That all sounds in line with my understanding.


This is probably due to our infrastructure here in Bristol. We bring in all the feeds here via satellite or fiber in HD, and Buzzer Beater is produced in Bristol, which is why it looks fine. ESPN3's actual video encoding and streaming infrastructure is handled by MLB Advanced Media, which is either in Stamford or NYC, I forget which. Regardless, the ESPN3 game streams are sent via fiber circuits to their facility, and there are some bandwidth constraints there, in terms of how many HD feeds can be sent. You'll probably notice on, say, Tuesday, a MAC game will probably look quite good. On Saturday, as a lower-tier game, it may well be sent down SD  - while it ideally would be squished (made anamorphic, to be technically correct), then expanded on the other end for at least a 16:9 picture, that requires some extra hardware. Thus, sometimes it will be center cut, like old traditional SD (boxed, as you describe). What you're seeing when it is stretched off the screen is video sent center cut, but being treated on the other end as though it is anamorphic, and thus being stretched back out instead of boxed. That's just a bad setting, which is why you'll often see it correct after a while, once somebody notices.