A complaint about HD channels

June 25, 2008

Dear Television People:

When you air a standard definition (“SD”) program on your lovely high definition (“HD”) channel, please do me a big favor. Do not stretch it out to fit the screen. Just give it to me in SD, and let me decide what to do with it.

The biggest perpetrators of this horrific mistake (big enough that I made this list from memory of being infuriated in the past): TBS, TNT, the Food Network. But I’m sure there are other wrongdoers, and as the rest of the cable universe transitions to HD I suspect the problem will only increase.

ESPN does it right; when airing SD programs, it puts a bar on each side of the screen, so there’s no blank space on the tv, without warping the aspect ratio of the actual programming. Another option, which works fine for me, is just leaving the sides of the screen blank.

Here’s why those are better solutions: just about all HDTVs can stretch SD signals (which, to be fair, may HDTV owners prefer to do, because it fills the screen)—but they generally can’t reverse the operation (i.e., “de-stretch” signals). This is because when the TV detects an HD signal, it is to be expected that the programming is, you know, HD. So when, for example, I get Iron Chef stretched out on my screen, I have no recourse.

So, in summary, stop stretching programming out so that everybody’s face is too wide and things look incredibly stupid.

Thank you very much for your consideration.

Posted in Tech, Television