I was suprised when I sat down to watch this yesterday. It is in wide screen mode, but it has letterbox and bars on the side as well. Turns my 60" plasma into about a 50" or so. I was wondering why Showtime would broadcast such a bad version of this great film. Anyone know why this was done? Very disappointing. Still a great show though.

Mark

Because its an upconvert.

Saw the listing in my guide also. Did not show it as HDTV. Was hoping this was a mistake.
Would love to watch this movie again but in HD.

It's definitely not being broadcast in a 4:3 format, and it was totally watchable, but it was like a shrunken 16:9 or some sort of wide screen format. It had black lines all around it, but since it was being broadcast in 1080i, my Pioneer wouldn't zoom or stretch it correctly to get it to be full screen, so I watched it with the black frame around it. It wasn't a black frame like watching a 16:9 show on a SD station though, it was a smaller frame. Weird.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082846/technical

HDTVFA, why if it's in 1.85:1 doesn't it stretch all the way across?