Food Network HD

Thanks to "dystopika" for these images which illustrate the phenomenon of Stretch-O-Vision. Says dystopika, "A lot of people somehow don't *get* what "stretch-o-vision" is, so I thought it'd be a good idea to make some graphics to illustrate the distortion."










dystopika continues:

I understand that some people (many people?) actually call to complain to the cable companies when the picture DOESN'T stretch out to the sides. They're somehow blind to the distortion that happens in Stretch-o-Vision, and they prefer it to OAR.

But if the cable-company argument is that they're trying to appeal to the broadest (lowest) common denominator, I don't get why the major networks can manage to avoid the Stretch-O-Vision deal. The Hallmark Channel HD even uses side-bars to show their older movies-of-the-week.

I've watched a bit more of the Food Network HD and the newer, genuine HD content looks good. But even their own network promos are still in stretcho. You'd think they'd've created a few FN HD graphics to launch the channel.

It's like how friggin Showtime HD reverts to stretcho in between programs...