Rogers Digital Adapter - why still 4:3?

[Jonathanguthrie]

Can anyone enlighten me as to why the digital cable adapters still deliver widescreen channels in 4:3?

Our main tele has HD / widescreen but the other connections in our house use the digital adapters and it's so frustrating that they're not widescreen.

Any ideas?

Thanks

***Edited labels***

[Frazzled · Accepted solution]

The DTA only allows you to continue receiving those channels that you have lost because of the conversion from analog to digital. If you want an HD picture (16:9), you will need to pay for an HD box - either rent or purchase.

I am not a Rogers employee, nor will I beg you to like my posts! 

[BigJug]

The digital adapter is a primitive device, and such delivers a primitive picture... The cable company is not going to invest anything into a device that is being offered for free...  You must use your television remote to "stretch" the picture into 16x9 format... this could be called something different such as full, or just....

[tamilsarva]

Well ! you shared a useful info. Thanks .

[Pauly]

Cable companies are still the only company who are still offering seperate HD and SD devices. Most other providers such as IPTV, Satalight, Fiber optic, FTA, and DTA, have one hardware platform which supports HD television sets and is backwards compatible with SDTVs for those with legacy tv sets, and will still display hd content, on an SDTV but just downconverted.

A possible reason rogers does this is because they forcasted a certain amount of people will still be using SD and probalby stock piled the equiptment probaly bought it from the supplier at a good price cus no one wants sd no more, instead of migrating everyone to the latest and greatest platform, hd. even the cable comanies in the usa have HD DTA adaptors, why doesnt roger?

[Gdkitty]

I am guessing costs.

I remember looking a while back, at a page which sort of listed ALL the DTAs on the market.. and the cost difference between a basic one like rogers is using and some of the HD ones, was a fair bit..

For something that rogers is offering for FREE, they would want to keep the costs down as much as possible 😞

[OLDYELLR]

As has been stated above, the digital adapters are just devices to get you the basic cable channels that have been switched from analog to digital. You weren't getting a 16:9 HD picture staright from the cable outlet before, were you?

Most of these adapters are intended for folks receiving basic cable on older 4:3 TVs. I have one on a newer 22" flat screen TV in the kitchen/dining room and have to keep changing the picture size/shape for different channels because some broadcast 4:3 and some 16:9 and some even switch back and forth for commercials so no part of the ad is cut off when zoomed. I have to do the same on my main 42" TV with the PVR for different channels or networks because they're not all standardized on 16:9. Until the last old CRT TV has gone to the dump, I guess nobody wants to subject the folks that still have them to letterbox pictures.