LCD TVs & terrestrial Reception
- Thread starter racso
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Re: LCD TV'S & Terrestrial Reception
Just tuned in my new LCD tonight - we have NTL terrestrial. All signals are fine, though BBC2 seems to be less crisp than others. My only problem is that material not shot in widescreen (e.g. Q&A on RTE1) looks funny when stretched to fit widescreen, even when using the 'smart' stretching option.
Just tuned in my new LCD tonight - we have NTL terrestrial. All signals are fine, though BBC2 seems to be less crisp than others. My only problem is that material not shot in widescreen (e.g. Q&A on RTE1) looks funny when stretched to fit widescreen, even when using the 'smart' stretching option.
Re: LCD TV'S & Terrestrial Reception
maybe i post the question wrong but we have not ntl/chorus/sky and currnetly get all 4 irish stations through the aerial on back of t.v. but was wondering if this would be possible with an LCD. We will eventually get in some package but if LCD wont pick up the channels then may wait till we get the package
maybe i post the question wrong but we have not ntl/chorus/sky and currnetly get all 4 irish stations through the aerial on back of t.v. but was wondering if this would be possible with an LCD. We will eventually get in some package but if LCD wont pick up the channels then may wait till we get the package
Re: LCD TV'S & Terrestrial Reception
Any box sold as a TV will have an integral tuner to tune signals from the arial. Where were you looking at LCDs that had "difficulties picking up terrestrial reception"? Note that the bigger the screen, the more important the qulity of the feed signal. Don't think a large screen will ever look good with a feed from an arial.
Leo
Any box sold as a TV will have an integral tuner to tune signals from the arial. Where were you looking at LCDs that had "difficulties picking up terrestrial reception"? Note that the bigger the screen, the more important the qulity of the feed signal. Don't think a large screen will ever look good with a feed from an arial.
Leo
Re: LCD TV'S & Terrestrial Reception
Had been looking at that website for the shop in northern ireland i think it's empire direct but had also looked on ebay and this is where i saw the notice re: terrestrial reception and checked to make sure it was not just a monitor for sale. I am only looking for a 15-16 inch screen as it's for a bedroom.
Had been looking at that website for the shop in northern ireland i think it's empire direct but had also looked on ebay and this is where i saw the notice re: terrestrial reception and checked to make sure it was not just a monitor for sale. I am only looking for a 15-16 inch screen as it's for a bedroom.
Re: LCD TV'S & Terrestrial Reception
I also have the Dell 26" LCD and I use it with a Sky box. Whilst most channels come through very clearly, some channels are poor and I believe this to be the quality of the recording/broadcast as opposed to the LCD itself. Just so as to not automatically expect a crystal clear picture even when you believe you have a good picture sourceGrumpy said:
Re: LCD TV'S & Terrestrial Reception
Well, that's not the TV's fault, as non-wide material cannot be displayed in widescreen without either being pillarboxed (centred on screen with black bars at the sides), severely stretched (i.e. "wide" mode), somewhat stretched (e.g. "smart" mode, which usually tries to keep the centre of the pic unstretched but stretches the sides of the picture more, to compensate), or cropped at top and bottom and zoomed in, with obvious loss of resolution ("zoom" mode).
RainyDay said:
Well, that's not the TV's fault, as non-wide material cannot be displayed in widescreen without either being pillarboxed (centred on screen with black bars at the sides), severely stretched (i.e. "wide" mode), somewhat stretched (e.g. "smart" mode, which usually tries to keep the centre of the pic unstretched but stretches the sides of the picture more, to compensate), or cropped at top and bottom and zoomed in, with obvious loss of resolution ("zoom" mode).
Re: LCD TV'S & Terrestrial Reception
Agreed - I wasn't blaming the TV - I've argued for years against going widescreen as the majority of material isn't shot in widescreen. But I've finally been swept along with the tide, and I've seen lots of US-originated material seems to be native widescreen. But it still seems that lots of original RTE material is the old 4:3 format.extopia said:
Re: LCD TV'S & Terrestrial Reception
Most of RTE's primetime material at least is now widescreen, except news for some reason (probably due to the high cost of replacing older ENG equipment). All material commissioned by RTE must be produced in widescreen, and it's been that way for a couple of years now. Commercials are also supposed to be wide, although you still see the odd 4:3 ad (hard to refuse the cash I suppose).
You say you have NTL terrestrial - do you have analogue or digital? RTE went "wide" on NTL digital sometime last year.
RainyDay said:
Most of RTE's primetime material at least is now widescreen, except news for some reason (probably due to the high cost of replacing older ENG equipment). All material commissioned by RTE must be produced in widescreen, and it's been that way for a couple of years now. Commercials are also supposed to be wide, although you still see the odd 4:3 ad (hard to refuse the cash I suppose).
You say you have NTL terrestrial - do you have analogue or digital? RTE went "wide" on NTL digital sometime last year.
Re: LCD TV'S & Terrestrial Reception
Q&A certainly looked like a native 4:3 material to my inexpert eye. I'm cynical when I hear that they went 'wide' on NTL digital - surely it has little to do with the transmission medium and all to do with the original format for shooting. So regardless of whether you are on digital or analogue, the key issue is what format was used to shoot the material.
Q&A certainly looked like a native 4:3 material to my inexpert eye. I'm cynical when I hear that they went 'wide' on NTL digital - surely it has little to do with the transmission medium and all to do with the original format for shooting. So regardless of whether you are on digital or analogue, the key issue is what format was used to shoot the material.
