Fox Broadcasting Company - Fox HD

Fox HD

Fox began broadcasting in HDTV in 720p on September 12, 2004 with a series of NFL football games. The network has no digital on-screen graphic logo in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen on the HD feed, except for a ten-second promotional sweep of a Fox HD acknowledgement (which before the end of 2010, also featured a sponsor tag for DirecTV); instead a trigger in Fox's program delivery system at each station displays the affiliate station's logo bug in the 16:9 right-hand corner of the screen, which disappears during commercial breaks (during local pre-emptions of Fox programming the logo does remain on display even though the station is not airing the programming). However, network or affiliate bugs are not displayed during Fox Sports programming. On some Fox shows, a hashtag rests above the affiliate's logo (e.g. #newgirl or #bones) to provide viewers reference to the network's official search tag on Twitter to find or start discussions during the airing of a program. In April 2012, additional episode-only tags relating to plot points in an episode (for instance, the #saturdaynightGLEEver tag for a mid-April 2012 episode of Glee with that episode title) began to also be promoted in this space to both add additional trending topics and spread out more conversations on Twitter.

During some high-profile or live programming such as American Idol and So You Think You Can Dance however, Fox does display their network logo in the 4:3 safe area and forgoes the affiliate's logo, mainly for promotional consideration due to fair use of clips from each series by other media outlets (et al., news programming and clip programs such as those seen on E! and TV Guide Network). In that case, the Twitter hastag is directly above the Fox logo in the safe area.

Fox is the only commercial television network (broadcast, cable or satellite) to air programs in widescreen on its digital feed that are not available in HD; programs produced in this format were identified as being presented in "Fox High Resolution Widescreen" from 2001 to 2006, but are currently unbranded, and are now confined solely to select reality programming.

Prior to the launch of its HD feed in 2004, some sitcoms and drama series were presented in this format, but now reality, talk, and game shows (American Idol being the lone exception, as it is presented in High Definition) are only presented in the enhanced definition widescreen mode. The children's sports show This Week in Baseball began being shown in widescreen in 2009, while Sunday political talk program Fox News Sunday converted to HD when Fox News Channel launched their new HD facilities in November 2008 (before the network's widescreen presentation effort went into effect in September 2010, it was the final Fox News program to be produced to fit the 4:3 safe area, as Fox News Channel itself converted to a full-time widescreen presentation on both their HD and standard definition channels in 2009). MADtv was produced to air only in 4:3 until September 2008, likely due to a mix of stations airing the show at differing times than the mandated 11 pm timeslot and unable to offer it on the live air in 16:9, and the show's producers not making the switch to the format. The final network show to convert to HD was Family Guy as of their September 26, 2010 episode.

Fox is unique among US broadcasters in distributing its network HD feed over satellite to affiliates as an MPEG transport stream intended to be delivered bit-for-bit to viewers' television sets. During network time, local commercials are inserted using a transport stream splicer. The affiliates of most other networks decode compressed satellite network video feeds and then re-encode them for final over-the-air emission.

Since late July 2010, when Fox began to broadcast their sports programming with graphics optimized for 16:9 displays rather than the 4:3 safe area, the network has asked cable and satellite providers to comply and use the No.10 Active Format Description code they now send out over Fox programming, which has 16:9 content display in letterboxed mode on 4:3 screens and has graphical elements optimized for the 16:9 screen. Subsequently a number of Fox O&O's and affiliates also now send out the AFD No.10 flag over their HD local news and syndicated programming with graphical elements optimized for 16:9 to allow that programming to appear in widescreen format on 4:3 analog sets.