Any advertising execs here?

[Ray1936]

Being addicted to my flat screen HDTV with it's 16x9 aspect ratio, I'm puzzled as to why so many ads appear in the old 3x4 aspect ratio [[with the sides of the ad black). Until recently, one of our major appliance stores out here even advertised sales of wide screen HDTVs in the old format.

So I wonder. Is it the marketing department of these products still stuck in the 20th century, or is it their ad agencies?

Whatever, it shows me a bit of ignorance on their part. Comment????

[douglasm]

Wouldn't suprise me if the appliance store was pitching their HDTV's to folks who have older sets.

Look it from this point of view. I have 2 3X4 TV's so commercials shot in 16X9 would be lost on me. It going to take a while for the wider aspect ratio to become the norm, so I'm assuming to reach the entire audience, the narrrower format commercials will be around for a while.

[Mikeg]

Ray, I'm not an advertising exec, although I may have once stayed at a hotel on Madison Ave.

I suspect that many advertisers are not yet ready to spend the extra money for shooting their ads in both SD and HD knowing that

80% of TV viewing in U.S. is still in standard definition, survey says

By Ben Patterson – Tue Nov 9, 2010 11:56 am ET

Most households in the country now have an HDTV, but that doesn't mean we're watching television in HD.

In fact, fully 80 percent of TV watched in the U.S. is still viewed in plain old standard definition, even though 56 percent of U.S. households have at least one HDTV set, according to the Nielsen Co......... [read the rest]

According to this 2008 article, an ad shot in HD will have the sides truncated when broadcast in SD, thus necessitating that it be shot in both formats.

[East Detroit]

...one of our major appliance stores out here even advertised sales of wide screen HDTVs in the old format...

Seems quite logical. They are advertising to people who don't have the product yet.

[douglasm]

Mikeg....
.....thank you for amplifying my point. I figured there must be statistics like you used somewhere out there, but I didn't have them.

[Gannon]

The percentage of folks not using their new equipment to the fullest potential must be amazingly high, if my sample of the population is near correct.

I've been working with HDTV product since the late 90s, and fully understand aspect ratios...pixel counts...frame rates...and technology types. The number of homes I've visited with EVERYTHING chosen correctly in the setup menus of each DVD player, Satellite and/or Cable tuner, and television is zero. Not a ONE of them got everything correct of even the basics, it is just overwhelming.

Worse when each manufacturer's marketing department is allowed to invent their own term to describe a universal option.


HDTV was supposed to be a simple upgrade...but they've made it increasingly difficult with every new product introduction. With BluRay players, the end-user [[no longer even described in enjoyable human terms!) has to periodically upgrade the firmware in the players to keep up with the list of approved movies allowed to play on those units. Without the upgrade, the 'user' may put in a new disc and only get a warning screen...a nice, intrusive touch from our Hellywood overlords into movie night, since the global FBI warning plastered in our faces at the beginning of all BluRay movies...reminding everyone how close to outlaws we really all are...just wasn't enough for them.




So, yeah, it is mostly behind-the-times advertising firms making basic ugly ads on old hardware...bought and paid for by behind-the-times companies run by people who really don't know the difference. Ignorance abounds, but only because the industry keeps moving the goals.

Just when we started getting a handle on HDTV, they introduce another carrot on another stick called 3dTV...



...my industry is totally insane...and seems to seek to make everyone just as crazy.


The only way to maintain your sanity is to stay away...LOL...what a wonderful conundrum for an insatiable industry that needs to sell things to people to stay alive.

[Gannon]

With creative directing, the same commercial could be shot in HD and cropped properly to convey the same message in SD.

But it takes the proper vision and budget...and NOT aiming for the lowest possible denominator. But then again, we're talking Advertising here...

[sturge]

I'm not surprised if some people are not set up properly. When I had the cable company upgrade me to HDTV, I realized he configured it all wrong. Instead of using the HDMI port on the cable box he used the cable port so the HD channels didn't work.

One thing I wasn't sure of is what HDMI cable I really needed. They ranged from dirt cheap to super-expensive [[I'm not dropping $100 for a cable). So I just picked the middle range to be safe.

[Gannon]

Yeah, most people do...or go gonzo with something from Best Buy.

I am most pissed about HDMI, that is the source of SO many headaches it isn't funny. Every installation I've been involved with has had some sort of esoteric trouble that even the industry gurus were troubled by...although not a ONE of 'em would agree that the problem is the HDMI standard, since it employs THEM as gurus.


HDMI was supposed to be the 'single-connection' easy solution for HDTV connections. Then it went from 1.1, through 1.2 pretty quickly, to 1.3, and NOW that we're used to that nomenclature the group doesn't want ANY of their approved manufacturers to use 1.4. Go figure. They ONLY want the wire companies to describe which of the extensive feature set their cable supports...so NOW we've got an entire page-full of silly-ass new icons that nearly NOBODY recognizes...confusing the entirety of the population into buying the middle range just to be safe, when indeed that might not be enough for what they'll be using in a year.

Although, I had to laugh when the veritable Monster Cable boasted this past CEDIA convention about their blazing speeds that only THEY could approach...when I got home I read the packaging on some relatively inexpensive Key Digital wires [[which I'd purchased a month earlier) that had a higher speed rating than the stuff Monster was touting in bold print and screaming PR people.


Too many industries taking the computer 'model', create something troublesome enough to require an army of experts to help the common person make it all function as promised...I am simply pissed that the hifi industry has taken this approach. Not a decade ago, I advocated...as Technical Editor of a major home theater magazine...a flexible platform for upgrades, but never imagined it would devolve into something as confusing as what we have today. The worst of the worst, and it doesn't seem to be getting any better.