BBC BORDERS ON SKY DIGI

[TJSMANGINA]

why in the name of god is the football broadcast with borders down the sides of the screen on the digi bbc1 channel.i understand widescreen borders but why did the bbc have them down the side.

[KAO]

I've noticed this on MOTD. If you have the Sky Digibox set to 16:9 format, then it seems to display what is (I assume) a normal 4:3 picture with those strange blue bars down the side, like it's trying to squeeze the 4:3 format into a 16:9 window or something. Change the digibox setting to 4:3 and they go away. Very odd, and I've never noticed it on any other programme than MOTD on BBC1, and then only on the footy clips (Linekar and Co in the studio are fine)

[TJSMANGINA]

cheers keith it looks terrible on a widescreen telly lol.thank god the bbc dont have the football anymore.i swear to god the bbc could fu.ck up a cup of coffee.thanks again for the advice :)

[bighairy]

The BBC have internal rules about not switching aspect ratio mid-program. Therefore, if they want to mix 16:9 format with 4:3 they can do either of two things:

1. They convert the 4:3 stuff to 14:9 by chopping a little off the top and bottom and putting in narrow bars down the side (they do this mostly on the news when they have widescreen studio material mixed with reports sent in).

2. They display 4:3 un-cut but with big bars at the sides to stretch the picture out to 16:9. This does defeat most 16:9 telly's own stretching systems.

You can override the behaviour by changing the aspect ratio setting on your digibox whereupon the behaviour will become very different again!

I noticed that Sky Sports were doing exactly the same as the BBC when showing the build up programs for the Lions tests in Wide but with various parts shown at 4:3 with side borders.

why in the name of god is the football broadcast with borders down the sides of the screen on the digi bbc1 channel.i understand widescreen borders but why did the bbc have them down the side.

I am a (suffering) ex C&W, NTL customer. Just taken posession of a great Toshiba 42" RP TV W/S. Trying to figure out how to make the most of the set.

I have the screen options for the cable set to 16:9 and RGB. Generlly works fine, except that, as above, for sport, the w/s signal includes 2 borders - like a 4:3 plus these borders. Cannot get rid of them.

What is going on here? Are these sporting events being broadcast in w/s - is there a problem with the source (BBC/ITV) or the the NTL network.

Tx
Wilt

[pointon]

It's difficult to understand exactly what it is that's being talked about here... but almost all BBC programmes are now broadcast in widescreen. However, in the case of Match Of The Day (on the rare occassion the BBC have any live football to show), any coverage of a game shown abroad is usually in 4:3 format. The BBC won't have any control over this, as it will be taken from that country's own broadcasters of the game, which aren't as state of the art as the Beeb. So to avoid switching formats mid programme, the BBC just show the 4:3 picture they and we are stuck with, with weird borders either side to maintain the 16:9 ratio. Any games or sporting events in this country that the BBC actually has to broadcast completely themselves will always be in full widescreen.

It's not your digital provider or your digibox, it's the BBC placing these borders. If you don't want them, set the box to 4:3 instead, so there is no longer a 16:9 picture and the channels own space-filler borders are replaced by the usual un-used screen space. Personally I don't see what difference it makes. Putting up with the broadcast borders means you don't have to keep changing aspect ratios on the box, and at least your widescreen TV is actually being used as a widescreen TV.

That is as long as I understood the subject correctly.