How do you reconcile 4:3 or 16:9 content on your HDTV? (1 Viewer)

[JediFonger]

i just bought an el cheapo small 17" HDTV for the kitchen and noticed a few things that i have quibbles with. how do you guys deal with the following issues:

1. because the native resolution of the unit is 1280 x 768, images are stretched vertically because the HDTV takes the component input and basically fills the entire screen. so if i'm receiving 1280x720, the 720 is being stretched to 768. everyone looks skinnier. if i use my laptop and output VGA to the display and play 16:9 content, there is a very thin black bar on the top and bottom. so, is the solution just to buy a 1366x768 for the proper aspect ratio?

2. when the HDTV receives 4:3 content over SD-DVD or even cable set top box, it still fills the widescreen. i know mine's an el cheapo, but are there HDTV's that automatically insert bars left and right of a 4:3 unit for proper aspect ratio display? do those types of HDTV's exist?

3. do such a thing happen on HDTV's that have DVI/HDMI? i imagine digital i/o can take care of such aspect ratio stuff.

finally, what do you think i should do? replace it with somn else? always hookup HTPC to it to playback properly scaled content?

 

[Allan Jayne]

Any good HDTV will let you manually choose sidebars for 4:3 display of SDTV material (480i, 480p). For HDTV material (1080i and 720p) the full frame is 16:9 and any 4:3 content should have the sidebars inserted at the source.

Do not use the upconvert to 1080i on a DVD player.

If your set does not have selectable 4:3 and 16:9 for SDTV material, return it.

Note that it is impossible for the electronics to take hints from the video pixel content and automatically select sidebars for 4:3.

Video hints:
http://members.aol.com/ajaynejr/video.htm