Widescreen TVs with SD 4X3 broadcasting
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I have HD widescreen televisions. The problem is, there are still a lot of older programing on filmed in 4X3 instead of the 16X9 format. There are multiple ways of watching this programing.
NORMAL - Picture is left as is. You will have black borders on both the left and right of the image. You will lose size of your TV since there will be unused space on your screen.
STRETCHED - The picture is stretched, and fills the whole screen. You will see all viewable images on your screen. Since the image is stretched, everyone on the television will look short and fat.
Zoom - The whole screen is used, but the top and bottom parts of the original image will be cropped out. Most newer 4X3 television content takes this into consideration, and makes sure nothing important is in these areas.
Most of the programing I watch that is in 4X3 I use the Zoom function. I do not miss the cropped top and bottom of the image, and enjoy using the full screen. How do you watch 4X3 broadcasting on your widescreen 16X9 televisions?
Tags: television, tv, hd, hdtv, widescreen, lcd, dlp, plasma, cable, satallite, movie, movies
3 Comments
just_jeepin
October 16th, 2007
at 8:32am
I watch everything in Normal. I don’t want to use zoom (loosing info) and stretch just looks weird. Most of the show I watch are 16×9 (even the local news is starting to switch to 16×9). I figure I’ve gone how long watching movies on my 4×3 tv in letterbox that now it’s just the opposite, and in a few years everything should be 16×9. Heck, even video podcasts are switching to 16×9!
WideScreen_FAN
October 16th, 2007
at 11:32am
I watch 4×3 broadcast in Normal (4×3) or my TV has 14:9 similar to zoom but not as much cropping. Everyone else I know watches it stretched, either they CAN’T tell the difference or they don’t like the black bars.
David
October 16th, 2007
at 1:05pm
My Toshiba rear-projection set has a mode called “super live” (which means nothing, really!) It somehow does a non-linear horizontal stretch on 4×3, leaving the centre relatively untouched and pulling the edges out to the edge. It`s amazing how unnoticeable it is after a few minutes viewing. I normally leave it on that setting and leave the auto widescreen switching from the DVD player to do its stuff to “true” 16×9 when it needs to.