I found the thread title hilarious. Sure, it’s annoying, but “the failure of all human endeavor”? Gimme a break.
I thought this was going to be a complaint about how hard all the gear is to use and hook up, something like this: (NSFW language) The Onion | America's Finest News Source.
When there are black boxes on all 4 sides, it’s called window boxed, as opposed to letter boxed or pillar boxed. I’m not sure why broadcast content is sometimes presented that way. I do know a non-anamorphic DVD on a 16:9 screen will be window boxed though.
TBS has Seinfeld cropped to fit 16:9 TVs. They cut off the top and bottom of the picture. Adult Swim, on the other hand, stretches 4:3 content so that it fills up a 16:9 screen. There’s nothing you can do about either. Using the various zoom functions on the remote only stretches it worse.
The phrase “High Definition” is what pisses me off. I’ve even seen “HD” sunglasses. The strangest is for audio though. HD radio is nowhere near CD quality, but CD’s aren’t considered high def. DTS-MA and Dolby TrueHD are both above CD quality, and offer true lossless audio. I can stand behind them being called “HD” for the moment, but but it’s dumb when a low bit-rate source is HD, a mid-level bit-rate source is not, and a high bit-rate source is back to it again.
As noted above, this happens all the time with broadcast or cablecast films. But It happens with actual DVDs, too. I can give a few examples from some of the DVD titles that I recently borrowed from the library.
Being There, Lost In America, and Leaving Las Vegas were all released in theaters with a 1.85 aspect ratio (this is the info I found online about them, but it could be wrong). However, the DVDs I borrowed are all 1.77 (or 16:9), so part of the sides is cut off.
Now–it may be that there are letterboxed 1.85 versions available and the library just didn’t have them. BUT, these DVDs are marketed as being “widescreen versions” which, in a kind of dishonest sort of way they are, I guess (being 16:9 rather than the 4:3 of old standard def TVs). But they leave credulous consumers believing that they are watching versions that are faithful to the theatrical versions. They are not.
It’s dishonest because these films have a note on the DVD case that says:
*“Widescreen version presented in a ‘matted’ widescreen format preserving the aspect ratio of its original theatrical exhibition. Enhanced for widescreen TVs.” *(Bolding mine.)
In fact, they have not preserved the aspect ratio, they have cut it off on the sides. So it is a lie. A lie able to be foisted on American consumers because they don’t know any better. When they see the term “widescreen” they just trust that they are getting the full version that was presented in the theaters, but they are not. The term is a lot like the term “HD” the OP references. It means whatever the distributor or manufacturer wants it to mean.
I also have seen DVDs of films that were released in a 2.35 “scope” aspect ratio but had that same note on the case saying that they were “enhanced for widescreen TV’s”. Those DVDs were 1.77 (16:9) rather than the beautiful, super-wide 2.35 that the director shot it in.
This is NOT my idea of “enhancement”.
HBO refuses to show anything other than 16:9, so everything wider than that has the sides cut off.
Since getting a projector, I can adjust over scan. I’ve noticed real thin black bars on some ratios that I never noticed on a tv.