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RAI Italia (multicultural channel) now broadcasting in 16x9

13K views 14 replies 6 participants last post by  Humbar 
#1 · (Edited by Moderator)
Hello, Not sure when it started, but RAI Italia was in pure 16x9 today on Rogers. Before, it was broadcast in 4x3 and they often had anamorfic squeeze so people had no choice but to stretch it instead of viewing it OAR I also checked bell but it's still 4x3 anamorfically squeezed on their system. Well its a start. Also noticed RAI world news the same but mediaset was still 4x3
 
#3 ·
All the Rai channels (I think theirs 3 in total) are in 16x9 on this tv, and when viewing them on the standard definition box their shown in 4x3 (no black bars) . Pretty cool. Sure beats having to use the zoom/aspect button all the time. I know theres a lot of talk about the importance of watching a program in its origional aspect ratio (Oar) but the anamorphic squeezed was getting annoying glad they finally fixed it. And yes the mediaset we get here in canada is different than the one in italy and yes its still in 4:3.
 
#4 ·
I forgot to write an update but some time a month ago or more the RAI owned channels suddenly switched back to their 4:3 anamorphically squeezed frame when watching them on a Rogers HD box. Ahh well it was short lived, maybe they were testing with the AFD descriptor flag for a wile? Who knows? Only their master control would know I guess.
 
#7 ·
Rogers has a package called: RAI World Package
RAI World Package features two Italian channels: RAI italia and RAINews. Enjoy 24 hours top quality entertainment, mini-series, movies, childrens cartoons, daily news and current affairs programming and much more! Must order with Telelatino as per CRTC requirement.

Price: $6.99 a month.

Mediaset Italia
In collaboration with Mediaset, Italy's leading commercial media group, TLN Telelatino brings a new worldwide Italian TV service to Canada. Mediaset Italia is the newly-launched, first-time-ever international channel offering the best of Mediaset's programming on Italian television channels Canale 5, Italia 1 and Rete 4. Perfect for Italians living around the world and for those who love Italy’s language, culture and beauty. Mediaset Italia also includes 15% Canadian programming, focusing on the needs and interests of Canada's vast population with Italian roots.

Price: can't find any details on their web site which leads me to believe its included in base channel lineups already, and its really not an international channel, its more or so classified as a Canadian channel (owned by the same folks who own TLN) that distributes select programming from the overseas version of the channel, and because of that they insert Canadian advertising and commercials

You can pretty much get the same Italian channels you had on Bell on Rogers, but The only difference is the price and Rogers bundles extra Italian channels into their combo so the price is a little higher than what Bell is offering it for.
 
#8 ·
Tested all 3 RAI's today. The flagship station RAI Italia is still 16x9 content in an anamorphic 4x3 frame delivered to our tv sets, however the other two RAI stations: Rai world Premium and Rai News 24 are suprisingly broadcasting in full 16x9 on my HD boxes. This has been an interesting chain of events
 
#9 ·
Rai Italia in High Definition

Resurrecting an old thread relating to Rai Italia, but there have been changes:

Rai Italia switched to broadcasting via satellite in HD sometime in August 2018. I have noticed that Rogers's Rai Italia feed is in HD, but Rogers is still distributing the channel to customers through the existing SD channel. (ie. the existing SD channel is somewhat sharper than before, and the image on the screen is widescreen on the existing Rai Italia SD channel).

So will Rogers create an HD channel, take the Rai Italia HD broadcast feed, and distribute Rai Italia on and HD channel to customers?
 
#10 ·
No idea, but ya they likely have a high def source signal but are broadcasting it to their customers as a 16x9 SD signal with the widescreen indicator being transmitted to cable companies like Rogers, so customers with a HD box will fill the screen and customers with SD only box will get anamorphic squeeze, but that is not the case on bell satellite, they get a 4x3 framed image anamorphically squeezed on both hd and sd receivers, but the good thing is hd receivers can remember the stretch mode and will show it stretch to fill the screen.
 
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