Ubc

[NotaNutter]

Do UBC broadcast in widescreen format? I'm thinking of buying a widescreen TV but don't want the "stretched" picture you get when the broadcaster is only transmitting 4/3. Anybody personal experience of this?

[simcity]

Nota , hello I can talk only regarding what I did :

last year I bought a plasma television 42 inch , I was not to happy with the reception from UBC , I ring them and they came to change the received box for a digital one .

In it you have menu program to change to wide scream format , but you will not get the full scream with it , but no stretched .

The extra cost are around 60 bahts a month .

I find the quality better the last few months .

I plug the digital into my old post and still work .

[LivinLOS]

Multiple options exist for 4:3 to widescreen conversion...

You have the stretch version.. You can crop the 4:3 signal.. You can combine a crop and stretch.. You can combine a crop and stretch leaving small black bars on the sides to produce a 1.66:1 ratio which is a lit better than the 1.76:1 or 1.85:1 images commonly found in widescreen broadcast and film.

The best I find is to use a progressive stretch, this stretches the edges of the image more than the central area and is very good at getting rid of the stretch look... Kind of like a S--T-RET-C--H, at the focus of the image is in the central part and this is not distorted much this is the best compromise..

Basically check what modes the TV offers, I use an external scaler to a projection setup but many TV's have a similar mode built in.

[simcity]

livinlos are you talking about function from you television ?

if it is , i think it is not very good !

the best i find was options from the receiver box ( UBC )

[NotaNutter]

I was looking at some plasma tvs at emporium the other week. The salesguy showed me Thai channels 3 and 7 and they seemed to be transmitting in widescreen format (the "7" logo was a few inches inward from the right side of the screen, unlike my 4/3 at home where the logo is near the right side). He told me most channels on UBC are available widescreen now.

I emailed UBC last year for an answer, and the reply surprised me, they said that they don't recommend widescreen tvs for UBC signal, must admit that I've not asked them again though.

My set top box has a widescreen option as the simcity mentions above. I just don't want to spend 180k if UBC don't actually transmit in a widescreen format (BBC, CNN, HBO, etc). Any more comments would be welcome, I'd like to get to the bottom of this before shelling out 180k.

[Joey Boy]

Widescreen is no problem with UBC I have not changed any settings and it looks just fine. The thing that will piss you off is the <deleted> bit rate UBC is broadcasted in, even with top of the range kit it will look poor quality to say the least, to get the crystal clear pictures these TVs should give you really need a HDTV stream

[autonomous_unit]

We have UBC digital via satellite in our condo and setting the 16:9 aspect ratio on the UBC box just underscans the apparently 4:3 signal so that the aspect ratio is distorted with black "margins" on the left and right on a 4:3 TV. I tried this on the movie and sports channels and I am extremely confused if someone else is getting real widescreen picture data.

I have seen demonstration screens in malls which were doing that terrible progressive stretching mentioned above. If you were watching a football match, the ball would be circular in the middle of the screen but stretch into an oval as it approached the left or right. Everything else looked equally distorted and I cannot imagine why someone would prefer that to seeing the 4:3 broadcast without distortion! I think I would get sick if I watched that for more than a minute or two...

Unless someone can explain how or when you can get widescreen broadcasts from UBC, I will continue to assume that the only use of a widescreen set would be for watching DVDs without letterboxing.

[simcity]

Autonomous I agree!

The only way to watch a widescreen program: is first if it is diffuse / transmit in the wide format , and you go back to your set up and change back to 4:3 .

stretching are not the solution .

[LivinLOS]

It truly depends on the signal processing (after obvious source quality) as to clarity..

As a side note I work as a hobbyist with video and am a Microsoft MVP to test and work with thier WMVHD codecs, I own the dScaler.com domains (open source deinterlace and scaling software) and moderate the nets largets Home Theater PC forum.. I have more than a passing interest in HT and PC based signal processing

The non linear stretch mode I mentioned can be pretty good for a conversion, I would use it for non critical viewing of normal crappy TV.. Useing a customised non linear s--t-ret-c--h and approx a 5% crop (to lower the amount of stretch performed) which is withing the bounds of normal tv overscan actually yields something I would not mind watching. Of course for plasma and CRT systems which can suffer burn in using this or an orbiting feature is necessary to retain the full life of the set.

For critical viewing (watching film created in 4:3) anything other than OAR is butchery IMHO.. I have different standards for CNN or a Thai soap than I do for Citizen Kane..

As far as I can tell UBC does not transmit any signal in true widescreen merely letterbox it, by setting the box to do the compression and pillarboxing of 4:3 you allow a fairly mediocre processor in the signal chain and also will notice (if your display is clear) that you are merely zooming the letterbox content in the same way an non anamoprhic DVD uses only a small portion of the encoded frame.

At home I use a HiDef HD2+ DLP projector as the display device so image quality does become important.. TV is just that but film must be right (High quality DVD9's no reencoded DVD5's !!!!) roll on HD-DVD...

[autonomous_unit]

...

Of course for plasma and CRT systems which can suffer burn in using this or an orbiting feature is necessary to retain the full life of the set.

