WFRV's Gray Lines

[Wisco TV Watcher 11]

On WFRV-DT, all local content (news, commercials, & syndicated programming) in SD has annoying gray lines on the sides, instead of the black that you see on most stations.

 

I find it to be very distracting and unattractive. Does anyone know why they do this?

 

Do you think, if I wrote to the station, that they would consider changing this?

[Ntropolis 596]

Do you think, if I wrote to the station, that they would consider changing this?

 

Maybe, maybe not.

 

Try looking at the local Green Bay thread at the AVS Forum for info, try searching through it. There's a lot of insight on digital TV there.

 

WGNT is the only station using gray bars here, the rest are black.

[Sam Horn 78]

Not 100% certain, but I believe gray causes less image burn than black.

 

It's a courtesy if anything.

[A3N 1002]

I think Sam Horn is right. When I got my HDTV about 2 years ago the HD channels showed the ugly gray bars and the SD channels were gray as well so what I did I stretched the image so that the bars would not burn through an image through the tv.

[Ntropolis 596]

I prefer the bars... I've got used to them pretty quickly. I'd rather watch something with the bars rather than in "stretch-o-vision" as it's been nicknamed.

[LoadStar 364]

I prefer the bars... I've got used to them pretty quickly. I'd rather watch something with the bars rather than in "stretch-o-vision" as it's been nicknamed.

If I had to choose, I'd rank black pillars and graphics pillars (like ESPN uses) roughly equal... both are pretty good. The graphics pillars, if designed right, would be my preference. FSN used some really nice looking graphics pillars for the last game I saw on FSN Wisconsin.

 

I would not choose TNT style stretch-o-vision, or the FOX Sports blur/clone/stretch technique they use to "fake" widescreen. Both are fairly obnoxious, with TNT's style being the absolute worst. It makes my eyes hurt to look at that.