The simultaneous transmission of widescreen and 4:3 programmes

The BBC is considering making the conversion to widescreen as a part of the move to digital television transmission. The digital broadcasts would offer widescreen versions of the BBC's two terrestrial television networks, BBC1 and BBC2, with a large proportion of the programmes made in widescreen. Programmes produced in widescreen would still need to be presented on the PAL analogue transmissions in an acceptable format for the 4:3 viewer. Filling the 4:3 display with the central portion of the widescreen picture is an acceptable solution for some programmes, but it will not work for all material. So the BBC is also proposing to use a half-letterbox format, where the 4:3 viewer is presented with the central portion of the widescreen picture in a 14:9 format. Very few programmes will be presented in 16:9 full-letterbox. The BBC is also investigating how best to display 4:3 programmes on widescreen. It is unlikely that there is a single solution to this problem, and it seems probable that several different techniques will need to be used depending on the nature of the programme.