>> The lack of black bars at the top and bottom of the screen on my 
>> grandparent's 4:3 CRT. Maybe they were there and I just didn't notice?
> 
> Oh, on my Sky box if you tell them that you have a 4:3 device connected 
> it chops off the sides to make a 4:3 picture from a 16:9 one.

Ah, actually... I do seem to recall the picture coming up briefly on the 
TV, and then it flashing something about "auto" and the picture changing 
shape. So yes, I think the TV itself cut the edges off. That'll be why then!

>> Certainly when you watch a 4:3 signal on a 16:9 screen that's errantly 
>> configured to distort the image, it's pretty damned noticable!
> 
> I have never noticed this, either my Sky box is zooming 4:3 streams to 
> fill the screen, or it's just there are no 4:3 streams that I watch.

If it's just set to cut the edges off, it's not too bad. If it's set to 
mash the picture to the wrong aspect ratio, it looks terrible!

> BTW, it's quite common that 16:9 streams have black bars top and bottom 
> as well to give an even wider aspect ratio, don't assume the presence or 
> absence of black bars says anything about whether it's widescreen or not.

If you're watching it on a 4:3 screen and there's black bars, it's not a 
4:3 aspect signal. What aspect it *is*, who knows? But it's not 4:3. ;-)

>> Yeah, well, that part of the show was *sliiightly* tenuous at times. 
>> But the whole concept of "OK, we need to mash together a machine to do 
>> X... how the hell do we actually do that?" was really neat.
> 
> Yeh it was cool to watch them making things, I really like that sort of 
> stuff.  Just a shame I don't have room at home to make a nice workshop, 
> one day though :-)

...fortunately...for the safety of the world... ;-)

Who can forget the Barley Pickers and their "propper job" of building a 
machine that ****ed itself apart in the most spectacular way possible 
the very first time they tried to use it? :-D

>> Unfortunately the show slowly drifted from being about the science to 
>> being about the personallity clashes, differences of opinion, 
>> mutinies, etc. that I don't give a damn about. Why is it that today 
>> everything has to be about "reality TV"? Just get on with the 
>> engineering!
> 
> Agreed, although haven't watched it recently so it might be worse now 
> than I remember!

Well, there always was a social element to it. And that was part of what 
made it cool. But now they emphasize it too much, and don't talk enough 
about the engineering. There's a little Big Brother-style "confession 
booth" where team members can go in and be like "well I though it woz a 
good idea, right? But Dave, he says, right, leave it how it is. Well I 
mean that's silly, innit?"

Dude, like, who cares? I much preferred it back when it was a team of 
mates who'd mistaken the "build machine X" task for a "weld as much 
stuff as humanly possible" contest.

I feel it all went wrong when that girl presenter left...

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