HDTV question.

[Moses]

I went to a friends house and saw his new plasma TV with HDTV. Amazing picture, but on some of the channels that are not broadcast in widescreen mode, the tuner squishes the image to fit and everything looks short and fat. Unbelievable! For all the dough he laid out I would think there would be an automatic function that would truncate the sides of the projection so traditional format broadcasts would not be distorted. Are they all that way?

[M.D. Holloway]

All the ones I see are - the bandwidth transmitting over is different and from what a friend told me the folks who make the HDTVs could care less about the backdating technology. I guess it would tack on more $$ to have that feature on it but WTF, darn things are porsche priced as it is.

I gotta think they would be able to accomidate yeastertech bands, maybe not.

[pbs911]

Moses, that's like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. The best solution I have found is to use the "zoom" funcition. It cuts off the top and bottom but fills the screne.

[Brillo]

Our 50" LG Plasma HDTV has a "set by program" mode. So it will automatically adjust. You can manually adjust on all of them as far as I know. Usually just takes 2 or 3 pushes of a button.

One thing you do have to get used to, if the analog (SD) program is not very good quality it will look worse on a HD set.

[ronin]

Originally posted by Brillo
Our 50" LG Plasma HDTV has a "set by program" mode. So it will automatically adjust. You can manually adjust on all of them as far as I know. Usually just takes 2 or 3 pushes of a button.

ditto. my DVR has the same feature

[skipdup]

Mine must do it automatically. On SD programming, I have a black bar on each side of the picture - this keeps the aspect ration to the intended/correct ratio. The black bars go away when HD programming starts, or I switch to an HD program.

If you don't have the bars on the side when viewing SD, your aspect ration is off - i.e. "smooshed".

- Skip

[Joe Bob]

Mine has an easy adjust for the screen. I can even find it one handed in the dark with a beer in the other hand......the pisser is when ya wanna see the score or the subtitles....you have to rewind and/or go to another screen to see them.

The digital box from my cable provider is pretty trick. Wish I could own it and get out from the rental charge.

[Nathans_Dad]

The tuner should have an option to broadcast the non-HDTV stuff in normal format with black bars on the sides instead of stretching it to fit the widescreen. The thing that amazed me when I bought my HDTV is how horrible non-HDTV broadcasts look on the set. I read on the net it is something about the increased resolution vs a normal TV showing all the flaws in the transmission. I dunno if that is right or not, but it sure looks blurry!!

[greglepore]

My Mitsu has several options-"normal" is black bars on either side, "fill" stretches everything, "smooth wide" stretches only the edges, and "full" zooms the center to fill the screen. Full works best, but you lose the headers (ie lap count etc on racing, score and clock for football). Non HD programing can look pretty lousy on bigger screens as well.

[einreb]

Originally posted by Moses
I went to a friends house and saw his new plasma TV with HDTV. Amazing picture, but on some of the channels that are not broadcast in widescreen mode, the tuner squishes the image to fit and everything looks short and fat. Unbelievable! For all the dough he laid out I would think there would be an automatic function that would truncate the sides of the projection so traditional format broadcasts would not be distorted. Are they all that way?

My Panasonic TH42 has a 'Justify' mode. The center of the screen is stretched just a bit to fill up space, then the edges are stretched a bit more to take up the rest of the space. I'm now completely used to it and barely notice.

That being said.... I likely wouldn't buy a Plasma again. I'd get a smaller, say 32" LCD for regular tv watching and then a low cost (sub 1k) lcd projector for movies and big sporting events.

-Bernie

[TerryBPP]

My Zenith plasma has a set by program feature too.

[cstreit]

Same with our Phillips plasma. It has an automatic mode, but you can also force a program format to be "original" or into one of 7 different modes... Some programs aren't read correcty I suspect and stretched to a different mode. In a bad analog signal show, the stretched ones are often grainy and a touch of a button shrinks them back to "normal" format.

[Steve Carlton]

My JVC has an "Aspect" button on it that toggles it amongst Panorama, Cinema, Full, and Standard. I don't like the settings that distort the image, but it gives you some choices that you can use other than the original format, sort of like a zoom.

[Deschodt]

Just went thru that with a new HDTV as well.... Sucks but until all programming is HD, well, that's the way it is.. What bothered me even more was that DVDs don't look all that good either, they are 480 lines after all...

The solution to that one: get an upsampling DVD player such as the Oppo unit for $200 (instead of $2000) and all is well in the HD world again ;-)

[red-beard]

I have 2 phillips and a Toshiba. I've put them in "automatic" mode where they will adjust. the Toshiba is 4:3 and the Phillips are 16:9. They don't stretch or shink anymore, because I'd prefer the black bars when in "off mode".

[greglepore]

Yeah, I'm on board with Bernie-get a really good smaller LCD and a projector w/ a big screen-you can do that well now for 3 grand or so; my 56 (biggest I could get into my finished basement) doesn't pack max punch and is really too big for everyday use.

[450knotOffice]

I love my 56, but some stations are a bit blury. I use the best cables so I've been able to mitigate that to some extent, but it's still there. I'm getting used to it though.

When HD becomes a bit more common, I'll upgrade to the HD box (I've got DirectTV).

I've got my TV set to 4:3 for broadcasts and 16:9 for DVD's.

[craigster59]

Our 30" Zenith Console has a beautiful walnut "Duncan Phyfe" style cabinet with built in record player and radio tuner. We get all the channels (2 thru 13) and UHF when the weathers right. It's the ultimate in entertainment and...... Oh, wait a minute, it's my turn to get up and change the channel...be right back...

[island911]

the plasmas need to fill the screen, esle they get 'burn-in'.

Some tried gray banding, on the sides (for 4:3 display) . ..I'm guessing that worked; kinda.

Plasma is certainly not the horse to bet on, IMO.
My Dell 2405FPW Flat Panel Monitor just showed up today . . . 24"LCD; 1920x1200 Pixels, 500 cd/m² Brightness, and the kicker; 1000:1 Contrast Ratio.

oh, and under $1k.

Obviously, at 24", LCD's aren't competing so much w/ the big-TV plasmas, but the LCDs are gaining ground fast. (I just cant get over how bright and contrasted this thing is . .. and it's an LCD.