Inconsistent Television Ratios
In early 2009 my family upgraded to an HDTV. Prior to that we had been through two or three fairly large (~60cm) CRT televisions.
For reference: our new TV is 42″, supports 1080p, and has a plethora of plugs at the back. Obviously it’s a 16:9 aspect ratio.
The 16:9 aspect ratio isn’t new. Television shows and movies have been using the ratio for years. That said, television originally started in the 4:3 aspect ratio (it almost looks square). So, these days we see a mix of 4:3 and 16:9 content on television. Well, and 21:9 (used almost exclusively for films), and there’s also a strange in-between ratio which has been confusing/annoying me lately.
You see, all of the latest television shows are recorded and broadcast in 16:9. You know… Home & Away, Heroes, LOST, Supernatural, news services, and late night talk shows (e.g., Conan O’Brien, Jimmy Kimmel, etc).
Some more history: Prior to the days of HD (high definition) there were two major television broadcast formats used in the world; PAL and NTSC. You can learn more about these formats at their respective links, but basically they broadcasted content at 25fps (PAL) and 29.97fps (NTSC). This means that you could not play an NTSC VHS tape in a PAL VCR. It almost acted as a copy protection — you couldn’t buy VHS tapes in the USA and play them in Australia. As VCR machines became more advanced it was possible to play both formats in these machines. Without getting too technical, I’ll just mention that PAL and NTSC also had different line (read: interlacing) ratios. This means that converting one format to the other would result in ’squishing’ or ’stretching’.
Due to the recent ordeal with Conan O’Brien hosting The Tonight Show, I’ve been watching his most recent episodes as well as some episodes of Jimmy Kimmel and Jay Leno. In Australia, all of these shows are shown on The Comedy Channel which is only accessible through a pay-TV service such as Foxtel.
Said shows are recorded and broadcast as HD in a 16:9 format. The shows are not shown in HD nor 16:9 through The Comedy Channel. I pointed this out to my Dad (a television producer/director) and he thinks it could be The Comedy Channel (or even Foxtel) that is tainting the formatting.
Even if it’s not in HD, it should still be shown in a 16:9 aspect ratio. At the moment the ratio is somewhere in between 4:3 and 16:9. Something like 14:9. It’s very strange. You can see what I mean in this photo.
I have noticed that several other Foxtel channels do the same thing. The Hope For Haiti telethon/concert was broadcast here on MTV several hours after it was aired in the USA. It too had a ~14:9 aspect ratio.
I’m not sure who decides this kind of stuff, but as a content creator myself it’s quite annoying to watch. The thing that baffles me is the free-to-air content we get (Heroes, Supernatural, etc) is shown in very crisp HD 1080p, and our pay-TV is this low-quality messy format. Go figure. This is why I’d happily give up Foxtel.
