Just watched "The Rock" with Connery/Cage on Encore HD--was recorded on Dish Network's DVR 622 receiver--and the scope=shot film is being presented in 16x9. Now, if an scope film has an aspect ratio of 2:40:1...guess what is going to happen when is aired in 16x9? If you say "cropping!" then you'd be absolutely correct!

I am sure that "TR" was shot in true anamorphic scope (2:40:1 AR) as cropping of the frame in both horizontal and vertical directions takes prominent place in a most obvious manner, thus destroying the Director's original intent as to why he framed his shots the way he did in this action-packed film! :eek:

Everything Encore HD airs seems to be presented in 16x9 regardless of the original aspect ratio a given movie was photographed in, and that's wrong, wrong, wrong!
Encore, get your act together and do what MGM and HDNet Movie channels do: transmit all films in their ORIGINAL aspect ratio!... :rolleyes:

-THTS

Wish D* had ANY of the Encore channels in HD. Not sure what the hold up is. Instead, we get ABC-Family HD, which never shows anything in HD... :)

Cox doesn't have any of the Encores in HD here either. And vary rarely do they even play something in widescreen on the regular encores.

Wish D* had ANY of the Encore channels in HD. Not sure what the hold up is. Instead, we get ABC-Family HD, which never shows anything in HD... :)
I watch several shows on ABC Family - all of them are HD and everything OAR so far.

Perhaps you were thinking of TBSHD when it launched.

Personally, the whole cropping thing is the reason I don't subscribe to the movie channels at all. I'd rather watch regular OAR DVD than cropped movies in HD. At the bit rates we get for multichannel TV service, the improvement isn't all that eye-popping over a well-mastered DVD. Now, a Blu-Ray disc on the other hand...

I get much better value from a Netflix subscription than I ever did from premium channel subscriptions.

I watch several shows on ABC Family - all of them are HD and everything OAR so far.

I get much better value from a Netflix subscription than I ever did from premium channel subscriptions.

I've come to the opposite conclusion, I subbed to Netflix in hopes of watching the newer stuff, but I have a queue lined up with Long Wait, Very Long Wait, I've about given up on Netflix, Blu-ray has a better picture and they're OAR, but I really just want to watch the movie, and the cropping to 16:9 isn't that big of a deal breaker. There are so many HD movie channels available, that I can at times actually watch a movie on a premium before I can get it from Netflix.

I'm not a heavy abuser of Netflix, I wore it out when I first got it, but I dropped down to 1 movie at a time and still nothing seems to get freed up in the queue. I waited over 2 months to get 10,000 B.C. and Cloverfield was the same, it was and still is ridiculous.

I watch several shows on ABC Family - all of them are HD and everything OAR so far.

I stand corrected. Guess every time I'm scanning and see something worthy, I tune in, and I haven't seen HD (yet).