TBS, TNT and Stretch-O-Vision stinks

One of my major pet peeves when I watch stuff on high-definition televisions is when things get stretched that shouldn’t be. As we all know, TV shows made before the HD era were square for the most part to fit our old 4:3 ratio TV’s.

Well, enter huge, wide-screen HDTV’s and the awesomeness that is the HD picture. The downside is that watching your old shows on it doesn’t look as good. Not everyone likes the bars on the side of your screen to maintain the correct aspect ratio of your show, so they STRETCH it.

Some just simply stretch the picture to fit your screen. Some do a “warping” effect where the middle isn’t that stretched, but the edges of the screen are big time.

I know some like it that way, but I don’t. And that’s sooooo totally okay. I don’t care how you want to watch your TV. If you want to see Kramer stretched all wide instead of seeing him how he should be, that’s your preference

My main beef is with stations like TBS and TNT. EngadgetHD.com recently talked about this and it annoys me to no end.

They stretch their shows before anyone has a chance to do it or NOT do it themselves. That’s so not a good idea. ESPN apparently used to do that and after years of complaints, they got it right. Yet TNT and TBS continue this horrible strategy.

Further frustrations come when they basically list all their shows as “HD” in the guide, just because they are stretched wide. Most of their shows are NOT in HD. It’s essentially lying to the viewers out there.

The sad thing is, a lot of people THINK they are watching HD because of it. Of course, a lot of people think they can get a wide-screen, turn it on and everything is HD, but that’s another matter entirely

As we go further and further into the future, this will become a moot point more than likely, but right now, it’s frustrating. There is actually a petition out there to sign to help end it.
These stations need to end their control of what we see and let viewers decide how they want to watch their shows.