I just recieved this email from WQAD, since it is a generic mass mail I will repost as some of you may be interested in responding... quote:
Hi Network Members.
There's been a flurry of activity in our HD and digital broadcasts lately.
We're doing some experimenting on how we up-convert our standard signal.
As our eyes and ears in the digital world, we'd like your feedback on how
you'd prefer to see the up-conversion.
Rick Serre, our chief engineer clarifies:
WQAD is up converting our standard definition (SD) analog signal (the
program that goes to our analog Channel 8 transmitter) to a 16:9 aspect
ratio, 720P digital signal for our DTV transmitter.
When we do that, we have three choices as to how the SD video is converted.
Please note, the digital signal on WQAD-DT is always 16:9 regardless of the
up conversion method used; and you will not be able to have your HDTV
Monitor do any sort of modification to the displayed picture like can be
done with 4:3 aspect ratio analog signals.
The black or colored bars on the side of the picture are encoded into the
digital signal and transmitted as part of the display. We'd like to know
which of the following three methods you prefer.
1) 4:3 Keyhole - the SD video is up-converted keeping the 4:3 aspect ratio
and filling the sides of the 16:9 picture with black or other colored bars.
ABC currently is doing this for their true HDTV programs. The program is
in 16:9 full screen, then they drop back to the 4:3 aspect ratio with black
bar fill for commercial breaks. This allows true display of the original
picture in the original aspect ratio, albeit with a lot of the display
taken up with black bars.
2) 14:9 Modified Keyhole - this is what is currently being used on WQAD-DT.
The SD video is converted to digital and slightly modified to the larger
aspect ratio using a pixel doubling technique to make the SD picture appear
to be wider than it really is. The remaining portion of the 16:9 screen is
then filled, right now with light blue bars on each side of the picture.
The result is a larger picture with only slight modification to the
original content.
3) 16:9 Anamorphic - this conversion takes the 4:3 aspect ratio SD video
and, again using the pixel doubling techniques, makes a full screen 16:9
display of the SD video. This does tend to stretch the picture
horizontally, and people look slightly fatter and less tall. While not
objectionable, it does impact on the original aspect ratio of the content.
However, it also fills the wide screen display with actual video instead of
the black or colored bars on the side of the picture.
If you don't mind, please send your preferred method of seeing the
up-converted television picture. Respond directly to
[email protected] ,
or you can reply to me and I'll forward your response.
Thanks for your patience as we go through this process. And thanks for
participating in our digitalTV network. Your feedback is extremely
valuable.
Lori Evans
Creative Services Manager
WQAD-TV-DT, wqad.com