Widescreen TV - was it worth the change?

Along with digital TV came widescreen TV - but was it worth the change?

I'll admit that widescreen programming does somehow look more professional and dramatic, but back in the nineties I wasn't watching television thinking I wish it was wider.

Yes, widescreen TV means that movies can be shown in their original form - but now we have the same problem with 4:3 programming, which most repeats and imported programmes (including live sport) are.

And the most annoying thing about widescreen TV - ultra widescreen TV. Many ads and music videos still add black bars to their output so viewers watching in 4:3 still get the widescreen effect - and widescreen viewers are left with a strip in the middle.

Until widescreen TVs become the norm, most programming in 16:9 is still 4:3 safe, something you notice especially on programmes with alot of data such as news and sport, having astons floating around the middle of the screen.

That's basically my view - although I'm all for TV moving with the times and generally like the epic quality of widescreen TV, was it worth the switch - or is Britain just too far ahead of the rest of the world?

Britain is a long way behind a fair bit of the world, including America, Japan, Australia and Argentina, all of whom not only have 16:9, but high-definition too.

If america are ahead of us why is it that most programmes you see coming from the US are all in 4:3 . i.e The ample amount of sitcoms coming from there are still in 4:3 despite being made recently.

Personally I think we don't do so badly with widescreen there is a good mix and really the only programmes in 4:3 that I watch are older comedy's from back yonder. There is of course the news on ITV,4,5 etc but aren't most channels broadcast mostly 16:9 content - even if it is just cropped.

Remember that widescreen has only been the "norm", and widescreen transmissions have only been available since, 1997/8. It's a pretty big switch, similar to black & white to colour broadcasts. Of course colour broadcasts were made as soon as the technology was available, but archive footage would still be shown in black and white, whilst people who had only monochrome televisions would see only black and white. It took some years before colour tv ownership took over from black and white.

Shame the same can't be said for 4:3 archive footage in the 16:9 world. Instead it's butchered with 25% of the picture cut off.

Hi James2001

Yes, how i detest having bits cut off the picture!

Apart from that, and the ludicrous stretchyvision that you see in the stores (and alas in homes too) i think that the transition to widescreen has been OK. so far.

Roll on HDTV!

I've never heard you make that same dull argument before. No. Never.

Oh, yes because it really is a pointless argument, and isn't annoying in the slightest, is it

Don't worry, he'll be asking for SM:TV to be brought back in a moment...

The majority of US programming is made in 4:3...we produce much more 16:9 programming than the States.

US teleivision visual quality is much lower than that of British TV. They go for quantity of channels rather than quality of picture, whereas we do the reverse.

PAL is a much better quality format to work in as well.

Because, of course, we can't discuss anything we want to on these forums without being ridiculed, can we? Bloody hell.

Well, we can if it's news pres we're obsessed with.......

I want to know what exactally is so bad with wanting SM:TV back anyway. It seems the only problem anyone has is that "it won't happen". We know it won't happen, but that doesn't mean it can't be discussed. It seems some people have nothing better to do..........

Whether it's pal or not doesn't matter - if it's digital it's digital - that's the whole idea . You get away from the pal artefacts , such as cross colour.
Having said that however , we're not going to get HDTV on digital as they're too busy trying to squash as many channels as possible into the available space - fine if you like vhs quality. A good quality channel should have about 6 Mb/s allocated to it - itv is currently hovering around 4 Mb/s - s4c has been known to use 2Mb/s for their rugby and -if you've ever seen it - that is sub vhs - or it certainly looks it. Never mind the quality - feel the bandwidth - or lack of it. If you want HDTV go for the next generation DVD forget anything the terrestial people ( or sky ) are likely to put out.