Not sure if the wording in the title is correct, but I am concerned about the lack of choices of screen modes (sizes) in many sets. The current choices seem to be "wide", which makes everyone look like carnival sideshow fat people; "zoom" which cuts out a large portion of the top, bottom, and both sides of the original picture; "cinema", which is a combination of wide and zoom (still have fat people and missing part of picture); "normal" which shows 4x3 with broad wide bands on the sides; and finally "auto", which works fine for HD channels but does nothing (no correcting) for digital SD channels. These settings were for one of the sets I investigated. The others had even less.

Now before anyone jumps on my @55 about any particular brand that is their favorite, let me say this: My Toshiba 42" plasma has more and better options. So that probably points to the fact that you get a better choice with the more expensive units. Right?

What sets did I look at? The Insignia 32" plasma, the Samsung 32" LCD, to name a couple. 32" is the screen size that I want for the bedroom. I don't want another larger set as a second TV.

So here are my questions:
1. Are most of the lower cost smaller sets so limited?
2. Putting it another way, do you have to shell out for a bigger expensive set to get more and better screen options?
3. With todays advanced techology, why can't the manufactures produce their sets with software that will automatically adjust the picture signal provided to fill the screen with a bare minimum of distortion?

OK, just had to blow off steam, since I really wanted that 32" plasma, but just couldn't live with the awful screen choices on a nonHD digital cable feed.

Mike

Don't mean sound like I am dissing you, but you have outlined the choices above, there is no real way to fit a 4:3 image into a 16:9 screen without stretching or cropping somewhere. Do the math, it is like putting a square peg into a round hole, somewhere you have to compromise.

My Toshiba 42" plasma has more and better options.
Such as? Cropping or stretching is the only way to make narrower aspect ratio content fill a wider aspect ratio display. I personally don't care for either, and run all 4:3 content pillarboxed with grey sidebars on my plasma.

Not sure if the wording in the title is correct, but I am concerned about the lack of choices of screen modes (sizes) in many sets. The current choices seem to be "wide", which makes everyone look like carnival sideshow fat people; "zoom" which cuts out a large portion of the top, bottom, and both sides of the original picture; "cinema", which is a combination of wide and zoom (still have fat people and missing part of picture); "normal" which shows 4x3 with broad wide bands on the sides; and finally "auto", which works fine for HD channels but does nothing (no correcting) for digital SD channels. These settings were for one of the sets I investigated. The others had even less.

Now before anyone jumps on my @55 about any particular brand that is their favorite, let me say this: My Toshiba 42" plasma has more and better options. So that probably points to the fact that you get a better choice with the more expensive units. Right?

What sets did I look at? The Insignia 32" plasma, the Samsung 32" LCD, to name a couple. 32" is the screen size that I want for the bedroom. I don't want another larger set as a second TV.

So here are my questions:
1. Are most of the lower cost smaller sets so limited?
2. Putting it another way, do you have to shell out for a bigger expensive set to get more and better screen options?
3. With todays advanced techology, why can't the manufactures produce their sets with software that will automatically adjust the picture signal provided to fill the screen with a bare minimum of distortion?

OK, just had to blow off steam, since I really wanted that 32" plasma, but just couldn't live with the awful screen choices on a nonHD digital cable feed.

Mike

Just curious what you have in mind? How do you make a 4:3 fit a 16:9 panel without doing something to the picture? You either zoom or stretch and for a compromise a little of both if you want the picture to fill the whole screen.

I've always left the Original content as is. SD programs stay in 4:3 and HD stays in 16x9 or one of the other formats with the black bars. I don't want anything stretched, cropped, widened.

You know how they used to fill the whole screen with movies on a Normal TV, by using Pan & Scan. That is they take part of that 16x9 or whatever format and just use the 4:3 part of that frame, and they pan from one side to the other where the main action is at and everything else is cut off! These are called Full Screen DVD's in the store, where the Original whole movie is Wide screen. Now Instead of buying a DVD in one or the other format, your basically doing it yourself, but it's more generic and the picture just stays in one place. The ONLY way to keep the picture from NOT being distorted and yet filling the screen is to Enlarge the picture, which of course part of it go out past the screen, which means it's basically cut out. Anything else distorts the picture one way or another. It doesn't matter if it's Video Movie, or a basic Picture.

