Comments on: Premium HD Channels & Aspect Ratios

By: Desi Bravo

Desi Bravo — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 17:17:44 +0000

I currently have a 40″ Samsung LCD HDTV with aspect ratio of 4:3 and 16:9 with a contrast ratio of 2000:1. I purchased this hdtv for the reason of technology how tv will be seen from now to the near future that all channels are to be seen in full HDTV. However, I am watching HD channels, and some channels I have to watch a movie with a letterbox effect, especially watching the news in channel fox HDTV. Wondering why is that. Got a hold of my cable provider and they told me it depends on the channel I am watching that they will air it in letterbox or HDTV widescreen. It is frustating watching a movie with borders and the only thing I can do is stretch it but then it becomes a little distorted and this is on HDTV channels.

By: Jim

Jim — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 08:01:01 +0000

I’m surprised at how little of the picture is lost. I’d say the difference would only be noticeable when you freeze frame the two screens side by side.
I’d rather not lose a quarter of my screen to black bars for that – or put another way, the HBO picture on a 32″ screen would be the same height as an OAR picture on a 42″ screen!

By: Dan

Dan — Mon, 13 Nov 2006 13:22:34 +0000

I’m having a difficult time with about 3 DVD’s that I have purchased. The one I will ask about is the widescreen version of Armageddon ((the other two are Dirty dancing and Days of thunder) although the new, remastered version of Dirty Dancing does display correctly). When playing this movie on my widescreen TV (16:9) it starts in the 4:3 aspect ratio with black borders on all four sides. When I select wide screen on my TV, the side borders disappear, but the images are stretched from right to left making everyone look wider than reality. All other widescreen DVD’s fill the screen from right to left and may have black borders on the top and bottom (depending on the filmed ratio),but they don’t stretch the image. But this movie and the two other DVD’s I am referring to, do not fill the entire screen from right to left without stretching the image. I’ve tried zooming, changing the settings on my TV and DVD player and for some reason on these 3 movies, the only way to watch them without any distortion on my wide screen TV is to set the TV to 4:3 and watch it with borders along all 4 sides. Thus making my 16:9 TV into a full screen TV, and not able to use the entire screen area to view the movie. Anyone have an explanation as to why this is? BTW, I am using an HDMI cable from my up converting DVD player to my widescreen TV.

By: JaxJD2B

JaxJD2B — Wed, 26 Jul 2006 11:23:55 +0000

I’m so glad you pointed this out. I was watching “A Few Good Men” last weekend on TNT-HD and noticed that the courtroom scenes were PAN&SCAN. I really couldn’t believe this. Here’s a great film that was killed due to a miserable Pan&Scan release, and the TNT high def, while having gorgeous resolution, suffered the SAME problems. Ugh!