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Why Sports on a Widescreen TV is a Ripoff...Sort Of

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discounteggroll
01/13/09

In reply to Why Sports on a Widescreen TV is a Ripoff...Sort Of
out of all the sports they could have used, they chose baseball?

I'm not hating on baseball in any way, but when it comes to getting the most screen real estate to see more action and excitement that you normally wouldn't, baseball doesn't really take the cake

shit...now I'm hungry.
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ZLevee
01/13/09

In reply to Why Sports on a Widescreen TV is a Ripoff...Sort Of
It's not just sports - all HD shows (late night talk shows, sitcoms, etc.) try to keep action out of the side areas.
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Serolf Divad
01/13/09

In reply to Why Sports on a Widescreen TV is a Ripoff...Sort Of
That's some pretty lame cherry-picking of images. I mean, seriously, when's the last time you've seen so few football players on screen at th same time? Do you really thing the basketball players are grouped that tightly when there's a fast break? Also, this completely ignores the Hi-def resolution issue.

I'm not a sports fan, but just this weekend I finally got around to getting HD converter boxes for my cable. And I set it all up just before the Baltimore Ravens / Tennessee Titans game. All I can say is that if I were a big sports fan I would have done this ages ago, because it was everything I imagined it would be. The images on my 22" LCD TV were spectacularly crisp and vibrant. It's nice to be able to read names on uniforms, even from a distance. It was as close to being there as you're likely to get until some sort of credible 3D component is added.
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qbrad
01/13/09

In reply to Why Sports on a Widescreen TV is a Ripoff...Sort Of
How else are you going to see the ruckus that's going on between two strangely coloured and painted humans that aren't on the actual game field?
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something_unique_and_descriptive
01/13/09

In reply to Why Sports on a Widescreen TV is a Ripoff...Sort Of
Can you even buy "standard" 4:3 aspect ratio TVs anymore?
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Serolf Divad
01/13/09

@something_unique_and_descripti...:

Probably on Craigslist.
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BeautifulAgony
01/13/09

@something_unique_and_descripti...: It's not a matter of whether or not you can still buy them... it's a matter of whether or not people who already own them want to make the switch to a widescreen television.

I've mentioned before that widescreen and HD are meaningless to me, and the insane cost makes it a no-brainer for me to stick with my current SD television (which is plenty big for my libngroom size). I watch some baseball, and the SD and 4:3 suit me just fine, and my DVD's look good enough to me.

I've watch HD programming, and watched movies on Bluray on a widescreen HD set, and yes, it's nice, I guess. But certainly not worth the crazy money I could be spending on other things.
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jcrockerman
01/13/09

In reply to Why Sports on a Widescreen TV is a Ripoff...Sort Of
Seeing MORE of the playing field makes me feel like I'm in the game.
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superhappyfuntime
01/13/09

@jcrockerman: Agreed. And with HD, I can crowd watch as if I were at the game too!
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robot-shmobot
01/13/09

@latterman: I buy HD for the image quality, not the extra real estate.
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ZLevee
01/13/09

@robot-shmobot: For me the opposite is true. The space is what makes it more engrossing.

I would even take a widescreen TV in SD (which they did make for a short time) over HD in 4:3 (which also was made for a time).
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Monty
01/13/09

@jcrockerman: For what it is worth, now that the deadline for analog broadcasts is about to pass, it is highly likely that in the coming year that they will change how they broadcast sports. They had to do this to be 'backwards compatible', but since that necessity is declining rapidly (ignoring 4x3 TV's hooked up to cable and so forth, of course), they will have the option of moving sports tickers and other information to the side.
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aec007
01/13/09

@jcrockerman:
You are right.

I've been to TV studios, and anyone that has seen a TV camera from behind would see that the camera actually SEEs more that what it transmits. There is a digital frame (rectangle) overlaid that shows the cameraman the actual trasmitted area so he can "frame" the scene for best viewing.

Now with HDTV's things do not change... the image is wider not taller. So the cameraman cannot zoom in any further on the action to fill the sides without cutting top and bottom.

Still the HDTV action will be better for the picture overall....
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ripfire
01/13/09

@aec007: Underscan/Overscan.
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zenpoet
01/13/09

@jcrockerman: Just play some EA Sports game, you know, 'cause "its in the game."
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