What is the allure of a wide-screen, flat screen TV?
We don’t have one (Yet. I have a male in the house, so I imagine we’ll have one sooner or later.) However, every house I walk into that has one, the first thing I notice is that the actors and objects on the screen look all shortened and widened….like in a house of mirrors. Grampa B got one for Christmas, and they set up up for him. For a minute, everything looked normal, except that it had the black spaces at the bottom and top of the pic, then they flipped it to “full screen,” and everything and everyone got short, chunky and wide. It’s all distorted, and I don’t understand why anyone would prefer to watch TV that way.
Clue me in?
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@Dutchess_III we have several wide screens and love the realistic pictures we have in HD. The problem you are seeing is with the aspect ratio.The television isn’t set to the proper signal it is receiving. Mismatched aspect ratios and the TV screen size. The aspect ratio is the ratio of the width of an image to its height. The television has a setting for these ratios and it can be changed.
@Dutchess_III GQ! I asked my brothers that same question and they pretend they don’t see the actors etc. shortened. I thought it was just me.
@chyna (Emperor’s New Clothes!:)
Well….I’m glad I asked @bkcunningham! If when we get one, I’ll sure look into it. It just bugs me to no-ever-end. I liked that the picture was super sharp and crisp, but the fun house effect totally negated it.
Many years ago ( MANY MANY——Could it be 52 years? ) Color TV’s were all the rage—- problem was very few color content shows. Wide aspect screens have the same problem, you have to have wide aspect shows to watch.
HD or wide aspect shows are required to get the TV to show at its best.
I LOVE the size and clarity for movies. It’s like having a movie at home.
The appeal is resolution and screen real estate. Go to a bar with a wide-screen TV and a normal full-screen TV airing the same show, and you’ll see the difference.
The problem you’re having with distorted images is a problem with incorrect aspect ratio settings.
Thanks @Ivan @bkcunningham said the ratio is just a matter of adjusting settings on the new TV.
(@Tropical_Willie I remember the Peacock!)
@Austinlad I don’t like the “movie at home” thing, necessarily. Maybe if you have the room for it, and that’s all you plan to do in that room is show movies, maybe. But I walked into a house once with a very, very small living room, and a huge, HUGE flat screen. It dominated the living room. It was totally tacky, IMO. I really don’t care about the size of the TV….there are far, far more important things to me than that!
A regular TV picture is not wide enough to fill an HDTV screen.
When you are watching non-HD programs recorded for old TVs, their should be a squarish picture in the middle with broad empty black bands on the side. The black bands are supposed to be there.
And I guess people think they need to fill up the wide screen or they’ve adjusted it wrong.
People have the same problem with computer monitors. It drives me bananas but people either understand and already adjusted their settings. Or they don’t understand and (in my experience) cannot even grasp the concept.
If anyone has a way to explain the settings I would love to hear it. There has to be a short video somewhere.
My newer tv is set old style unless it’s an hd movie and it makes my son a little crazy. I hate squatty, fat faces as well but watching sports on a wrongly set tv makes that worthwhile!
adjusting the picture ratio thing must be hard because every Wide TV I have seen like that has the actors with the “Stewie Griffon” heads. It’s like that at everyone’s house.
The image only looks “shortened” when people try to watch a show in widescreen that’s made for the old ratio. But as more and more shows are specifically made for widescreen, that will happen less and less often. The appeal for me is to be able to hang it on the wall, like a picture frame, instead of taking up space on the floor. But I don’t have one yet.
Why don’t people just leave it alone, and let the black bands be there? The same exact thing happens when you’re watching a DVD movie on a regular TV, and people choose the full-screen setting rather than leaving it in wide-screen (or letterbox) mode. It took me a while to convince my technophobe husband that watching in letterbox format is actually superior to filling the whole screen.
@augustlan I so agree with letting it be. My husband says it drives him nuts, but the fact is, you get used to it after 30 seconds and forget they’re even there.
@downtide I so totally agree with hanging it on a wall, or putting it some place unobtrusive. The television set will never be the center piece in my living room! In fact, for years and years, the TV wasn’t in the living room. It was in a separate room called….“The TV room.”
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