Re: Hi-Def not always full-screen ?

"Ed" <FakeAddress@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message 
news:ca85a$481ceed3$18d66e07$23347@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> Let's say I am watching a football game in hi-def, on my 32' LCD TV.  I
> don't really know if it's 720 or 1080 - the point is, the image fills
> every pixel of the screen at 16:9, and it looks fantastic.  Literally,
> you can see every blade of grass.  I am in video heaven.
>
> Then, I switch over to PBS and watch, oh, Nature or Masterpiece or
> something like that.  I know PBS is broadcasting in hi-def but the
> image is often letter-boxed 16:9, with several inches of black space
> all around.  Sure, I can expand it in some fa****on using the TV aspect
> controls but then it either is distorted or else has a certain
> fuzziness that detracts from the quality.
>
> It's not like this all the time - I think some PBS programs really are
> full-screen hi-def, like I would have expected.  But it seems like the
> ones I really want to see are smaller than the available space.
>
> What is going on here?  Why isn't PBS hi-def like football-game hi-def?
> I read about some PBS stations doing some sort of bandwidth-saving
> compromise on their hi-def broadcasts - is this what I am seeing?
>
> Thanks,
> Ed

You didn't say what your source signal is. Are you using OTA (off the air 
antenna), cable, or satellite?

Not all cable or satellite systems are broadcasting an HD signal yet for
PBS 
stations. This is particularly true for Direct TV, which only recently 
signed a contract with PBS for HD, but has not rolled it out yet (the
cable 
and satellite companies must have permission to carry a signal, even if
they 
get it OTA and retransmit).