Widescreen TVs (1 Viewer)

[John_St]

I'm thinking of buying a widescreen TV, but I have a question.

What do programs and films that aren't in widescreen, look like on a wide screen TV?

Are they stretched to fill the screen?

Are they just boxed in the middle?

JOhn

 

[Steve Schaffer]

John,

widescreen sets all have several ways of displaying a 4/3 picture.

1--display the picture in the center with gray bars on the side to prevent burn in.

2--Apply a uniform horizontal-only stretch. This is known as Full mode and is the one you want to use for anamorphic widescreen dvds.

The uniform stretch for 4/3 makes everything look short and fat.

3--Zoom the picture both horizontally and vertically so it fills the screen side to side, but picture is lost at the top and bottom of the screen. Sets will scroll the picture vertically in this mode to make sports scores or CNN crawls visible.

4--Apply a variable stretch to the 4/3 image--stretches more at the sides than in the center, so faces in the center look pretty much normal. The better implementations of this mode do a slight vertical zoom also, so there doesn't need to be as noticeable a stretch on the sides. Toshiba and newer Sony widescreens do a very good variable stretch, Mits and Hitachis are not as good.

 

[Marc Rochkind]

Agree, except that for #2 "anamorphic" should be substituted for "widescreen."

 

[Michael Reuben]

What do programs and films that aren't in widescreen, look like on a wide screen TV?

Please refer to the following thread:
http://www.hometheaterforum.com/htfo...threadid=62209
M.

 

[John_St]

thanks a lot everyone.

John

 

[Steve Sz]

John_St I live about 30 miles from you. If you are interested you are welcome to come to my house for a show and tell on my HD 4:3 set and a little education.

 

[Steve Schaffer]

Marc,

Thanks, correction made.