TBS's quasi HD network to launch September 1st
by Ben Drawbaugh 
posted Jun 27th 2007 at 11:11AM
Ever since Turner (also a Time Warner company, like us) got in the HD game we've had a love-hate relationship with them; not only do they stretch all their SD content, but they make things worse by claiming it's HD in the guide data. If you were hoping they would stop doing this, think again, cause it's getting worse, now that they're adding a second channel. Sure TBS HD will have some good quality HD when it launches in September like original programming and MLB playoffs, but they are sure to have plenty of stretched content as well, and they brag about it to Multichannel news by saying shows like Friends will be presented in HD. Sure, anything is possible, but considering Friends wasn't produced in HD, they'd have to go back to the source and convert the entire series to HD from film -- like Sony did with Seinfeld -- to make it happen.
Filed under: New content
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Kevin Murphy @ Jun 27th 2007 11:27AM
Even their HD content sucks when it comes to movies. For some reason they need to avoid letterboxing, but they can't seem to reformat a picture without distorting it.
MikeS @ Jun 27th 2007 2:17PM
I twould be cool if they showed the HD versions of Everybody Loves Raymond. All but the first few seasson are 16:9 HD.
Kevin M. @ Jun 27th 2007 8:35PM
Is it an even stretch or is it on where it's more stretched on the sides? If it's even, then my DVR can fix it. Otherwise, that'll suck.
Tom S @ Jan 7th 2008 2:57PM
??? GUESS AGAIN!
I've now looked at more than 20 programs on TBS- "HD". Every single one has been distorted and completely unwatchable. Movies are all stretched from 4:3 versions to 16:9. And somehow they have even managed to ruin recent HD TV shows that are being natively produced in 16:9 (such as The Office) so that they are horribly distorted too.
I'm convinced from the utter non-response of TNT-HD to the huge number of complaints that we users have made about distorted programs on that channel, that complaining to Turner about their tragically poor PQ is pointless.
TBS-HD is a complete waste of bandwidth on the cable. I've asked my cable co to drop it from the lineup.