So I got this new Sony widescreen. I watch basic cable so it's 4:3.
I used the wide feature that stretches the picture to fill the 16:9 screen. Maybe I'm not used to a 16:9 view but the picture looks weird. Is that normal? When I switch the TV to 4:3 the picture looks better but now I have the bars on the sides.
I know that is supposed to happen.

 

Of course stretching a 4:3 to 16:9 to "fill" the screen will look weird. Watch something HD or a 16:9 DVD and it will look just fine. The benefit of 16:9 is that is the way things are going, so now with 4:3 material you get the black bars on both sides of the image, and 16:9 material no longer has the black bars on the top/bottom of the image.

Your TV may have a built in HD tuner, in other words you may be able to pick up some HD chanels for free and not only view the major networks in a way that fills your screen, but it will also more resolving and detailed.

 

No HDTV for me. I watch just plain basic cable, see my other TV post. That's the TV I have.
When is regular analog TV going to be 16:9? Just makes no sense that all the new TV's are widescreen, & regular TV is isn't.

 

In 2009 when everything will be in HD.


Unless you move to HD programming, everything will be 4:3. And even if you do go to HD programming, everything non-HD will be 4:3. So unless you stretch the video, I hope you like black bars on the side.

It sucks and it probably one thing most people don't realize when they go and buy a new HDTV.

 

When you say you 'used the widescreen feature', does that mean the setting on the tv set itself, or the cable box setting. If you have digital cabel, there is a setting in the actual cable box that allows you to switch your ratios. I didnt know about it and only had my tv set to 16:9 and my cable box set to 4:3. Take a look

 

Never. Analog TV will be phased out and that frequency specturm will be reallocated eventually. You can likely receive HDTV already using an OTA HD Antenna.

Guessing on your location in Boca, Fox, CBS, NBC, and PBS HD broadcasts are available to you from West Palm using a standard <$40 omni-directional HDTV Antenna. You are probably <15 miles away from them.

http://www.checkhd.com/aw/welcome.aspx

 

Means he's using the TV to stretch the picture to full screen. He's on basic cable, so no cable box involved here.

I actually have all of our large screen sets stretched... but I do so using the digital cable box (not the TV). Picture looks fine to me. Additionally, with the exception of TBS, pretty much everything we watch is in HD... so watching the 1 channel with the stretch looks normal to me...

 

I hate the stretch aspect. I would recommend an antenna to catch your network HD's or there has to be an upgrade to HD for a few more $ a month. I'm so spoiled to HD, SD digital looks like analog to me.

 

Well, that could also be your set. Digital channels look great on our TVs. Not as good as HD obviously, but blows away SD content. Not all sets display all resolutions (HD, digital, SD analog) the same... so while digital channels may not look good on your set, they may look great on others...

 

I'd have to get a tuner plus the antenna just for the network channels & FOX being the only 1 I watch. It's not worth the $$.
My cable is free(included with the rent)
I don't watch much TV so I'll live with it for now.
After I tweaked the TV it looks better then it did when stretched.

 

If you watch only analog channels and have no plans upgrading to HD why would you buy a widescreen tv?

 

My widescreen tv has multiple "stretch"modes so if yours does try them all out. My expanded 4:3 mode looks like crap but my 16:9 mode or panoramic mode is soo good that you can hardly tell its not a 16:9 broadcast

 

My set is the 42" Samsung DLP, almost 2 years old. The problem is DirecTV compresses the piss out of their SD stuff. I'm getting the H20 receiver at the end of the month so I'll be getting everything off the mpeg4 birds. Hopefully the quality will be marginally better.

 

Cause a 57" was only $500 off of someone who was moving. Still have 100's of DVD's

 

Ahh, so it may not be the set... but the signal. I'm on cable so the digital channels look very good. In fact, some people who aren't real TV buffs sometimes have thought a digital channel was HD. Then I show them HD... hehe .

 

Oh, I was unaware that your TV lacked the OTA HD Tuner.

 

The only thing I don't like about stretch mode is when someone gets a closeup. People look like they have huge shoulders.

 

i didn't know that...link to article?

 

^ Google the term HD Mandate and you'll find plenty of articles to read.