Aspect Ratio > 4x3 on all shows now? - HD200
 

For awhile now, I've noticed almost all my recorded ATSC shows aspect ratios are wider than my 4x3 TV supports. Clicking the zoom button on the remote doesn't help. It's very disconcerting when you have two people talking and one is off the screen. It's especially noticeable during sports where you can't often see the scores or all the information they like to show down the left side of the screen. Is it just the fact the 4x3 isn't being broadcast anymore?

Could be. I get my signal from Cable (not ATSC), all my TV's are now HD-capable, and I generally only watch HD channels. However, my wife will sometimes watch one of the older SD channels and I've noticed that some of them do as you describe. For example, ABC seems to chop the sides off the HD 16x9 broadcast to get a 4:3 aspect ratio and scales down to 480i for their SD broadcast. Then when you view on an HDTV, you end up with black bars on the sides (or a stretched out picture) and it looks especially bad after being de-interlaced and scaled back up to 1080p.

In my case, I know it's the broadcast (or the cable company) that's doing it and not Sage. I can verify this (and have) by connecting a cable box directly to a TV and watching live, so Sage isn't involved all.