From: sss@castle.ed.ac.uk (S S Sturrock)
Newsgroups: rec.video
Subject: Re: 16x9 aspect ratio TV in US?
Date: 1 Oct 92 08:42:28 GMT
Organization: Edinburgh University

In article <pvh-290992113844@kip2-8.apple.com> pvh@apple.com (Pete Helme) writes:
>It will probably be in the $4000-$5000 range and first come out under the
>ProScan label and later RCA, both of which are manufactured by Thomson.  It
>will use various digital enhancement techniques to blow a widescreen

No digital enhancement needs to be used, just overscan by widening the gap
between scan lines and losing the top and bottom, ie treat the tube like it
is a much larger 4:3 tube.  Digital techniques could introduce artifacts
such as steppy lines where every third line needs to be doubled.

For my 16:9 set running from PAL material (although it is multistandard)
the movie expand mode gives 400 lines on screen, I counted them.

The set claims to be IDTV but I suspect Philips (because that is who makes
my set) are just claiming that because of the 100/120Hz refresh rate which
does give much cleaner and more stable images but interlace is still at
50/60Hz, no line doubling is used.  Philips are said to be working on a
future set which is include line doubling but I suspect they are holding
back for HDTV to be decided upon in Europe.

>picture up to the width of the 16x9 tube (though you'll still probably get
>some black bars above and below the actual picture since most movies are
>shot above the 1.8 aspect ratio of 16x9 tubes).  You'll also be able to

1.77:1 = 16:9

>blow the picture up to fill the entire tube, losing some material at the
>edges.  Thomson wanted to leave the aspect ratio of the picture "under the
>user's control".  Why this is fine & dandy from a marketing point of view,
>it will probably leave some theatrical movie directors in a snit.  Thomson
>also promises that these TVs are 'HDTV' ready and will accept an external
>device compatible with whatever HDTV decoding process the FCC finally
>approves.  There is some doubt that this is feasible. Hey, but if you can
>get it in writing...

I see no reason why it can't be feasible.  Whether it will give full HDTV
or just a 625/525 line version of the HDTV image albeit full 16:9 ratio is
another matter entirely.
>
>It's really hard to say what these will look like until they arrive. 
>Judging from the new ProScan IDTVs that have just come out, they've done a
>nice job of bringing IDTV to the masses, but the slight 'digititis' of the
>images may leave some people running back to their conventional Sonys.

I do notice that the images on my Philips are crisper with less dot crawl
and colour run than on my old Sony, whether this has anything to do with
Philips massaging the incoming signal I don't know for sure.  Also, colour
does seem very much more natural in normal viewing although when placed
next to a conventional set they may look less impressive, an example of
this is that there is much more detail on faces with this set clearly
showing how little a normal TV resolves, makeup shows up very clearly on
news readers, the effect is much more window like rather than a TV and the
high refresh helps with this effect.

Another thing, the other night ITN couldn't get their act together for get
the 5:45 news on the go so STV had to show views of Scotland with a bit of
classical music so I promptly whacked the sound through my hifi to see what
the NICAM was like, also expanding the picture for a laugh.  The shots
were of various parts of Scotland from a helicopter and sitting fairly
close to the set with wide mode set and the music playing it was the first
time I actually got the feeling that I was not watching a TV, much more
involving coming from the peripheral vision.  Very impressive.

-- 
Shane Sturrock, Biocomputing Research Unit, Darwin Building, Mayfield Road,
University of Edinburgh, Scotland, Commonwealth of Independant Kingdoms.  :-)

Civilisation is a Haggis Supper with salt and sauce and a bottle of Irn Bru.
Newsgroups: rec.video