Batlic states got their own MTV, so one day I was looking at it and a new Robbie Williams music video came up. Everything was cool, but the video was obviously shot in 16:9, but MTV broadcasted it as 4:3 video, in result everything was streched out.

I spoke to friend of mine, he also mentioned that sometimes they receive beta copies with A-list hollywood films which are also streched out.

Whats up with that? Is it mistake or made on purpose?


just curious...

Not sure what's up, but if you had a 16:9 TV these videos would like fine. 16:9 TV's have a button which allows you to select 4:3 or 16:9 modes, and if you select 16:9 the video would be stretched out to the correct proportion.

I've seen this type of stuff too. I'm not sure if it's a creative choice or what, but it looks terrible to me. Another example is a Corinne Bailey Rae video that looks like it was shot in 2.39:1, but squeezed into a 1.78:1 AR.

yeah, but all our TV channels broadcast only 4:3 signal, so there is no reason for broadcasting streched video.

Each time i send my 16:9 footy for broadcasting, i import it into 4:3 timeline and letterbox that 16:9, so it should work great on any type of tv.

16:9 can be recorded anamorph (=stretched) on 4:3 tape formats like BetaSP, DigiBeta, DVCAM, DV to keep the quality as high as possible (all available lines are used to store information, no lines are wasted for storing black bars).
But now if some intern forgets to set the "anamorphic" flag for that clip in the server (or, if that's not possible, corrects the image in an NLE application) then that clip will go on air just like that :)

thanks Heiko, that made sense