Probably some of us are talking of that issue on Movies Now in Dish HD.Dude, Pan and Scan is different than incorrect aspect ratio like presenting 4:3 as 16:9. Pan and Scan on the other hand will clip the content sideways to MAINTAIN the ASPECT RATIO Full Screen. Its like zoom function on our TV.
For pan-scan I do a "zoom" on my samsung TV. Zoom preserves aspect ratio (Zoom can actually change that as well, but I always keep it at identity).
Sorry to correct you on this, but the fact is, that any aspect ratio used to show a movie and which is different from the aspect ratio that the movie was originally shot in, is an "incorrect aspect ratio". Thus showing a movie, shot with a 2.35:1 aspect ratio, in a 16:9 or 4:3 aspect ratio is incorrect and this is irrespective of whether it has been 'panned & scanned' or simply 'cropped' from the sides to do so. In fact, stretching a 4:3 aspect ratio picture to fit a 16:9 screen, is actually more acceptable than either 'panning & scanning' or 'simple cropping', because with 'stretching' one atleast has the option to correct the aspect ratio and still not lose any of the picture. Which sadly is not the case with 'panning & scanning' and 'simple cropping'.
I already took TS+HD and its another story (read another mayhem - installed after about 15 days of booking, ended subscription within 15 days of activation, bad overall SQ and PQ on both SD and HD channels).
Definitely not. I am certain that the reason for this fake HD attempt is not "let's fool the customers since they are ignorant enough not to know the difference between upscaled HD and real HD". I don't think DishTV management is that intellectually challenged. 25 real HD channels and 10 upscaled channels to claim 30 HD channels would have been an intelligent marketing attempt (although unethical). 3 real HD channels and a claim of 30 HD channels is definitely a cover-up of a different problem. Most probably someone high up the hierarchy made a blunder by betting too much on the HD story. They assumed that by March there will be at least 20 real HD channels. Content providers haven't bought in the HD story to that extent and haven't started new HD channels. So DishTV got themselves into an expensive satellite contract for 70 HD channel capability. With no real HD content to show, they would have been running into huge losses every day! This is an attempt to recover a part of that. Unfortunately they don't seem to care about long-term damage it's doing to their hard earned brand. The very fact that I, who has been their platinum (or whatever their highest plan was in each year) subscriber for 7 years, is thinking about shifting to TataSky says a lot about it.
When I went to them in Bangalore, they had no TS+HD or for that matter TS HD setup in Jayanagar, Bangalore. I was only able to see the STB.
Actually my complaints were initially for STB hanging and rebooting randomly for which they sat on it for several MONTHS! Finally when the STB was replaced, optical output wasn't working, another ONE month for getting 3rd STB. Then we had AUDIO issues on several of their HD and Upscaled HD channels when they were boosting subwoofer sound to such an extent that it used to distort whenever subwoofer sound was playing (mixed to 2.0 from DD5.1). Some channels like Zee Studio looked like HD even in normal STB an year ago. Now even upscaled Zee Studio has heavy pixellation which does not exist in TS SD version of the same channel. Also, PIX HD, HBO HD, Times Now HD, ET Now HD look worse than their SD version on TS! Times Now HD and ET Now HD have ghosting and interlacing artifacts which they have not resolved till date.
