16:9 4:3 (1 Viewer)

[Dewy]

Looking at new big screens replacing an 11 year old RCA 52".
One we looked at was a Hitachi 65" 16:9 wide screen
good picture quality in hdtv. But when the salseman
switched to regular cable like we have the picture
doesn't take up the entire screen. He said Hitachi
had a feature to expand the picture to the width of the screen, when he did that the images on the sreen looked shorter and wider. Not a very good picture then.
Are all 16:9 wide screens this way.
Thanks for any input.

 

[Joseph Bolus]

This is the way it is with 16:9 sets. Some do a better job than others in stretching standard 4:3 to fit the 16:9 area. This will be a moot point in about 4-6 years when almost everything will be 16:9.

One way around this (for the short term) would be to purchase a 4:3 display with a 16:9 mode. That way you get true 4:3 when you need it *and* true 16:9 when you need it.

The 16:9 mode, in effect, "carves out" a Widescreen aspect ratio area within the 4:3 frame, so you'll still have "black bars" when viewing 16:9 material; but at least you'll be able to take advantage of the higher resolution of anamorphic DVD. The fact of the matter is, even with a 16:9 set, you'll still have small black bars anyway when viewing the popular 2.35:1 aspect ratio movies.

Another option would be to purchase one of the new breed of inexpensive home theater projectors. The Sanyo Z1 (about $1,200 street) and the Sanyo Z2 (about $1,850 street) are both 16:9 LCD projectors with a 4:3 mode. The native 4:3 mode will still have "window-boxing", but there's no danger of having a burn-in problem with LCD; and you could "mask" the window-boxing, should you chose to do so, with some inexpensive black felt cloth on the sides of the screen. (Then too, with a projector, your 4:3 mode will probably end up being around 70", and your 16:9 mode around 96"! That's what you call putting the "theater" in Home Theater!)

 

[Dewy]

Joseph,
Thanks for the reply.
You explained that vg, gives me some more options.