Earlier this year, I dropped DirecTV and got cable. Best move I’ve made in years. The cable company has a bunch of HD channels, most of which they also have as an SD channel elsewhere ‘on the dial’, so to speak. I have SD TVs, no HDTVs.
Well, the broadcasters are broadcasting in HD format (either 1920 X 1080 or 1280 X 720) on those HD channels, but they’re broadcasting both HD and SD material. Depending on how you have your HDTV set up, the SD material might appear smaller on the display or stretched out.
But then there is the case of the broadcaster who is showing SD material on their HD channel, so it looks smaller if your HDTV is set up that way, but then along comes a commercial spot that is in HD. So, what you see is an HD formatted picture inside the SD formatted portion of the display.
I’m not sure that makes sense the way I wrote it, but it makes that HD formatted commercial look ‘right’, but much smaller than it should be.
Then again, I don’t have any HDTVs in my house either. I’m not going to buy any until the economy comes out of this tailspin. In fedgov keeps injecting itself and our tax money into the economy, that might be several years.
I have cable (Comcast) myself. I’ve never seen the need to go the satellite route. Anyway, I’m not sure how you can see what you see on HD channels. They don’t come up on my system. I get the sound, but the screen remains blank. Are you paying for an HD signal when you don’t have HDTV? Or did your cable company make a mistake?