----- "Devin Heitmueller" <[email protected]> wrote: > In the United States, NTSC is expected to be in 4x3, and if the > content is widescreen then the content provider uses black bars above > and below to preserve the aspect ratio.
What he said. :-) > Televisions have various features to allow the user to decide whether > to stretch the 4x3 video or to preserve the 4x3 aspect ratio on the > widescreen display (by adding black bars to the left and right). > There are also zoom features built into televisions to attempt to > crop out where the black bars would be. But none of this is automatic. Actually, newer sets will in fact try to auto-zoom when they detect lettterbox, pillarbox, or both at the same time. They often get it wrong, though. My sister has a Philips that actually does a pretty decent job. > The United States has basically concluded that the only way to get > true widescreen is to watch digital HD TV. I don't believe it actually has to be HD. I think that OTA DTV can actually utilize widescreen SD resolutions akin to 800x480. [ checks Wikipedia ] 704x480 for NTSC, in fact: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_television Cheers, -- jra -- Jay R. Ashworth Baylink [email protected] Designer The Things I Think RFC 2100 Ashworth & Associates http://baylink.pitas.com '87 e24 St Petersburg FL USA http://photo.imageinc.us +1 727 647 1274 Start a man a fire, and he'll be warm all night. Set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life. _______________________________________________ ivtv-users mailing list [email protected] http://ivtvdriver.org/mailman/listinfo/ivtv-users
