W3HNT on History Detectives

[KX5JT]

I love this PBS series called "History Detectives".  Tonight, a ham in florida claimed to have a piece of mylar from Echo II satteloon from the early 60's.  It was sent to him by "Doc" W3HNT in the 70s.

The History Detectives confirmed it was true.  Really interesting stories and this one had amateur radio at it's core.

JT

[flintstone mop]

I wish our PBS outlet was in HD!!!
DirecTV relays their signal from Pittsburgh, as that is our LOCAL TV market and all I see is stretched fuzzy NTSB pics from them.
I would appreciate more info / educational stuff like PBS without the garbage commercials
Fred

[n1iic]

I watched this one last night also. It's good to see ham radio in another aspect of NASA and US history.

[W2DU]

Hello John,

Interesting about the mylar from ECHO 2. I can go you one better. I still have some of the aluminized mylar scraps left over from the fabrication of the ECHO 1 satellite. They are at my Winter home in FL, but I'll be back there in November. If you'd like some of the pieces of mylar, let me know in Nov and I'll send you some.

Walt, W2DU

[k4kyv]

We have bare bones basic analogue cable here, with none of the extra stuff. PBS and the local public TV station's productions are about the only thing we can get here that I can stand to watch. We have an old CRT TV because we don't watch it enough to make a fancy HD set worth the investment.  The NTSB signal display is fine. The greatest problem I have is that subtitles, credits and other text is cut off at both ends and I have to guess at the missing portion.  I can't tell much difference in signal quality with HD unless I move up to within 6' of the screen.  I prefer to sit back about 12' across the room from the TV at home.

Isn't there some kind of adjustment that will  correct those stretched out pictures?  I notice the images in a lot of TV's in bars and cafés have that same distortion.

Of course, some people gripe and whine about PBS and NPR, and can't say anything good about them.  I guess they like mindless garbage and endless commercials:

masochist - dictionary results
derived from masochism

1. Gratification gained from pain, deprivation, degradation, etc., inflicted or imposed on oneself, either as a result of one's own actions or the actions of others, esp. the tendency to seek this form of gratification.

2. the act of turning one's destructive tendencies inward or upon oneself.

3. the tendency to find pleasure in self-denial, submissiveness, etc

[Bill, KD0HG]

Don, there's three ways a widescreen HD image can be shown on a standard 4:3 analog TV set since the aspect ratios are so much different. When the image fills the screen, top to bottom, then the left and right portions must be chopped off. That's called pan-and-scan imaging, and that's what you object to. The other way to do it is by "letterboxing", where the entire horizontal portion of the image is preserved, but then you must have black at the top and bottom of the screen. There is a third method, where the HD image is horizontally shrunk to fill the screen, but that objectionally distorts the image making people look short and fat. Pick your poison. To me, using a letterbox format, especially on a large screen analog TV, is the least objectionable.

[k4kyv]

Our TV uses the pan-and-scan method, and chops off the left and right. A lot of DVDs use letterboxing on a standard TV.  Some have the recording on both sides of the disc, a pan-and-scan image on one side, and the flip side letterboxes the image.

The distortion I see in bars and cafés is on widescreen displays. It is just the opposite of what you mentioned. They stretch the standard 4:3 aspect ratio pictujre horizontally to fill up the wide screen, and that makes the people look fat.  Apparently a lot of TV programs still use the standard ratio, so they appear distorted on the newer TVs. I don't understand why the wide screen TVs don't just display the standard image with black at both sides of the screens.  It seems to me that the set should do that automatically. I find that distortion extremely irritating.

[KX5JT]

Hello John,

Interesting about the mylar from ECHO 2. I can go you one better. I still have some of the aluminized mylar scraps left over from the fabrication of the ECHO 1 satellite. They are at my Winter home in FL, but I'll be back there in November. If you'd like some of the pieces of Mylar, let me know in Nov and I'll send you some.

Walt, W2DU

Hi Walt,

Funny that this correspondence seems to mimic what occurred in the 1970's between W3HNT and the Florida ham that wanted History Detectives to confirm his piece of Mylar, except they had the conversation on the air.  W3HNT sent him the Mylar in a letter with the QSL card.  Nah, I'd probably have totally forgot about all of this come November, but thanks for offering.  

Hey Don,

That aspect ratio thing really does suck when you have a conventional 4:3 TV set.  These days there is hardly ANY material that is 4:3 friendly.  I still have a 32" CRT Toshiba and even the XBOX 360 my kid plays supports the wide aspect ratios these days.  Thinking hard about upgrading my set.

JT

[Steve - WB3HUZ]

Don't be so cheap. Go buy a wide screen, HD capable TV. You'll never go back. It's like the difference between AM and SSB.

[KX5JT]

I had a 59" projection TV back in '03.  Another thing that didn't survive the big D.  I do most of my other tv viewing from work overnight.  I turned off the Cable TV, but kept the internet.  I only watch movies here at home via DVD or Netflix streaming (and the XBOX360).  My son is coming home from Guam at the end of July and he gets to ship all his stuff from there free.  I bet he has a large widescreen.

[K3ZS]

Our TV uses the pan-and-scan method, and chops off the left and right. A lot of DVDs use letterboxing on a standard TV.  Some have the recording on both sides of the disc, a pan-and-scan image on one side, and the flip side letterboxes the image.

The distortion I see in bars and cafés is on widescreen displays. It is just the opposite of what you mentioned. They stretch the standard 4:3 aspect ratio pictujre horizontally to fill up the wide screen, and that makes the people look fat.  Apparently a lot of TV programs still use the standard ratio, so they appear distorted on the newer TVs. I don't understand why the wide screen TVs don't just display the standard image with black at both sides of the screens.  It seems to me that the set should do that automatically. I find that distortion extremely irritating.

Don, the new widescreen TV's have different settings for this.   Some people think that if its widescreen, all programs should be displayed like it and set their TV to "stretch" mode.   There is also "smart stretch" where the middle is not stretched, just the ends, that way people don't look fat unless they are at the end of the screen.   I always use "normal" or "dot by dot" mode.   If the program is in real HD it fills the screen, if it is in 4:3 it looks just like it does on 4:3 TV's.   The only time I change it is when they have an HD program on a nonHD channel analog channel, then I use "zoom" mode, which fills in the screen the same as the original HD program without distortion.