Cinemax hd ALL HD 9-1-08

Look for flying monkeys in close proximity to Madonna's backside.

The only improvement would be showing all that HD in proper aspect ratio.

If that's true, they must have been working overtime shooting a lot of new HD soft-core porn...

HDNet is always HD... so is HDNet Movies... and Discovery HD Theater... probably others than I'm not thinking of at the moment. So I'm not sure how Cinemax could even dream of claiming to be the first 24/7 HD channel.

Chinatown said:

The only improvement would be showing all that HD in proper aspect ratio.

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If you're seeing something squished or stretched on Cinemax, it is undoubtedly something wrong at your end. To my knowledge, they've never participated in the silly putty method of filling the screen.

IIP said:

If that's true, they must have been working overtime shooting a lot of new HD soft-core porn...

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Most of the adult series appear on ActionMax and MoreMax, so this shouldn't be an issue. Coed Confidential is their lone HD pron series.

harsh said:

If you're seeing something squished or stretched on Cinemax, it is undoubtedly something wrong at your end. To my knowledge, they've never participated in the silly putty method of filling the screen.

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There have been numerous 2.35:1 features that they stretch, same thing on their parent HBO. Hd Net Movies, Voom,(Yes Voom,again).........were true to the filmmakers original concept.

HDMe said:

HDNet is always HD... so is HDNet Movies... and Discovery HD Theater... probably others than I'm not thinking of at the moment. So I'm not sure how Cinemax could even dream of claiming to be the first 24/7 HD channel.

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Maybe since they say they will be in 1080i, they are thinking they will be the 1st.
Are the hdnets and others in 720 or 1080?

From their website
The Cinemax HD channels are presented in a format called 1080-line interlaced (1080i).

www.cinemax.com/apps/schedule/ScheduleHDView.jsp

dennispap said:

Maybe since they say they will be in 1080i, they are thinking they will be the 1st.
Are the hdnets and others in 720 or 1080?

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The channels I mentioned are all 1080i. For that matter, most channels are 1080i except for a handful. ABC and FOX are 720p, as are ESPN/ESPN2HD. I presume ESPNNewsHD is also 720p but have never seen for sure. I'm also curious about the rest of the Disney channels (DisneyHD, Toon DisneyHD, ABC Family) since I would expect them to be in 720p like their initial HD launches, but have not seen for sure.

According to the info on my cable boxes hidden diagnostic screens, Toon Disney HD, Disney Channel HD, ESPNEWS HD, ABC Family HD are 720p as are Fox Business News HD, ESPN HD, ESPN 2 HD, A&E HD, Bio HD, History HD, National Geographic HD, and local channels, ABC HD, Fox HD, PBS HD and My Network TV HD.

It looks like your cable system is downconverting many channels to 720p to better fill their channel muxes. I would not trust that list as a "delivered to cable/satellite in 720p" list.

The ABC/Disney owned networks (including ESPNs) should be in 720p ... the rest are more likely to be 1080i.

James Long said:

It looks like your cable system is downconverting many channels to 720p.

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All the channels Steve listed with the possible exception of PBS (which could go either way) should be 720p.

Chinatown said:

There have been numerous 2.35:1 features that they stretch, same thing on their parent HBO.

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In my experience all of the content that is 2.35:1 is letterboxed or cropped on the sides. In either case, the aspect ratio appears to be correct.

Local channels are up to local broadcasters, but they shouldn't ALL be 1080i. Plus there are channels listed that are known to have been 1080i.

Again, I wouldn't trust that list as a "delivered to cable/satellite as 720p".

Nice try. My cable company isn't down rezing anything HD, with SDV there is no need to. If your precious Dish Network listed it that way you'd buy it. All channels I listed are either fully or partly owned by Disney or News Corp both which are 720p distributors. Which channels are known to be in 1080i, enlighten me. Before you go spouting off what you do not know, provide some facts please. PBS HD in my area was 1080i at one point, but switched to 720p over a year ago.

As for me, see post #1. If Ken got something wrong, someone would have let him know. So take what I posted above as a fact.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=164671

James Long said:

Again, I wouldn't trust that list as a "delivered to cable/satellite as 720p".

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All Disney, A&E and Fox channels are 720p. For whatever reason, so is NGC.

I think that the MNTV feeds may be 1080i and I'm pretty sure that PBS uplinks 1080i also.

Steve Mehs said:

So take what I posted above as a fact.

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No, thank you. I don't trust self described "cable trolls" who are using cable system information as their source. Cable systems have been known to modify their signals. A better source is needed.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=164671

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Thanks for eventually providing a good source. Now the "what is in 720p" question is answered we can get back to the real topic of this thread: Cinemax HD.

That's a lot of 720p that "I thought" were 1080i... looks almost like you're better off setting the Dish receiver to 720P to get a larger percentage of "native". I've tried both ways and see no real difference (so it's at 1080i).

Why don't we get Outer Max and Thriller Max?

tcatdbs said:

That's a lot of 720p that "I thought" were 1080i.

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For every 720p channel there are probably around 5 1080i channels.