I was just reading about MeTV on Wikipedia when I read something that caught my interest. Last month MeTV switched over to broadcasting in a standard definition widescreen format, mostly to accommodate stations that only operate in 16:9.

What really makes this interesting is that they are now airing a few of their shows in widescreen "re-masters". Wikipedia makes specific mention of Wonder Woman, so I checked the end of my recording of this week's Incredible Hulk to see that, yes indeed, Wonder Woman is definitely airing in a new widescreen format. The only bummer is that my station apparently didn't get the memo about the widescreen switch, and is still carrying the channel in a 4:3 format.

So, what are your opinions on this? Have you noticed any other shows broadcasting in new widescreen versions? I would personally rather have shows in their original aspect ratio instead of having part of the image cut off to give me a "fake" widescreen version... :thumbsdow

Full screen is better to me.

I was just reading about MeTV on Wikipedia when I read something that caught my interest. Last month MeTV switched over to broadcasting in a standard definition widescreen format, mostly to accommodate stations that only operate in 16:9.

What really makes this interesting is that they are now airing a few of their shows in widescreen "re-masters". Wikipedia makes specific mention of Wonder Woman, so I checked the end of my recording of this week's Incredible Hulk to see that, yes indeed, Wonder Woman is definitely airing in a new widescreen format. The only bummer is that my station apparently didn't get the memo about the widescreen switch, and is still carrying the channel in a 4:3 format.

So, what are your opinions on this? Have you noticed any other shows broadcasting in new widescreen versions? I would personally rather have shows in their original aspect ratio instead of having part of the image cut off to give me a "fake" widescreen version... :thumbsdow

If you're watching Me-TV from Buffalo, NY, the screen would be wide right!!


:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

Sorry, I couldn't resist!

If you're watching Me-TV from Buffalo, NY, the screen would be wide right!!


:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

Sorry, I couldn't resist!

Somewhere, Scott Norwood cries.

How can they air old TV shows in widescreen when they were originally filmed for 4.3 ratio format? Unless of course their taking the 4.3 image and zooming it to fit 16.9 therefore cutting the top and bottom of the screen and butchering it even more.

I recently got a new dvr converter box and the first thing I noticed was the oldies stations were wide screen too. I fiddle around and made some HD wide and other not HD. Now the oldie stations are square screen vs rectangle. A while back bumped into Grit station and thought so and so was awful fat until I realized the show was so stretched out. I like old shows in the square format vs the wide screen. We aren't suppose to see Lucy Ricardo wide.

I was just reading about MeTV on Wikipedia when I read something that caught my interest. Last month MeTV switched over to broadcasting in a standard definition widescreen format, mostly to accommodate stations that only operate in 16:9.

What really makes this interesting is that they are now airing a few of their shows in widescreen "re-masters". Wikipedia makes specific mention of Wonder Woman, so I checked the end of my recording of this week's Incredible Hulk to see that, yes indeed, Wonder Woman is definitely airing in a new widescreen format. The only bummer is that my station apparently didn't get the memo about the widescreen switch, and is still carrying the channel in a 4:3 format.

So, what are your opinions on this? Have you noticed any other shows broadcasting in new widescreen versions? I would personally rather have shows in their original aspect ratio instead of having part of the image cut off to give me a "fake" widescreen version... :thumbsdow
my ME TV affiliate has been doing that for, oh, I guess about a year and a half, 2 years maybe?

Ugh. Butchering is the correct word. Either they are truncating the top and bottom and zooming the video, or they are stretching the 4x3 and making everyone fat. Either way, it is lost/destroyed content.

POP (old TVG network) did this on their airings of Growing Pains on Saturday mornings. Pissed me off.

Ugh. Butchering is the correct word. Either they are truncating the top and bottom and zooming the video, or they are stretching the 4x3 and making everyone fat. Either way, it is lost/destroyed content

Actually, it could very well be neither. I sadly don't have ME-TV anymore, but from the article about the widescreen change on Wikipedia, it sounds like it's like Heroes & Icons (ME-TV's sister channel, which I do get), in that the ads are widescreen and the station promos are too, but the shows themselves generally are not. I realize there are going to be exceptions like Wonder Woman (just like Charlie's Angels and Fantasy Islands are the exceptions on Cozi), but for the most part it sounds like ME-TV's shows will be left alone.

At least I hope they are. I'm thinking Connecticut will eventually get the channel back, and when it does I hope the channel's more or less the way it used to be.

