[InMontreal]

Videotron added WFN in SD format last wednesday to the lineup.

The first thing I noticed is that the screen is full 4:3 all the time and people are unusually stretched up. When using the "Stretch" function of my HD receiver, they look more natural.

I'm trying to figure out if Videotron took the HD feed and squeezed it to fit in an SD channel, or if the channel has always been sent to providers that way? It would look better with black bars... or with the sides cut off.

 

[57]

I just switched to the SD channel with Rogers and it had black bars on the particular programme I looked at for a couple of minutes. Perhaps it depends on whether the programme was HD or SD originally?

The HD channel didn't look HD and it may have been "cropped" top/bottom from the 4:3 original to fit the 16:9 screen, although I only watched for about 2 minutes.

There is also the following issue:

http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showthread.php?p=909050#post909050 AFD.

 

[InMontreal]

The show currently on (Fly Max) fills up the 4:3 channel. Weird. And you saw black bars on top and bottom during the same show?

 

[57]

No, on the SD channel, the black bars were on the sides, as per a normal 4:3 show. The HD channel filled my (16:9) screen, but the original 4:3 programme had been stretched sideways to fill the 16:9 screen on the HD channel. The programme was Gillznfinz. It was not cropped as I thought earlier.

So, it looks like they are stretching SD for the HD channel, which most of us hate. I believe A&E HD and some other channels do the same.

 

[InMontreal]

OK, so basically for WFN SD, they use the 16:9 source and squeeze it to fit the 4:3 channel without cutting off anything.

And if the source is 4:3, then it'll play fine on WFN SD but they'll stretch the screen to fill the 16:9 area on WFN HD.

Interesting.

 

[17671]

some programming on WFN SD are originally widescreen but anamorphically squeezed to fit a 4:3 frame. when i tune to the HD simulcast, its just in HD widescreen and it looks good.

I've seen a program in centre cut on wfn SD and 16:9 on the hd channel too, so anything is possible, dont assume that htey will stretch sd content on their hd chanel.