4:3 or 16:9 ?

[wahiba]

I was visiting someone recently and the TV was on with an old western, in colour showing. It was filling the whole of the 16:9 screen of the HD TV. It was obviously wrong as the image was distorted.

He then started telling me that when he watched some films with the HD facility on they did not fill the screen, so he had to switch the HD facility off so that the image filled the screen !

I hate watching distorted images on the screen and am happy to have the bars on the side for an old 4:3 movie/programme on a new 16:9 TV. The example above of people happily watching distorted images is, I believe, quite common.

Makes you wonder. How many people just have the TV on but do not really watch it.

So if you want people to watch you 4:3 movies on TV, just make sure they fill the screen. Any other quality criteria will not matter to much to most people.

[granfer]

For over 40 years I was a Tv Service Engineer, amongst other things. I eventually came to the conclusion that Joe Public had only two criteria in regard to TV....its in coloiur and it moves... therefore there is NOTHING wrong with it.

[Patrick]

Something sort of similar. Watching some 1960s films on TV back in the 1980s like Cool Hand Luke for example, I noticed that the beginnings of the films often had an interesting kind of distortion. All characters and objects appeared long and elongated which looked kind of cool to me. Then when the opening credits were over, everything was normal and no more distortion. All this time, I assumed that people in the cinemas saw the same distortion - like an anamorphic print that wasn't 'corrected' - at least during the beginning of the film.

Just recently, I learned that it was only people watching TV in the good old days who were seeing that distortion. Some of you may know that it was a practise that was adopted before widescreen TV and letterbox-formatted video tapes were common place. The opening credits in cinemascope films would not have been entirely visible when presented on 4:3 TVs so the uncorrected distortion was the only way that they could show the full width of the text.

I see that they didn't care so much for the end credits and text being chopped off at the sides. I'll always remember watching the end of Conan The Barbarian on TV in the 80s in which it is explained that oneday, Conan will become a king by his own hand. Then a line of text appears on the screen that says: "ut that is another stor." Of course, if you could see the whole text, it really says: But that is another story."

[Angus]

Sadly I see that a lot, indeed I think I can honestly say that I have never once seen a Sky system installed correctly by the engineers to give the proper aspect ratio for the owner's TV. Worst still is that people either don't notice or don't realise it can be adjusted.

I have my system set so as to always provide the correct aspect ratio. Before I had a 16:9 screen I used to letterbox on my 4:3 TV set for widescreen material. Now my V+ box 'pillar boxes' 4:3 material.

The one compromise I can accept is where broadcasters or users slightly 'zoom' 4:3 material to 14:9 on a modern screen. You miss a little from the top and bottom but you end up with the screen almost full....it works for a documentary where they're mixing older and newer material.

Something I really hate is the 'cinerama' mode on many widescreen TV's....where a 4:3 image is stretched to fit 16:9 by keeping the centre OK but massively distorting the edges. It looks horrible but Joe Public thinks it is good because it 'fills the screen' or even 'looks like the cinema'....when did you EVER see that horrible distortion at the cinema? First time I saw it about 8 years ago, a friend had a widescreen TV but analogue terrestrial broadcast only so he could not receive any 16:9 material. Honestly I couldn't see the point....still can't see the point.

At least when Virgin came to upgrade us to HD a few years ago the engineer asked whether my TV could take 720 or 1080, explained about how the box handled different ratios etc. As I said at the top, I have not even once seen a Sky installation done correctly. The ONLY person I know who has a Sky installation which works correctly with his screen installs home entertainment systems for a living (by whcih I mean lifestyle systems, I don't mean he delivers TVs and microwaves from the supermarket).

I still know people who don't like widecreen TV's "because they make people look fat". I try patiently to explain but most people simply don't get it.

Weirdest situation ever is in my mom in-law's house in Rogers, Arkansas....she has digital cable and a 16:9 flat screen but there is actually no way to get a 16:9 signal from the cable box, and her screen can't zoom in correctly if I do a 4:3 letterboxed signal from the box.