Mike

I realize there are going to be exceptions like Wonder Woman (just like Charlie's Angels and Fantasy Islands are the exceptions on Cozi), but for the most part it sounds like ME-TV's shows will be left alone.

Mike
It's only an exception when it's not a show you'd like to record for keepsake. IMO it shouldn't be happening anywhere.

ME-TV still looks the same to me

I was going to complain to my MyTV/MeTV affiliate about them stretching and zooming their 4x3 shows into a 16x9 widescreen, but today the signal keeps cutting out and pixelating, and it isn't a reception problem on my end, as the satellite-delivered version of the channel is doing the same. Aggravated, to say the least.

I have only seen some of Svengoolie's movies in wide-screen.

Love Boat is on now and the picture looks zoomed/stretched, people look fatter, and the black bars on the side are thinner than normal for a 4x3 picture.

Of course the commercials are proper 16x9, no fatties or stretching.

Ugh. Butchering is the correct word. Either they are truncating the top and bottom and zooming the video, or they are stretching the 4x3 and making everyone fat. Either way, it is lost/destroyed content.

POP (old TVG network) did this on their airings of Growing Pains on Saturday mornings. Pissed me off.
I agree 100%. I noticed this last week while watching Emergency, Mayberry RFD, and Kojak. I hate it. If shows were shot in 4:3 then that's how they should be shown. This is just stupid in my opinion.

If the source material is 4:3, then it should be the simplest thing in the world to just broadcast it in 4:3. It's complete nonsense for channels to be altering/modifying the original shows by chopping and stretching. Missing out on the top and bottom bits of the picture or seeing people with watermelon-shaped heads is not a better viewing experience.

That being said, I remember reading somewhere that some have been able to "remaster" some old 4:3 shows, like Seinfeld and maybe Star Trek. The general idea is to find the original film prints from the actual cameras used for the show and make a new 16:9, HD picture from the old film. The film itself, used for most TV shows throughout history, is ultra-high quality and naturally widescreen. It's just that a while back, when TVs were shaped 4:3, the excess was chopped off when the episodes were being packaged for broadcast.

Maybe this is MeTV's end goal? If this is what they're getting at, I would have no problem seeing old shows in widescreen, because no part of the image is lost. But I doubt anyone would be able to find all the original film negatives for shows as old as their library is, not to mention it would take a tremendous amount of time and effort.

I put in a question to my local affiliate and they responded right away, but said the picture format is being transmitted from the MeTV network transmission facility, and suggested that I send them a comment as well as they were going to forward my request on as well. We'll see how it goes.

So, I got a response from MeTV Corporate, asking for pictures. Here is what I'm going to send them.

I recorded directly from the OTA signal, which produced a 16x9 snapshot 853x480. Notice the black bars on the side are narrower than normal for a 4x3 image in a 16x9 frame. The portal circle is stretched left and right, and is also truncated on the top and bottom:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B0xcI6LxCtfUN3JNeGtPcjBIN0E

If I trim off the black bars, I get an image 736x480, which is wider than the normal 640x480 4x3 image:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B0xcI6LxCtfUSFVoWFhEODBwVDg

LOL.

This is the response I got. Just, flabbergasted.

"What you are seeing is correct. We made some minor tweaks to enhance the viewing experience of those watching with widescreen televisions."

I agree that airing these shows in widescreen is ridiculous. And you would think MeTV would know better.I'm starting to also wonder if most people even care about picture quality these days.It seems as long as the picture fills the screen on their flatscreen TV as much as possible they don't seem to notice or care if some or even a lot of the picture it is cut out,or zoomed in,distorted or just looks way off in any number of ways.

Society is systemically being dumbed down.

Here is how I responded, as tactfully as possible:

With all due respect, those who want to fill their widescreen TV with 4x3 content have a zoom/stretch button to make their own minor tweaks to “enhance their viewing experience.” There is no way to shrink or compress an existing stretched video back to 4x3 on existing TVs.

I doubt I'll get a response or any change in results.

I don't know why so many channels today think widescreen video, at any cost, is more appealing to consumers.

I don't know why so many channels today think widescreen video, at any cost, is more appealing to consumers.
Probably from too many customers complaining that their new widescreen TV isn't filling up their entire screen with video. Refer to my remark above about society.

It's a shame that not enough people complained about that annoying "MeTV" logo always onscreen, and in most places with the name of the CITY the station is in under that, as if you might forget WHERE you were! I don't care how many other channels do this, it's unacceptable and since the general public is so stupid that they tolerate it, they'll tolerate this stretching as well. When MeTV was in 4x3, most of them probably had their TVs set to stretch it anyways.