Imagine you had a Square Picture on your PC and you wanted to print it out on your printer filling the whole 8x11 page. How would you do that? You can enlarge it enough to fit most of the page keeping the original Aspect ratio but then you still have a couple inches with no picture. So you can either allow the aspect ratio to change and stretch the picture out and now everything looks distorted, or you can Blow it up large enough to fill the whole page, and yet parts will be cut off. You can trim paper and make it a 8x8, but you can't trim your normal HDTV.

You can do what is done in the Movie theater by using a front projector and adjusting the Curtains for the screen size! This in effect would be like cutting the paper to make the image fit. Anything else will distort. I don't mind the Grey side borders on my HDTV watching SD content at all. It's something to deal with these days on the 4:3 to 16x9 switch over. Less and less 4:3 content being released unless you go back watching old shows. Hell I love Hogan's Heroes and it's still advertising COLOR before the show starts.

Fear not, I have thick skin. I am fully aware of the math envolved when comparing 4x3 vs. 16x9. What I am concerned about is the lack of some kind of middle ground, rather than stretching the whole picture to the extreme, or zooming to the point of losing 30% of the picture. The one screen mode that is on the Toshiba plasma that I have is where the extreme sides of the picture are progressively stretched while the middle (about 80%) of the picture is left with very little distortion. Not a perfect solution, but much more watchable than the aforementioned extremes. This is sorta the fix that maxdog is referring to.

Also, as I did a side by side comparison between my three year old plasma and the new 32" one, the zoom mode was more extreme on the smaller plasma, as was the stretch mode. Even the 16x9 screen mode seemed more stretched out than what was shown on the Toshiba. And in each case, there was very little difference in the amount of the picture showing on the screen, with a minimum of the picture not showing (cutting out the edges).

I have resigned myself in having to get the sales people to demonstrate the various screen modes on channels other than the normal feed, for whatever set I am looking at. It is amazing how varied the choices of modes are from one manufacturer to another. Add to that the fact that the choices vary depending on whether the source is digital, HD, or old fashioned analog.

I wonder how many Joe Sixpack consumers are unaware of all this as he sits watching his old tube 4x3 tv, seeing an ad for some flatscreen and thinking he might just get one of those things.

Mike

PS And yes, I remember Scan and Pan.

Fear not, I have thick skin. I am fully aware of the math envolved when comparing 4x3 vs. 16x9. What I am concerned about is the lack of some kind of middle ground, rather than stretching the whole picture to the extreme, or zooming to the point of losing 30% of the picture. The one screen mode that is on the Toshiba plasma that I have is where the extreme sides of the picture are progressively stretched while the middle (about 80%) of the picture is left with very little distortion. Not a perfect solution, but much more watchable than the aforementioned extremes. This is sorta the fix that maxdog is referring to.

Also, as I did a side by side comparison between my three year old plasma and the new 32" one, the zoom mode was more extreme on the smaller plasma, as was the stretch mode. Even the 16x9 screen mode seemed more stretched out than what was shown on the Toshiba. And in each case, there was very little difference in the amount of the picture showing on the screen, with a minimum of the picture not showing (cutting out the edges).

I have resigned myself in having to get the sales people to demonstrate the various screen modes on channels other than the normal feed, for whatever set I am looking at. It is amazing how varied the choices of modes are from one manufacturer to another. Add to that the fact that the choices vary depending on whether the source is digital, HD, or old fashioned analog.

I wonder how many Joe Sixpack consumers are unaware of all this as he sits watching his old tube 4x3 tv, seeing an ad for some flatscreen and thinking he might just get one of those things.

Mike

PS And yes, I remember Scan and Pan.Panasonics have a "just" mode that does just what you described above in that it stretches the sides while mostly leaving the middle portion of the picture alone. All non-HD content (and even some HD) has to be adjusted in some way if you want to fill the screen or eliminate black bars...some makers just do a better job of it than others. I wouldn't say that a Insignia and a low end Samsung are representative of what is available on modern sets..

Thanks Joemama. Just mode sounds like what I was describing. Looks as though I will have to check out Panys. Too bad they don't still produce a 37 inch plasma. And I agree that some manufacturers do a better job of filling the screen than others; that was part of the point I was attempting to make.

Mike