Questions about SD television on HDTV

I want to buy my dad an HDTV because he has an old 15" sdtv, and not only is the TV very crappy, but nowadays all the sd channels seem to put all the content in widescreen, meaning that there are black bars on the video too.

I am thinking of buying him a 50" TV, but he doesn't want to upgrade to HD package since he just doesnt understand what HD is, despite of how much I tried to explain it to him (he is 82 years old).

So I guess he will keep the SD package. My question is, will the SD channels that seem to broadcast in widescreen actually be in widescreen on the new TV? I don't know how to explain it, but I don't know if the sd channels actually broadcast in widescreen or they just take the widescreen footage, slap black bars on it and put it out as 4:3. I think it would look very shitty if the footage would still have to be run in 4:3 AND have the additional black bars despite having a widescreen TV. I don't know much about TV, so can someone with some experience explain? Just for the record, I dont watch television, and I have a 32" monitor, but no TV.

My second question is, if I do convince him to switch to HD, is it better to keep the satelite dish or switch to internet TV? The dish will get HD signal if we upgrade the package, but the problem is that whenever there is a strong wind or rains, it loses connection to the satelite and the image is scambled or doesnt work at all. Its fine most of the year, but hell during winter.

The internet on the other hand almost never fails regardless of how bad a storm is (unless it's like really really bad) so aI asume havig TV through internet will be very stable too. But how will it look? will it suffer from the same compression as online video, or still look as crisp as the signal from the satelite?

SD channels are in widescreen and have been for many years.

Internet TV will have some compression for the first 20-30 seconds and then it will clear up.

All channels are now broadcast in HD in the US. It was a government mandate, that's why his SD channels are in widescreen. The other question is harder to answer and in all honesty as someone who lets say.... is an expert in this particular question... I will advise you thus. Keep the satellite tv.

Why? Few reasons.

1. Internet TV as you are calling it requires having multiple subscriptions to lots of different services if you REALLY want to get everything a simple high value channel package can from a cable company.
2. Some things believe it or not, still require subscription to some kind of TV package if you want to watch them online.
3. Not everything you can get on normal TV is even available on the internet but the same goes in reverse to.
4. The big dog reason. If you dad can't figure out SD versus HD do you honestly think he is the kind of guy who likes change? Changing his TV is one thing, changing his entire TV access method is a whole new ball game. Even if it would be better for him he probably won't be interested in dealing with the hassle of switching.

Last thing, who is your satellite provider? I bet you good money there are ways he can get his HD for free and you just don't know what they are.

@karkarov: I don't live in the US, but in eastern europe (Romania). I didn't look too much into it, but at a short glance the Internet TV option gives me the same channels as the dish option, but it may only cover the HD package, and the not all SD channels may be available (but I am not too sure). We have a fair amount of SD only channels, but all the big ones also broadcast in HD and dad only watches the big ones mostly, but I would have to see what the situation with those SD channels is, I think he might not even notice them missing.

Just to make it clear, I know that SD only channels will need to run in 4:3 on the widesreen TV (I mean channels that still only broadcast 4:3 footage), but I was curios if the sd channels that also have HD options will run in widescreen just fine in sd, and it seems they will. But I hope I can convince him to buy the HD package, it's not that much more money. And TV here is quite cheap in general (Im very surprised hearing in the bombcast how they pay almost 200 usd for TV, but I guess they would have more variety then here). The only TV I personally need is HBO GO which I watch on my PC.

I don't think the government mandated HD, they mandated the channels be broadcast digitally. All of my channels below 501 are SD, so they're still around.

SD channels will either be letterboxed (horizontal black bars on the top and bottom) or more likely pillarboxed (vertical black bars on the sides).

@zamolxes: The picture display will be fine either way. In the case of true SD channels you would see letterboxing (the black bars) on the left and right of the screen but any modern HD TV should be able to have stretch and format options to make the screen fit without bars regardless of the picture format. Anything in 16x9 or other common widescreen formats will look fine whether it is HD or not.

One word of warning. It is sort of weird and may freak you out but to some people SD looks worse on a HD screen than it does on a SD one. The reason being is on a HD screen you can really see all the imperfections from the lower resolution and it can look really blurry. On an old SD TV the pixels were large and created defined hard edges so it sort of compensated to hide that effect. It is very much a personal taste/touch and go thing, some people can see it and it bothers them others cant. I figured I would just throw out the fair warning though.

TV is heinously expensive in the US if you want "everything", the bombcast guys probably have HBO, Showtime, cutting edge dvr's, sports packages, blah blah blah. If all you want is basic cable you could easily get it for like 50-60 bucks if you are okay with only one tv.

I think it's more likely that his tv is just scaling to show the entire image and letterboxing it than the channels actually broadcasting letterboxed 4:3. I can't speak to the situation in Romania, but Australian TV is all 16:9, regardless of if it's HD or SD and I want to say that it has been that way for about 10 years.

As for the whole HD thing, if it's just HD versions of the channels he already watches and you have to pay more for them, I dunno if I'd bother. If he's anything like my parents or my nan, he won't care enough to even really notice.

That's not normal. Jeff is just a crazy person who got the most expensive package for no reason.

I think your modern HD tv's will usually have options for switching 4:3 and 16:9 and upscaling (blowing up) lower resolution footage without resorting to pillar- or letter boxing, but hearing your story it's questionable your father would ever be able to figure this out on his own.

As for your satelite question can't really help you there.

anyway hope you and your dad figure it out

@zamolxes: What do you mean with Internet TV?

You mean IPTV? because that is different, it might be packetized like internet packets but is provided by ISP.