Society is systemically being dumbed down.

Here is how I responded, as tactfully as possible:



I doubt I'll get a response or any change in results.

Heck I'm surprised you even got a response at all. Sadly I guess we're stuck with this stupid idea now. People need to remember the famous old saying "if it ain't broke, don't fix it!"

If everyone here posted a complaint on the MeTV feedback page, maybe they'd take it more seriously.

http://www.metv.com/contact/

Wonder Woman looks good widescreen. It looks like they just opened up the frame and got more information on the sides and just cropped the bottom some. Not bad at all. Very happy with this more "filmic" aspect ratio.

Wonder Woman looks good widescreen. It looks like they just opened up the frame and got more information on the sides and just cropped the bottom some. Not bad at all. Very happy with this more "filmic" aspect ratio.
My MeTV affiliate is now broadcasting 100% of its content in that augmented widescreen format. And it does seem like they've preserved picture ratio without chopping/stretching, but how? How can they just "open up the frame" and stick some extra information on the sides for shows that were originally broadcast in 4:3? Did they do what I said earlier and make new prints out of the original film negatives? Or is it just an illusion and they actually have stretched and chopped the picture, just not enough for anyone to notice?

Again, I really have no problem watching widescreen shows, if the picture is not distorted, something I still think is next to impossible to achieve with these older shows.

That's good on Wonder Woman, preserving the aspect ratio without losing much of the content.

Many other shows don't fare as well.

I just noticed this new change in format today on me-TV in the Hollywood/Los Angeles area. The top of everyone's head is chopped off! It wasn't like this last week. I'm talking about Our Miss Brooks, Beverly Hillbillies, and Diagnosis Murder.

UPDATE: The picture's back to normal again. I guess somebody at control fell asleep and forgot to flip the switch. LOL

Yesterday morning, Heroes & Icons and MeTV both butchered their channels in my area. I checked with the affiliates and they both stated it was not their doing. They contacted the engineering department in Chicago and were told these alterations began yesterday at 10AM and were "done to shrink the black bars to better fill viewers' screens". Oh brother.

Here's what they did. I just installed a roof antenna last week in order to get Heroes and Icons. Roof antenna, amp, and the hardest wall wiring job down from the attic I've ever worked on. My local TWC doesn't carry it so I had to get it over-the-air. Five days after I get it hooked up they pull this.:crazy: All that work for nothing. They took the image and stretched it and also cropped some picture information off the top and bottom in order to give us an image with thinner black bars and a lousy, unintended composition with scalped heads. I'd say it's between 1.54:1-1:60:1. There are still black bars to "offend" the lowest common denominator and the ignorant, but they are far thinner. I no longer have any interest in this network.

It doesn't end there. MeTV is even more interesting as of yesterday morning. The shows are still in the 4:3(1.33:1) format with black bars of the proper thickness. At first I thought that channel was going to stay normal. Then I caught the end of Diagnosis Murder and the beginning of The Big Valley! What they did to MeTV is inexplicable and baffling. It achieved nothing. Despite maintaining the proper 4:3 window with black bars of the proper thickness, the image inside the black bars has been zoomed in! That's right, it looks correct but it's not. The end credits for Diagnosis Murder were missing letters on the left and right. The opening credits of The Big Valley had words chopped off the bottom with frozen headshots cropped at the top. On top of that, the actors had their heads scalped and hands chopped and the zooming created unnatural close-ups of their faces.

Contact Weigel/MeTV/Heroes and Icons to complain about this and demand they fix things. Email them, contact them on social media, and call them. Here's their number:

312-705-2600

My MeTV (MyTVJax) does more like the H&I you describe: zoomed, cropped and stretched left-to-right so the black bars on the sides are narrower and the tops of peoples' heads are shaved. I will definitely be calling (I emailed once before and reported their mind-boggling response in this thread.)

Call and email: http://www.metv.com/contact/

My MeTV (MyTVJax) does more like the H&I you describe: zoomed, cropped and stretched left-to-right so the black bars on the sides are narrower and the tops of peoples' heads are shaved. I will definitely be calling (I emailed once before and reported their mind-boggling response in this thread.)

Call and email: http://www.metv.com/contact/

I get the feeling that my MeTV channel was supposed to end up like H&I. They changed both at the same time on the same day yet MeTV ends up with the odd issue I described. Something went wrong with things on the technical side.

You really have to wonder about the thought process of those who found these changes to be a good idea. More networks ruined.