Questions about Widescreen LCD TV's

[Salvador]

This is my first HD LCD, so there are a few things that sort of bug me about it. First of all, when I played a Widescreen dvd, I was surprised to get the black bars on the top and bottom like with my 4:3 aspect ratio Sony CRT. Why is this? I thought that having a Widescreen set would fill out the screen on the top and bottom in Widescreen. It turns my 26" LCD screen into virtually nothing.

Also, it's a little difficult to get used to the full or Widescreen mode with regular 4:3 broadcasts. I tried 4:3 mode and the images on screen look normal, but it's a shame to give up all that screen space. What do people with Widescreen displays usually watch standard broadcasts when they are in P&S? Then, when you see a commercial shot in Widescreen mode while watching a P&S broadcast in 4:3 mode, I have black bars on all sides. It essentially turns my 26" set into a 13" P&S set.

Is there any way around this? Am I missing a setting? Can I fill the screen while watching a Widescreen dvd? Or.. Do I just need to buy a bigger LCD tv if I want a bigger image. It just seems like a waste of screen space to me.

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: Salvador
This is my first HD LCD, so there are a few things that sort of bug me about it. First of all, when I played a Widescreen dvd, I was surprised to get the black bars on the top and bottom like with my 4:3 aspect ratio Sony CRT. Why is this? I thought that having a Widescreen set would fill out the screen on the top and bottom in Widescreen. It turns my 26" LCD screen into virtually nothing.

Most likely you have a 16:9 display and you are watching a movie with a higher-than-16:9 AR (like 1.85:1 or higher). Filling the screen with such a film would require distorting it.

That, or you have your DVD player set wrong. It should be in 16:9 mode, which will make anamorphic DVDs have the right AR. But it still won't help if the content is wider than 16:9. You'll have black bars, but smaller than they would be on a 4:3 monitor.

when you see a commercial shot in Widescreen mode while watching a P&S broadcast in 4:3 mode, I have black bars on all sides. It essentially turns my 26" set into a 13" P&S set.

Yep. Welcome to "most non-HD content is not widescreen yet" limbo.

 

[Salvador]

Originally posted by: Matthias99

Originally posted by: Salvador
This is my first HD LCD, so there are a few things that sort of bug me about it. First of all, when I played a Widescreen dvd, I was surprised to get the black bars on the top and bottom like with my 4:3 aspect ratio Sony CRT. Why is this? I thought that having a Widescreen set would fill out the screen on the top and bottom in Widescreen. It turns my 26" LCD screen into virtually nothing.

Most likely you have a 16:9 display and you are watching a movie with a higher-than-16:9 AR (like 1.85:1 or higher). Filling the screen with such a film would require distorting it.

That, or you have your DVD player set wrong. It should be in 16:9 mode, which will make anamorphic DVDs have the right AR. But it still won't help if the content is wider than 16:9. You'll have black bars, but smaller than they would be on a 4:3 monitor.

when you see a commercial shot in Widescreen mode while watching a P&S broadcast in 4:3 mode, I have black bars on all sides. It essentially turns my 26" set into a 13" P&S set.

Yep. Welcome to "most non-HD content is not widescreen yet" limbo.

I selected 16:9 mode with my dvd player and it helped. It was set on 4:3 mode by default. I still have black bars on the top and bottom, though it's not nearly as bad. Do some widescreen movies fill the screen in 16:9 mode?

What do you usually watch regular 4:3 television in? Widescreen or 4:3 mode?

I was watching a show (Victory By Design) on Speed TV this afternoon. It had the black bars on the top and bottom, so I set it to 16:9 mode and I still had the black bars on the top and bottom, but the images were distorted. It's like it wanted to be set to 4:3 mode. Why does programming have the black bars on the top and bottom of the screen when it's not shot in widescreen?

I don't know.. I'm really confused by all of this.

 

[mangled]

selected 16:9 mode with my dvd player and it helped. It was set on 4:3 mode by default. I still have black bars on the top and bottom, though it's not nearly as bad. Do some widescreen movies fill the screen in 16:9 mode?

To answer your question, yes. Tell us which movie(s) you watch with the DVD player correctly set to 16:9 that still show bars. You should know that any movie shot in anamorphic (2.35:1) will still have bars on top and bottom of a widescreen tv because anamorphic is even wider than 16:9. Good examples of this would be Gladiator, Lawrence of Arabia, and many more. However the majority of movies should fill the 16:9 screen completely when your player and tv are set correctly.

What do you usually watch regular 4:3 television in? Widescreen or 4:3 mode?

4:3, basically because it looks bad stretched to widescreen imo. Now that I have a widescreen tv, I actually avoid watching standard broadcast tv and stick to programming that's in HD only.

It's like it wanted to be set to 4:3 mode. Why does programming have the black bars on the top and bottom of the screen when it's not shot in widescreen?

Because they're trying to fool all the regular peeps with 4:3 televisions that it's "letterboxed" like a movie is when they watch it on their tv.

 

[Compellor]

Originally posted by: mangled

4:3, basically because it looks bad stretched to widescreen imo. Now that I have a widescreen tv, I actually avoid watching standard broadcast tv and stick to programming that's in HD only.

It really depends on the TV. Toshiba has one of the best non-linear 4:3 stretch modes I've ever seen. Sony also does 4:3 stretching rather well over other brands. The sides get stretched a bit while the center of the screen is zoomed in a bit. It subtle and there's very little distortion.

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: mangled

It's like it wanted to be set to 4:3 mode. Why does programming have the black bars on the top and bottom of the screen when it's not shot in widescreen?

Because they're trying to fool all the regular peeps with 4:3 televisions that it's "letterboxed" like a movie is when they watch it on their tv.

Well, sometimes they're showing truly widescreen content on a SD channel (which is a natively 4:3 signal), so they have to show it letterboxed if they don't want to distort it or do pan-and-scan.

Your TV should have a mode that zooms the 4:3 image in so that it fills the screen horizontally and the top and bottom (which in this case are just black bars) are cut off. That's the mode to use when watching something like ER or a letterboxed movie on a SD channel.