I noticed them on the TWC movie night. Surprised the movie wasn't 16:9
That would have probably necessitated showing a separate pan-and-scan feed for the SD broadcast, which would technically qualify as showing two entirely different versions of the movie for the HD and SD feeds. As far as I know, there's no way to pan and scan a movie "on the fly" from one feed. Or, the SD version could have been broadcast in letterbox.
My guess is they simply showed the movie pillarboxed on HD because there are far fewer HD viewers than SD, and this was the easiest way out.
I am surprised, though, that the HD feed didn't put weather information off to the side instead of pillarboxes.
Not to mention that I'm entirely against TWC showing feature films like this in the first place. Weather documentaries - that's one thing, but not actual movies... Am I the only one who misses the fantastic docuementaries TWC produced in the late 1980s and early 1990s? They just don't come close these days, in my opinion. I remember Marshall Seese's documentary about Hurricane Hugo that was absolutely fantastic!
