[quote="Mike Cumbo"]Now comes the question, what does 16x9 provide, other then more screen area, for the viewer??? OK, a clearer picture, or it should be better.[/quote] I think the widescreen aspect, since it looks like a movie shot in widescreen, makes the whole event look a bit more "cinematic" and dramatic. The wider screen works very well for most sports since they tend to be horizontally-oriented. You see more of what's going on on the field, court, ice, whatever. There's more room for graphics so the cameras don't have to go out of their way as much to frame around them. Stuff like that. But most of all, you get rid of all the hassle of framing for two aspect ratios at once.

[quote="Bob Yodice"]I love the letterbox for Conan, and SNL. I wish more sports would commit to shooting full 16x9, instead of this frame for 4x3. I like watching HD where they use their glass and really get some nice shots in 16x9. Comcast Chicago is talking about that for next baseball season, but who knows if they'll still frame for 4x3, but air SD away games on the HD channel, that are 16x9 but framed for 4x3. I suspect the average viewer "don't know no better" and sees letterbox at home and just assumes their SD reception is what they believe to be HD. I do like that ESPN is branding shows as "ESPN HD", with "ESPN HD" replay, mic flags and other gfx. -Bob[/quote] Bob, the Red Sox did their Wednesday games like that, for some reason I think they called it "Widescreen Wednesday" or something like it. The analog viewers saw the whole 16x9 show. I remember Mike telling the cameras to forget the 4x3 markers in their viewfinders. Now comes the question, what does 16x9 provide, other then more screen area, for the viewer??? OK, a clearer picture, or it should be better.

[quote="Bob Yodice"]I love the letterbox for Conan, and SNL.[/quote] Ditto here. I especially loved when Conan first introduced it and he demonstrated the extra space on the sides of the frame by putting stuff like fish swimming, people playing ping pong etc. in there. [quote]I wish more sports would commit to shooting full 16x9, instead of this frame for 4x3. I like watching HD where they use their glass and really get some nice shots in 16x9.[/quote] Same thing here, plus it bugs me when I'm watching a game on a $5000 HDTV and the sides of the screen aren't even used at all. What's the point of buying an HDTV if broadcasters aren't going to actually use the entire space of the format they're given? [quote]I suspect the average viewer "don't know no better" and sees letterbox at home and just assumes their SD reception is what they believe to be HD.[/quote] Strange thing is, it looks to me like even SD transmissions benefit from HD. Downconverted HD just looks a touch crisper to me than native SD. It might just be placebo effect though. Like how audiophiles say that albums recorded at super-high sampling rates sound better on their stereos even though they're still listening to a CD with the standard 44.1 kHz sampling rate.

I love the letterbox for Conan, and SNL. I wish more sports would commit to shooting full 16x9, instead of this frame for 4x3. I like watching HD where they use their glass and really get some nice shots in 16x9. Comcast Chicago is talking about that for next baseball season, but who knows if they'll still frame for 4x3, but air SD away games on the HD channel, that are 16x9 but framed for 4x3. I suspect the average viewer "don't know no better" and sees letterbox at home and just assumes their SD reception is what they believe to be HD. I do like that ESPN is branding shows as "ESPN HD", with "ESPN HD" replay, mic flags and other gfx. -Bob

Possibly not so much cost cutting as much as it just looks weird when a camera is framing around something that only exists in the feed you're not watching. Personally, I feel the best solution is to just letterbox HD shows when they're broadcast in SD. NBC does it already, though admittedly not for sports as far as I've seen.

NFL on CBS no longer produces a 16:9 bug and 4:3 bug show...Cost cutting? Our 'eyebox' is now free to float!

Except for back-up transmission, ESPN does not do seperate HD & SD feeds for its events. The bug "floats" in the HD show, and all images are protected for 4x3.

Comcast SportsNet and NESN have floating bugs. So far, I have only done 4x3 shows for ESPN. For regional shows, where the TD usually changes every show or series trying to go with a dual path/dual bug would be challenging at minimum in my book. There is enough to setup in a six hour day.