<<<-- Originally posted by Tommy Haupfear : I know most Sony 4:3 TVs (CRT tubes) have a 16:9 mode that will properly display an anamorphic signal as letterboxed with as much resolution (from their V. Compression) as the CRT can afford.

It's probably just the Sony TV then.


I'm just curious if this is something new with the GS400 as Boyd touched on. -->>>

There's a good chance at least one member of this board owns a Sony 4:3 TV and one of these cams that has HQ widescreen (953, GS100, Opturas, GS400) who can verify.

I get squished image on my tv's - non-Sony.
 

Hi folks - when I patch out my GS400 while in procinema, I don't automatically get black bars in 16:9 - I get squished on 4:3 screen - whether recording live or playing out via a/v to t.v. from procinema mode. So I suspect it's up to what you tell your t.v. to do... if it's capable of switching over to 16:9 with black bars...

Mark

Interesting, we'll definitely want to investigate this some more in case its another feature left off on Panasonic's N.A. offerings.

Most of what you see as letterbox on a 4:3 tv is generated by the DVD player, not the TV. If the new Sony cams have a similar feature, thats very very cool.

Newer more expensive TVs do have a 16x9 option for squishing the video, but not all. My Mitsubushi RP has several screen modes in case the DVD player or the digital cable box can't figure it out. My Toshiba 32inch does not have those options.

For what it's worth... I looked at Sony's entire WEGA consumer line of 4:3 sets two years ago. The smaller ones didn't even have s-video inputs and had no way of detecting or displaying letterboxed anamorphic video.

The 20" model was the smallest to offer s-video and component input (I ended up getting one of these). It doesn't detect or have any built-in way to display letterboxed 16:9 either.

I have an older 27" WEGA (maybe 5 or 6 years old?) 4:3 set also. It has s-video and component input. It will display high quality letterboxed 16:9, however it doesn't auto-detect it. You have to go a couple levels deep in the setup menu to enable it ("Enhanced 16:9" in Sony-speak). Actually it's kind of annoying because if you accidently hit any channel key the TV jumps back to 4:3 mode and you have to go through the menus again to turn it back on.

Now when I looked two years ago my general impression was that the higher end (flat screen CRT) 4:3 sets 27+ inches seemed capable of letterboxing 16:9, but the smaller ones couldn't.