Do widescreen tvs stretch tv broadcast 4:3? (1 Viewer)

[Ken Burkstrum]

Do widescreen TVs take 4:3 picture and stretch them to fit the screen or are you stuck with pillar bars? If so is there something you can get to make it stretch?

 

[Rocky F]

Most widescreen TV's give you a few choices for what to do with a 4:3 signal, although different brands may call them modes by different names. My Magnavox, for example, has widescreen which stretches everything to 16:9, and 4:3 which ands the pillarboxes. It also has 4:3 Expand which just expands the 4:3 picture out, cropping the top and bottom, Panorama, which slighty croppes the top and bottom, and adds a subtle stretch to the sides-this is the mode we usuallly use watching SD programming since it fills the screen, but doesn't obviously distort the picture. It also has an auto mode which fits the picture into the 16:9 screen.

 

[ChrisWiggles]

the usual ways are plain zoom, stretch to 16:9, or 4:3 pillarboxed. There are some other ways that some tvs do, but most do these basic ways.

 

[Dick Knisely]

Bottom line is that they'll give you the choice of doing several things -- you choose.