hey everyone new here and need some info hoping you can help.

I just bought a Samsung LNT4665F 46" 1080p LCD HDTV. I have an HDTV/DVR Box From Cablevision and live in Stamford, CT. My TV is hooked up to the cable box with an HDMI cable.

My question is that when not watching an HD channel the picture does not cover the whole screen, instead has the bars on the side. So my tv has a picture size change feature. If i change the tv to Wide then the picture covers the whole screen. By watching tv on this setting does it take away from the picture quality ?

If i leave my tv on this same setting and watch an HD channel would the HD picture be poorer quality ? or when i watch HD channels i should it be changed back to normail setting ?

Is there any way to avoid having to change the sizes and not having to deal with less then full screen viewing ? Or is this just part of HD until we live in a perfect world and everything is in HD ?

if any one can answer these questions it would be great.

thanks !! :confused:

well it just seems that your not going to be watching HD all the time unless of course certain games and shows etc .... but the majority of everyday viewing is going to be non HD programing so it would be wise to stretch the picture for 2 reasons 1) being i bought 46" tv and want to watch 46" and 2) being always watching that little square in the middle of the tv is dumb and would prob be burned into the tv like that.

To use "stretch" mode is equivalent to going to a fair and looking in the "funny mirrors" ... it makes me sea-sick! Why do people supposedly go out any buy fancy TVs so that they can "get the best picture possible" and then intentionally bugger it up by deliberately distorting the picture.

If you feel you must use all the pixels you paid for, use a zoom feature instead of a stretch feature. You will lose a little image off the top and bottom but at least people will not be wider than they are tall!

If you only watch 4:3 content, like CNN or regular SD channels, get a 4:3 "kitchen" TV and save the expensive HDTV for evening when watching HD content.

sorry wasn't using "stretch mode" it was actually called "Wide Fit" the picture size options for my tv are:

16:9
Zoom 1
Zoom 2
Wide Fit
4:3
Just Scan

currently i have my tv set to "Wide Fit" and people do not look short and fat. This is how i need to view non-HD channels. Then when i watch an HD channel i put it back to normal.

correct me if i am wrong but this is how i should be doing it, if i don't want to watch a 19" square on a 46" tv. while viewing SD programming. am i correct ?

I would say that it's up to you. Black bars shouldn't burn into your tv because you have a higher quality lcd. If you are okay with how the SD channels look in Wide Fit then go for it. I wouldn't recommend the Zoom feature though because not only are you cutting off the edges of the picture, you are also blowing up an SD signal which will result in a lower quality picture.

Hopefully we will see major progress in HD content in 2008 so that we don't have this problem too much longer!

agreed. i really wish everything was in HD just so we don't have these problems. i mean it's crazy that we spend a lot of $$$ on one of these TV's then only get a handful of REAL HD channels to watch. then the other channels come in all ******.

I'm not sure if this is the right forum- but it's the same topic.

I have a Sony KDL 32s3000 (720P) and right now it's hooked up to Tivo HD- (I'm setting up our HT tonight!) anyway- on some HD channels, the TV says is 16:9 1080i- they come across with bars on the sides, change the channel to another that is 16:9 1080i and it fills the whole screen. I'm not sure if I have something in the Tivo set up wrong (currently 16:9, and hybrid) or if its the way the signal is being sent through the cable. Will hooking it up to our new HK 247 help fix this, or is their something else I need to do to fix this? Thanks for any help.

Late-

we don't have these problemsI guess I don't understand what "these problems" are!? :confused:

:heavy-sigh:

For djm1k0 and late4ttime ...

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I would say that it's up to you. Black bars shouldn't burn into your tv because you have a higher quality lcd

Sorry buddy, but there is no bunring of any color in LCD.

Actually, come to think of it, there is no black burn even on plasma. 'Burn' can only occur when a pixel is lit on plasma, black pixels are not lit - the reason the contrast ratios are so much better on plamsa.