I'm watching The First 48 right now and it is in stretch-o-vision(tm). Tonight's episode is one of the old 4:3 1.85:1 LBX episodes that has been stretched to the point that it is now 2.35:1 with black bars!!! This is ridiculous. Did A&E hire someone from Turner?:mad:

they are stretching the SD feed

the hd facility is not back in operations yet

they are stretching the SD feed

the hd facility is not back in operations yet

what happened with the hd facility. I noticed that the history channel is like that too

there was a big fire in some hd facility which directly impacted a number of hd channels, including a&e and yes hd.

what happened with the hd facility. I noticed that the history channel is like that too

There was a fire on Monday that took out A&E, History, YES, and NFL Network.

Only YES is back up in HD from what I've read.

There is a sticky at the top of this section

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=906685

they are stretching the SD feed

the hd facility is not back in operations yet

Thanks for the info. I was afraid A&E had turned to the dark side. Whew!

I think I may have turned to the dark side, too. I have come to prefer watching old 4:3 shows on my 16:9 HDTV in stretch mode. I finally decided that the fairly mild horizontal distortion caused by stretching the 4:3 image to 16:9 was more than compensated for by the image’s increased size. My conclusion is controversial, God knows, so I expect many people, maybe even most folks who post here, will disagree. But that’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.

My son has never been willing to watch 4:3 stuff in pillarbox and stretches all of it to 16:9. After I got back home from visiting him last summer I started to do it regularly and discovered, somewhat to my own surprise, that I liked it just fine. It’s a good thing, too, because the only way to watch great old 4:3 shows, such as NYPD Blue, on TNT HD is stretched.

While many folks have strong opinions on whether or not to view 4:3 programming in stretch mode, I think we call all agree that having the broadcasters send it out in 4:3 and letting the consumer decide on their end which way to watch it.

Sending it out stretched pleases folks who like it stretched and folks who don't know the difference, but leaves the significant segment of the viewing population that prefers plain ol' 4:3 with no option whatsoever short of pain or simply not watching.

See, there was this fire at the HD facility...

While many folks have strong opinions on whether or not to view 4:3 programming in stretch mode, I think we call all agree that having the broadcasters send it out in 4:3 and letting the consumer decide on their end which way to watch it.

Sending it out stretched pleases folks who like it stretched and folks who don't know the difference, but leaves the significant segment of the viewing population that prefers plain ol' 4:3 with no option whatsoever short of pain or simply not watching.

Yep - that's the point. Sending out the programming undistorted accomodates all viewers with strong opinions.