of ATSC and aspect ratio???

[Ed in Tx]

Originally Posted by ceebee23

Folks,

With US due to phase out analog broadcasting very shortly and the need for set top boxes etc to convert digital ATSC broadcasts to NTSC one issue I have not read about is the whole matter of 4:3, letterbox and 16:9 aspect ratios.

Here in Australia we use DVB-T which uses an anamorphic squeeze to deliver 16:9 images and when this is displayed on a 4:3 set the whole image is displayed looking something uncorrected like CinemaScope. Set top boxes have settings to provide 16:9, letterbox or a 4:3 center segment of the 16:9 image. (I assume the same options are available on US set top boxes).

But as I understand it ATSC does not use the anamorphic scheme ...so how do 16:9 images appear on a NTSC if 16:9 is set in the set top box.

What lead me to ask this arcane question was a comment on another board that complained many cable companies are simply using the 4:3 center section of the ATSC image rather than providing a proper letterbox version of 16:9 network broadcasts.

I can set my converter box to put out either a letterboxed 16:9 on the 4:3 CRT, or it will overscan the sides to fill the screen vertically. There were a few stations here doing a 16:9 stretch on all their 4:3 stuff but they've stopped doing that for the most part.