Re: LCD TV'S & Terrestrial Reception
Most material is shot in 16:9 these days, as I've said. I presume the reason for going wide on digital is that viewers can switch the digibox to 4:3 if they don't have a widescreen set. You can't do the same on analogue obviously, and RTE don't want to alienate the many people who don't have widescreen sets. Not yet anyway. That's why RTE's analogue transmission is actually 14:9 (half the difference between 4:3 and 16:9) most of the time. They are just converting the same "native" 16:9 transmission that NTL relays to 14:9 for their analogue transmission.
Most material is shot in 16:9 these days, as I've said. I presume the reason for going wide on digital is that viewers can switch the digibox to 4:3 if they don't have a widescreen set. You can't do the same on analogue obviously, and RTE don't want to alienate the many people who don't have widescreen sets. Not yet anyway. That's why RTE's analogue transmission is actually 14:9 (half the difference between 4:3 and 16:9) most of the time. They are just converting the same "native" 16:9 transmission that NTL relays to 14:9 for their analogue transmission.
What kind of evidence do you need? 
All RTE drama and commissioned programmes are shot and broadcast in true anamorphic widescreen. It's a fact. Unfortunately you need NTL digital or Sky Digital to see this at the moment. BBC, ITV and Channel 4 are pretty much 100% widescreen too.
All RTE drama and commissioned programmes are shot and broadcast in true anamorphic widescreen. It's a fact. Unfortunately you need NTL digital or Sky Digital to see this at the moment. BBC, ITV and Channel 4 are pretty much 100% widescreen too.extopia said:What kind of evidence do you need?
In terms of evidence, wouldn't it be nice to see some TV listings with a little 'W' to indicate what has actually been shot & widescreen? So for RTE, if the drama & commissioned shows are in widescreen, that just leaves the news, the current affairs and the imported shows at not being widescreen, which is a fair percentage of their output.
My experience with BBC, ITV & C4 must be different to yours. A quick flick through the channels now shows;
BBC1 - Sliding Doors (movie) - widescreen
BBC2 - Classic Albums (music documentary) - 4:3
UTV - Some other music show - 4:3
C4 - Pacific Heights - Great movie - 4:3 pan/scanned version of original movie
The emperor has no clothes.
[Maybe this would be better as a new or split thread? There's a lot of misunderstanding out there about widescreen.]
I thought you said you have analogue cable only? If so you are not getting true widescreen -- and your experience will certainly be different to mine, as I have NTL digital. Analogue NTL is 4:3. Or did I misunderstand you?
There is no point in reformatting older 4:3 material for widescreen as the resolution loss would be unacceptable, so there is always going to be a problem with older materials such as the Classic Albums (I was watching - Nirvana's Nevermind, good show!) programme. We will get used to this eventually. We cannot expect old shows to be broadcast in widescreen as this would mean zooming in and cutting off the top and bottom of the picture.
It's nevertheless a fact that almost all new British and Irish prime timeprogramming is produced and now broadcast in widescreen, with the exception of RTE news and some current affairs (Primetime IS widescreen).
Re imported programming, pretty much all American and British drama/documentary is widescreen. But if you're watching on analogue cable you're not seeing the whole picture. European shows (e.g. Winter Olympics, Spanish football are still 4:3 in the main, AFAIK) And yes, you often see panscanned versions of older movies, which is a pity, probably because these movies predate the DVD era (DVD players being the first domestic appliances capable of decoding anamorphic material for 4:3 sets) and have not yet been re-scanned from the original print.
I agree with your point about the TV listings, that would be useful information.
Here are some links to the subject:
[broken link removed]
[broken link removed]
www.digitalspy.co.uk/broadcasting/widescreen/
What's your setup exactly, Rainyday? Maybe we're at cross purposes here!
I thought you said you have analogue cable only? If so you are not getting true widescreen -- and your experience will certainly be different to mine, as I have NTL digital. Analogue NTL is 4:3. Or did I misunderstand you?
There is no point in reformatting older 4:3 material for widescreen as the resolution loss would be unacceptable, so there is always going to be a problem with older materials such as the Classic Albums (I was watching - Nirvana's Nevermind, good show!) programme. We will get used to this eventually. We cannot expect old shows to be broadcast in widescreen as this would mean zooming in and cutting off the top and bottom of the picture.
It's nevertheless a fact that almost all new British and Irish prime timeprogramming is produced and now broadcast in widescreen, with the exception of RTE news and some current affairs (Primetime IS widescreen).
Re imported programming, pretty much all American and British drama/documentary is widescreen. But if you're watching on analogue cable you're not seeing the whole picture. European shows (e.g. Winter Olympics, Spanish football are still 4:3 in the main, AFAIK) And yes, you often see panscanned versions of older movies, which is a pity, probably because these movies predate the DVD era (DVD players being the first domestic appliances capable of decoding anamorphic material for 4:3 sets) and have not yet been re-scanned from the original print.
I agree with your point about the TV listings, that would be useful information.
Here are some links to the subject:
[broken link removed]
[broken link removed]
www.digitalspy.co.uk/broadcasting/widescreen/
What's your setup exactly, Rainyday? Maybe we're at cross purposes here!
Hi Extopia - I have NTL analogue and both a widescreen and a 4:3 TV. But I'm not sure what you mean when you say I'm not getting true widescreen. If I flick through the channels now, I find movies such as Unforgiven (RTE 2), Final Destination (C4) and The Bone Collector (BBC1) are being transmitted in true widescreen and come out perfectly on my widescreen TV (and on my 4:3 TV when switched to widescreen mode). Tubridy on RTE1 and Rosemary & Thyme drama on UTV (both current material) are in 4:3 mode.
Unless I'm missing something....?
Unless I'm missing something....?