yes they fill the screen but they are distorted if they are filling a widescreen TV.


I suspect that if Manny doesn't see that 4:3 people are shown fat and wide then the 16:9 TVs are all in the 'zoom' mode. Of course there's no distortion, but losing 25% of what's already an iffy SD 4:3 image will make it look pretty ropey on a 56 incher I'd imagine.

And of course content is all, nobody here would ever deny that, so I can believe that the audience weren't asking about camcorder settings and aspect ratios. Who would? And they probably asked for a copy of the DVD so that they could see it correctly pillarboxed at home.

Don't fly off in a huff Manny. The considered replies posted here have just been trying to help you set up your TVs correctly, that's all.

tom.

Yes, Tom you are right. It was the older tvs that stretched, the newer ones now seem to zoom to fill up 4:3 images.

Yes, with SD 4:3 the choice is
1.Losing the LCD's display area with the pillar box
2.Further losing the paltry 400,000-pixel count with display zooming to eliminate the pillar box and maybe also losing vital parts of the image like people's heads, faces or feet etc.
3.Stretching the frame to fit the display and living with the always distorted picture, either equally distorted on the entire screen area or less in the middle but more on both sides (some newer displays' feature)

No getting around one of the above but if the viewer somehow likes what she sees, I guess maybe it's good enough.

Years ago I remember talent complaining that 'TVs add 10 lbs to you'. That was in the days of huffing, puffing CRTs, with scan lines all over the place and picture distortions a-plenty.

Jump forward 25 years and we have pixel-perfect, non-distorting, zero overscan digital displays. So what do we do? We stretch, pull, zoom, push and squeeze the image in an effort to 'use all the real-estate I've paid for'.

Sigh.

tom.