The problem is that they ARE fooling TONS of people. Joe Smith who bought his HD set at wal-mart has no clue what real HD is... I would hazard a guess that more than 50% of HD set owners are fooled and assume that if it fills the screen, it's HD... and that's exactly what the networks that do it are banking in.
The difference between now and the situation with ESPN is timing. Back then, owners of HD sets were a huge minority and if they plinked down the huge $ on a set, they knew what they were doing. Today, anyone with a few hundred dollars can pick up a 720p screen and not have a clue what they are doing.
I totally agree, my neighbor, my co-worker and my wife seem to have no problem watching strech-o-vision. Even the DirecTV "technician" (who hardly deserved such respect) that setup my hr20 seemed to think that i'd prefer to watch everything stretched... I cant imagine how many homes he setup that way and they just assume thats how things are supposed to look. My suspicion is that people are being led to believe that widescreen == HD and therefore if you make everything widescreen, everything becomes HD.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Dave @ Oct 5th 2007 4:01PM
"hey guys you're not fooling anyone"
The problem is that they ARE fooling TONS of people. Joe Smith who bought his HD set at wal-mart has no clue what real HD is... I would hazard a guess that more than 50% of HD set owners are fooled and assume that if it fills the screen, it's HD... and that's exactly what the networks that do it are banking in.
The difference between now and the situation with ESPN is timing. Back then, owners of HD sets were a huge minority and if they plinked down the huge $ on a set, they knew what they were doing. Today, anyone with a few hundred dollars can pick up a 720p screen and not have a clue what they are doing.
Dave
chris @ Oct 5th 2007 10:19PM
I totally agree, my neighbor, my co-worker and my wife seem to have no problem watching strech-o-vision. Even the DirecTV "technician" (who hardly deserved such respect) that setup my hr20 seemed to think that i'd prefer to watch everything stretched... I cant imagine how many homes he setup that way and they just assume thats how things are supposed to look. My suspicion is that people are being led to believe that widescreen == HD and therefore if you make everything widescreen, everything becomes HD.