[BC] CNN fake widescreen

[Bernie Courtney]

I'm not seeing the issue- they are a cable news channel, who get most
of their video from tv stations all over the country, what incentive
would they have to go through the great expense of upgrading to HD or
even widescreen when most cable companies wouldnt even think of adding
an HD version to their lineup (heck there are some local stations
still fighting to work out carriage agreements for their HD channel).

Stations like CNN are going to be the LAST to make the jump over to
HD, there just is no return on the investment.



On 3/13/07, Kevin Tekel <amstereoexp at yahoo.com> wrote:
>I toured the CNN Building in Atlanta (world headquarters of Turner
>Broadcasting) yesterday and I couldn't help but notice that *all* of the
>flat-panel LCD monitors in the building were showing standard 4:3 video
>stretched out to fill a widescreen aspect ratio!
>
>They even have a big projection display on the wall showing many different
>camera feeds as well as the current on-air video, and it, too, is showing
>horizontally-stretched video.  The only displays I saw which were actually
>showing the correct aspect ratio were the handful of CRT monitors still in
>service, as well as the 9" color CRTs on all the desks in the newsroom
>showing the current on-air video.
>
>And what's worse, many of the LCDs were showing fuzzy video with obvious
>interference patterns, as if they were picking up a Channel 3 signal from
>an RF modulator, not from a direct video line!
>
>So if CNN, TBS, or the Cartoon Network are producing any *true* widescreen
>video, I didn't see it, even though at least 95% of the monitors in their
>building are widescreen.  And apparently either nobody knows or cares
>about how their displays are making their famous news anchors look short
>and fat, or they can't be bothered to have a tech crew go around the
>building and push a few buttons on each display to make it show the
>correct aspect ratio.