Because I am a Mediacom subscriber, at the beginning of football season I started receiving Cyclones.tv with my cable package. I do not have HD cable. For multiple cable networks, including sports and news channels, that have widescreen broadcasts, the area is shrunk down to fit inside a 4:3 window, with black bars at the top and bottom. This does not happen with Cyclones.tv. In addition, when an old standard-definition broadcast is shown there, the vertical sidebars added for widescreen ALSO appear, still pushing a 16:9 picture into a 4:3 box.
Here’s an illustration.
This is the way a rebroadcast of the Fox Sports 1 game between Iowa State and West Virginia appears on the Cyclones.tv screen. It might look OK at first glance, but the display is wrong. Notice the skinny FS1 logo in the upper right corner.
If you take that picture, increase the width but not the height to 133%, and re-scale it proportionally back to the same width, it looks like this:
Add black bars to the top and bottom and it looks better, although smaller.
But here’s the question: Is the incorrect aspect ratio a Cyclones.TV issue, or a Mediacom issue? Where along the line should the picture be shrunk instead of squeezed when transmitted to non-HD subscribers?