...

As far as I can tell UBC does not transmit any signal in true widescreen merely letterbox it...

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

That's what I thought regarding UBC, so I figure there isn't much point in getting a widescreen display here. Something large enough and with enough definition for playing DVDs once in a while would be sufficient.

I did not realize burn-in was still a problem in this day and age. So it is for device maintenance rather than viewing pleasure that one would stretch an image? All the static "info bars" and logos etc. must cause problems w/ such crude solutions as stretch or floating the image around, right?

BTW, do you know what caused content producers to screw things up so much in the first place? Why can't they always broadcast (or ship, on DVDs) the image field in its correct borderless dimensions w/ aspect ration signaling and leave it to the decoder to scale appropriately for the screen and user preferences? There is no sane reason that people should have to toggle the scaling behavior of multiple devices to sort it all out each time a different movie comes on!

[NotaNutter]

Thanks for the replies.

It seems that the salesguy in Emporium was showing me some fancy stretched picture that the untrained eye can't recognise? I watch about one dvd a month, and so I wanted the widescreen for normal day-to-day UBC viewing. If UBC don't broadcast in widescreen format then I can't see much point in me buying a widescreen tv. But any counter opinions would be welcome.

[NotaNutter]

PS I've emailed UBC for an update, I'll post their reply assuming I get one.

[LivinLOS]

I did not realize burn-in was still a problem in this day and age. So it is for device maintenance rather than viewing pleasure that one would stretch an image? All the static "info bars" and logos etc. must cause problems w/ such crude solutions as stretch or floating the image around, right?

Burn in is a problem with some display types.. You will find burn in will effect Plasma and CRT as well as LCoS (Liquid Crystal on Silicon) displays.. I doubt you will see one of the LCoS models much in Thailand as their main strength is for ultra high end 1080p display (I was product review / testing a LCoS projector for a few months).

You will not suffer burn in with LCD or DLP digital displays, to be honest even a CRT is not much of an issue unless it is run in a 24/7 type environoment with the same channel logo..

Stretching while filling the image raster / area will stop widescreen bars (that will occur when watching 'scope' 2.35:1 films also even on a 16:9 TV) it would do nothing for station logo's, the solution for this is an orbiting function but features like this will only come with higher end scaling solutions or HTPC options.

It seems that the salesguy in Emporium was showing me some fancy stretched picture that the untrained eye can't recognise?

Maybe yes maybe no.. All the Thai channels are 4:3.. Animal planet and NGC seem to have a fair bit of widescreen and its increasing (bbc world) accross the board.

What you have to remember and understand is HOW they are transmitting widescreen. What they do is to trasnmit PAL signal letterboxed, essentially they transmit black bars encoded in the signal and hence the central area of the image containing the 'widescreen' data is actually a lower resolution area, if blown up too big it will look worse than the 4:3 data.

Its easier to explain if I use how DVD's are encoded as an example. remeber all the way through this that a 'pixel' is not square the encodoing flag on the DVD tells it what aspect ratio to output.

A NTSC DVD (easier for me to remember the data then PAL) is 720x480 encoded pixels.

To output this data from a 4:3 image (for academy ratio / 4:3 films) the player will output 640x480 in square 'screen' pixels.

To output a film in 16:9 (true widescreen) mode the player will stretch the output to 856x480.

If a 'widescreen' movie is letterboxed you still get the OAR (Origional Aspect Ratio) of the film but it is encoded inside the 4:3 720x480 output so a widescreen letterbox title film would be using far less encoded data than a true widesceen signal.

Whatever UBC tells you they are lettterboxing thier widescreen sources.

Edited April 28, 2005 by LivinLOS

[NotaNutter]

Just received the following email from UBC customer support. . .

Thank you very much for your support in our service. Regarding to your inquiry, UBC would like to inform you that your service would not support a widescreen plasma TV. We are sincerely sorry for this inconvenience that may have caused.

Should you have any further queries, please contact our customer service at tel: 0-2271-7171 or email; [email protected]

[LivinLOS]

Typical stupid (incorrect) answer.. Its down to a TV to support the signal its presented and some of UBC is in widescreen 9Letterbox)..

Ddnt expect any better tho

[NotaNutter]

Yes, it doesn't add up. If UBC's signal is incompatible with widescreen TV's, and UBC virtually have a monopoly here for cable/satellite TV, then why are the shops full of widescreen TV's these days.

[bkk_mike]

Yes, it doesn't add up. If UBC's signal is incompatible with widescreen TV's, and UBC virtually have a monopoly here for cable/satellite TV, then why are the shops full of widescreen TV's these days.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Unless you're talking plasmas / LCDs (where it's because Thailand isn't the only country they're built for), I think you'll find most TVs here aren't widescreen.

And anyway, there's always DVDs as the source for widescreen.

[LivinLOS]

Widescreen is the evolution and future of broadcast, hence most higher end pieces will be made for the widescreen markets and imported to Thailand as a secondary concern.

How many years until Thailand gets some broadcast HD content is probably the next level.