Hey everyone,

I've been looking around the forums to solve a problem that still exists for about a year now.

Which 27" CRT will work best with OTA broadcasts and DVD/XBOX 360 use?

I had previously purchased a Toshiba 27 flat tube, but when watching some digital programs, the black bars would show up on all 4 sides (windowboxing?). So I tried to zoom the image but it stretches it to a point where the image gets cropped. I liked the TV otherwise, but that was just unacceptable. Also, some post mentioned that 1080 input gives funky images on the Toshiba sometime. Any other cons that I'm missing?

Is there a service menu or other way to fix the percentage of zoom on this TV so things don't get cropped? Do the Sharp TVs have this same issue with OTA? Some other people said that it's not a bad TV relatively.

Just looking for help from other people getting OTA with their CRTs. Thanks.

I have Sharp 32 inch 4:3 SD non flat TV, and it give me three options for digital channels: Stretch, 4:3 and 16:9 options.

When watching SD programs on digital channels, it give me black bars on each sides. So I click on Stretch mode and it stretch the image horizontally to fill the whole screen. And one wouldn’t even notice it is stretched as it look very natural.

For widescreen HD and DVD materials, I usually leave it on 4:3 mode as it fill the whole screen and there is hardly any distortion or abnormality in the image.

For [anamorphic] widescreen DVDs to fill whole 4:3 screen without losing any resolution, change DVD player screen option from 4:3 to 16:9. If you leave DVD player on 4:3 option, one will lose about 1/4 of resolution on anamorphic DVDs.

The reason why some digital tv programs have black bars on all sides is because you are watching a SD 4:3 program in the 16:9 ratio setting. Adjust the screen mode to 4:3 mode and you should fill the screen with no distortion. Now the cropping could be due to overscan and can be adjusted in the service modes in the Sony for sure. I don't know about the Sharp. The code to enter and save settings in the service modes are the same on every Sony. That code can be easily had on this forum. Nobody gives a crap about Sharp so finding service mode codes can be difficult.

I have a Sony 27" SD (KD27FS170) and a Sony 34" HD (KD34XBR970). The OTA quality on the 27" is as close to HD as you will find. In a blind taste test I suspect many people would think it was HD. The Zoom mode is also excellent.