As I’ve visited TV production trucks over the last few years, one of the constants has been a screen in front of the director with white markings or pieces of tape on a 16-by-9 screen to depict the outlines of a traditional 4-by-3 screen so that viewers with older sets could get a centered picture.

This year, however, Fox is throwing away the tape. It will air all games in 16-by-9 on HD and standard-def, which means you’ll get a widescreen look on your 4-by-3 set similar to the ones you get when a station is showing a letterboxed motion picture.

“Sixty percent of our ratings will come from HD viewership, and the time has come to start producing for the people who have been buying TVs,” said Eric Shanks, the new executive producer of Fox Sports. “The feedback has been overwhelmingly positive.”

Shanks said true 16-by-9 offers a much wider vantage point of both offensive and defensive backfields, similar to the views that CBS offered when it was doing standalone HD broadcasts a few years ago.

At CBS, meanwhile, production chief Harold Bryant says the network will continue to air a “center cut 4-by-3” framing while it continues to work toward a network-wide policy on such matters.

Fox also is taking a play from golf’s TV playboo by having Fox NFL Sunday analysts, working from the studio in Los Angeles, join its play by play teams as a virtual third man in the booth on select games. Jimmy Johnson starts the trend with the 49ers-Seahawks game. The more substantive addition, however, is the addition of former NFL officiating VP Mike Pereira, who will monitor games from Los Angeles to comment on officiating disputes as warranted.