So I recently purchased my digital to analog converter boxes, and I have had a digital tuner in my computer for a while now. And I'm hoping someone technical from the madison stations reads this and can provide an answer.
Why do the local stations upconvert SD shows to HD, instead of switching to broadcast them in 480i (or p)?
There are several things about this that bother me, and here's the list
- If I'm recording the show on my HD tuner in my computer/dvr , it takes up a lot more space.
- If I'm recording the show on my TiVo hooked up to my converter box (which I am able to do now) I need to switch to the "zoom" mode so the show doesn't have black all around it. I want to record HD shows in letterbox, and TiVo can't control the zoom mode on the convert box.
- I haven't noticed any HD commercials in the upconverted SD shows yet (been watching mostly late night shows)
- Sometimes a SD show is letterboxed to start out with, and then gets upconverted to HD, but is converted as a 4:3 show, so it is even smaller. If it was upconverted to the full width since it was letterbox, it wouldn't bug me as much.
Can the broadcasters not handle the dynamic switching of resolution? Will they ever be able to? It seems like there will still be new shows produced in SD even after feb 2009, at least based on the current crop of reality and magazine shows that are still SD. And even if all new shows are HD, they will still be a lot of syndicated sitcoms in SD. I hope dynamic resolution switching is something in Madison's broadcast future.
Thanks.
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