If you’re watching NPT on analog cable on a 4:3 aspect ratio set, you may notice that NPT looks slightly different than it did a month ago, when letterboxed images were being cropped by the provider to fit your set. Now you’re getting a slightly cropped, slightly letterboxed version that is a compromise between the smaller “bread box” version or cropped version. We hope this satisfies our viewers dismayed at the cropping.
The evolution of the letterbox-cropped to bread box to slightly-letterboxed and cropped (whew) makes for a great read over at I Do SO Have a Life, the blog of Mark Kelly Hall, who details his exchange on the topic with NPT VP Kevin Crane (and does a better job of explaining it than I ever could).
Thanks for hanging in there with us Mark!
6 Comments
Dear NPT:
For the past 7-14 days the Comcast signal for NPT has had a lot of interference. This causes distorted or lost sound and affects the picture at times. Before this it was crystal clear. Other channels are not affected.
FB Dove
Hello!
I watch NPT via Dish Network on a 4:3 TV, and am having the problems that Mr. Hall initially described in his blog post – most text in a 16:9 program is cut off, and any close-up in just ‘off’ in a 16:9 program.
Is there anything I can do besides purchase a new set?
Thanks!
Both Dish & DirecTV take our HD signal over the air and crop and downconvert it to 4:3 SD for their subscribers. To my knowledge, even purchasing a new set won’t help because NPT HD is not currently carried by either satellite provider.
I have analog cable provided by Charter Communications out of Tullahoma, Tn. For the past several months we have had what I assume to be the letter box version of NPT will black bars on all four sides of the screen. To me the picture looks very distorted and I would rather watch NPT where the image fills the screen like it used to be. Also, constantly there are white dashes that flash across the top of the screen, probably closed caption info showing up in the picture. While all the text may show up on the screen, it can be hard to read at times for example its like watching a 24 inch picture on a 27 inch television. The over all SD resolution suffers, so I ask you to please persuade to charter communications to set their receiver to the full 4:3 crop so the image will fill the screen on a 4:3 tv. Thanks, Bruce
How can we get WNPT in Memphis?
I want to see the show Tokens (out of Nashville)
which is supposed to be on Tuesday, March 27, at 7:30 PM.
Hi, you have to watch WKNO in Memphis.