2 questions about 2012 Panasonic Plasmas re: SmartViera and 4:3

Hi,

I have a Panasonic 50UT50 and use the SmartViera functionality for Netflix. My wife has taken to watching a bunch of shows that are only offered in 4:3. Netflix displays these in full 4:3 mode, with black pillar boxes on each side (my preferred method, I hate any kind of zoom/cropping), but since the wife is not sensitive to image quality like I am, and some of these shows from the 90's look like crap anyway, I'd rather zoom them for more even wear since the TV is still new (probably not even 100 hours yet). Two issues:

1) The zoom button the Panasonic remote does not seem to work in SmartViera/Netflix - is this normal? I have the latest firmware.

2) I cannot change the brightness/colour of the 4:3 pillar boxes, the option is greyed out in the menu when in SmartViera mode (it also seems to be grayed out when I switched to HDMI input from my WDTV Live). What's going on, how can I force that setting?

Thanks

Thanks guys, no idea why Panasonic chose this, very annoying.

I actually bought an older generation WDTV Live used from a friend, and it doesn't support Netflix. I thought it would be fine since I would just use the TV app, but my wife seems to be watching a lot of 4:3 stuff so I'm a bit worried. Might upgrade to a never WDTV Live box and stop using the Smart Viera completely, we will see.