widescreen T.V for $300 (1 Viewer)

[Keith_R]

I have a friend who currently has an offer to get a Pioneer widescreen television. The television itself is not hi-def but it is an excellent deal for a widescreen TV and my friend has a couple questions which he wanted me to address here at HTF.

1. He does not own a DVD player and has no current or future plans to get one, he plans on using this TV to watch normal cable broadcasts and broadcast station T.V shows. The shows he plans on watching include Law and Order, NYPD Blue, and The Practice he is wondering if any of these shows are in widescreen?

2. My friend is also a big sports fans. He watches alot of sports games off of the small cable provider in the town he lives in. He typically watches alot of baseball on TBS football on ABC, CBS (Gators games) and NBC he will watch Monday Night Football on ABC during season, will any of this be in widescreen?

3. My friend is also wondering about anything in between besides his normal watching. What happens if the particular show is not in widescreen, will it fit his whole screen?I trhought it got windowboxed and the TV had controls to get rid of the windowboxing effect, is this true?

4. Don't the controls for getting rid of the window box make you lose picture on both sides as well as top and bottom? losing the picture will also make you lose resolution right?

Could someone please answer these questions for me, I'm a complete idiot when it comes to widescreen TV so I can't answer all of his questions Thanks.

 

[Allan Jayne]

1. Don't know.
2. Don't know.
3. About an older vintage 16:9 non-HDTV TV (yes they had "analog" sets like that, nowadays $300. seems like a fair price) the 4:3 picture won't fill the screen unless you stretch it to fit using the remote, then everything looks stretched. Alternatively you can zoom in which case the screen is filled but material is cropped off the top and bottom.
4. There should not be significant loss off the sides but due to overscan there may be a little. There should be no loss of resolution.
View the set before buying it. Modest price TV sets may have hard to correct convergence or geometric errors and it is a good idea to pass it up if they can't or won't correct the problems before you buy.
Other video hints:
http://members.aol.com/ajaynejr/video.htm