We just started receiving Get Tv in Boston(Actually, Marlboro).Except for It's having commercials, It's like a Sony/Columbia equivalent of TCM. But with no hosts.They're showing a lot of obscure 30s Columbias with a little public domain thrown in.Who else gets this?
I dropped Direct tv and put up an H.D antenna, I receive Get tv along with This, Grit, Hero's and Icons decades etc along with some local channels that have a few H.D. channels, pretty good content for a guy like me in his late 50's, haven't seen Combat since I was a kid and I/m enjoying it.
I bought a h.d antenna and get tv was one of the channel I started getting, It was never part of our cable or satellite package.
I just looked and I have it, but it didn't look like there are any movies that I want to see at least for the next couple days. I'll try to look during the week to see if there are any movies I'll be interested in.
We have it -- only ever used antenna at our house, and those "oldies" stations get the most use by far. More the old TV show stations than Get TV, but I'm still happy to have it available as well.
We don't have "Get TV" yet, but the way things are evolving for broadcast stations, I expect to see it soon. For some time now we've had around 10 or more of those type of extra channels... Decades IND TV MeTV ATV This TV H&I My Net Movies Just Net CW ION ION Life Weather Nation As I recall, there are even more, but I don't bother with them. Plus there are 4 PBS channels now, and of course CBS, ABC, NBC, FOX main primary channels. And I see that some stations have extra channels just broadcasting duplicate content at the moment, apparently ready to expand and begin broadcasting new offerings. Some of the content is great, some is lame. Just personal preference — Hit and miss.
The problem I have with all these digital broadcast sub-channels is that they're heavily, heavily compressed and usually at the wrong aspect ratio (at least for 4x3 shows). The end result is that it often looks like crap. I don't have a problem with these miscellaneous stations showing old TV shows on satellite, provided the satellite provider has access to a less-compressed picture. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_subchannel
Looking at your link they discuss compression but I didn't notice anything about aspect ratio difference. Is the change in aspect ratio related to the compression or something else? Since a lot of these channels are running vintage programming, and they are broadcast in SD, does the compression have as much impact on older shows?
There is another new channel coming in April 15th call LAFF TV. It's of interest to me because they will actually start showing Empty Nest, which has eluded syndication and DVD release for years.
The aspect ratio thing is very odd where 4x3 tv shows are concerned on these subcarrier channels. Let me illustrate what I mean. We are on Comcast, and have three TVs with three Comcast boxes, all different models. Our Panasonic plasma tv has four "format" settings: 4x3, zoom, full, and just (justified). For shows on MeTV or AntennaTV, I just leave it set at 4x3 and all the 4x3 shows are 4x3. However, on CoziTV, when I have the Panasonic on 4x3, the resultant picture is something closer to 3x3, with everything too skinny by about a third, but if I change my Panasonic's format setting to "full," I am able to watch CoziTV with an actual 4x3 picture. Same is true for GetTV. (Often GetTV is running 1.85 letterboxed within their 4x3 picture.) Now, in the bedroom and kitchen, we still have little 4x3 CRTs, and on those sets, MeTV and AntennaTV fill the screen, while GetTV and CoziTV are pillarboxed with everything tall/skinny.
Very interesting. I too have a Panasonic with the same settings as yours. I usually just leave it on "Full" and get good results, changing it occasionally if something doesn't look right. Sounds like there may not be an industry standard however because of your experience with your other TV's.
I know that in one of the MeTV threads that a fellow member in New Jersey get MeTV in 16x9, with original 4x3 programming cropped, which blows me away, as it's 4x3 all the way here. I suspect it may depend on how the local affiliate handles the signal????
Just stupidity on the part of people who don't understand aspect ratios. They typically fattenize the programs and the commercials from 4x3 to 16x9. My favorite is when they run weight loss commercials, only even the skinny people in the spots are 25% too fat because the aspect ratio is wrong. Look at vintage programming like Dick Van Dyke or Twilight Zone on Blu-ray, and tell me they can't benefit from high-def. There's HD, there's SD, and then there's "stomped-on-beyond-belief-compression" like YouTube. These sub-channels are much closer to the latter.
Seems like poor aspect ratios could be station specific. After reading your post I started looking at my stations sub-channels more closely. The original vintage programs all seem to be broadcast correctly in 4x3, and the advertising in 16x9. Must be luck of the draw.
Speaking of compression, I wonder if that was why some station's 16mm film libraries always looked grainy and sounded muddy.I used to think that it was just some schmuck who didn't care how bad the films looked or sounded, but I wonder if it wasn't more complicated than that.
It has to be the local station for the most part that fiddles with the "flags" that these stations send out. Here's an example: I live in between the markets of Tampa and Orlando, with equally spotty reception in both directions - but good enough that I can see what these guys are sending out. Recently, both of the ABC affiliates in Tampa and Orlando have added the GRIT-TV channel to their .3 subchannels. When I tune in 9.3 from Orlando, I get a stretched picture that fills the 16:9 television. When I tune in GRIT on 28.3 from Tampa, the picture is a standard 4:3. If I tune in 9.3 and see the stretched picture, I can, with my Sony TVs, hit the [WIDE] button and reduce it to its standard 4:3 ratio. Oddly, with a cheapy RCA flat-screen, I cannot get that 9.3 channel to look normal. It stays at the stretched setting - probably because of the flag that 9.3 is sending, telling the TV that it's a 16:9 signal. All of this applies to over-the-air reception. A similar situation exists with the MOVIES channel. The Orlando channel sends out a 16:9 flag which won't permit that RCA TV to get it back to 4:3, so often the films look stretched. On the few occasions I've gotten the station from Tampa to come in, it has a normal 4:3 flag on it, allowing the TV so size it properly. COZI-TV seems to nationally be scrunched into a windowbox everywhere it's broadcast, based on what I've read on the Internet. MeTV is always 4:3 here, and always looks correct - same with Antenna TV. Harry
Just saw this. Looks like a new and interesting improvement in compression technology. http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-32140732
I am very grateful for this thread. I am thrilled with the content on gettv. It shows films you can't see on other channels. am willing to accept a compressed signal since I am a freeloader. But the aspect ratio is completely unacceptable. It zooms 43 content to make everyone fat, and does an exaggerated letterbox on letterbox films. To make it worse, my aspect control buttons do nothing on this channel. On the other extra channels "panel" works for 43 content, and "zoom" seems best for letterbox. I sent an email to gettv to complain, which basically got ignored. But now I see that it is likely a local station issue. So I will try again.