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People who stretch 4:3 to fill 16:9!!!

S

strangeday

macrumors member
Original poster
😡

Ugh!!!!!!

This drives me crazy! I have to bite my tongue to be polite when watching TV at other peoples' homes...People just don't GET IT! You're not seeing MORE, you're just stretching and distoring everything!! 😡
 
strangeday said:
I have to bite my tongue to be polite when watching TV at other peoples' homes
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At least you can SEEM to be gracious to your hosts. Be glad you have people in your life who invite you over. I'm sure if they knew how you feel about such a petty issue you wouldn't have to worry about being invited over.
 
Do you mean, they really stretch the image, resulting in a wider (and distorted) image, instead of cutting of the top and bottom?

I've never encountered that, but I only know one person with a TV, it was three some years ago while I studied.

What I found irritating is people (or VHSs or DVDs) who cut of the sides of a widescreen release by either watching it full screen on a 4:3 TV or or not having a widescreen version on DVD, even if it exists.
 
My TV stretches some things. I don't mind it, but I don't stretch things on my computer unless I'm sat away from it. I don't like squinting.
 
The whole digital divide thing is interesting. A really nice house with designer furniture and expensive cars in the driveway and they are watching scratchy tv on a 20 year old tv that looks like it was rescued from the mercantile store at the dump.

What do you say to people who proudly point out their new HD tv and how nice HD is when they are clearly watching SD and don't have the required receiver or dish to watch HD?

Lastly, there are the anti-tv people who tell everyone that they don't watch tv except for specific intellectual content. Yet, you go over there and the wretched old tv is on all the time and they are huddled around watching American Idol and reality shows....
 
Some of the Foxtel installers (Australian Pay-TV Company) leave the boxes on 4:3 even if you have a widescreen tv, it's seriously a 10 second change that most Foxtel users probably don't know how to do, as long as some type of picture is showing as they rush out the door, they couldn't care less.
 
I think this started with people who were afraid of black bar "burn-in" on their older plasma screens, and they continue to stretch every image to fill the screen out of habit, even though LCD and most newer plasmas don't exhibit the burn-in problem.

My wife and daughter do this on our LCD flat-screen. As I don't watch much TV, it doesn't bother me that much. I tend to watch my movies via Front Row or on my nano, so they're in proper aspect ratio anyway.

What does freak me out sometimes are those widescreen TVs that will "progressively" stretch just the sides of a 4:3 signal so that the center portion remains proportionally correct, but the sides get comically stretched like a funhouse mirror.
 
The other option is to get all your programmes in widescreen, just like we have in the UK 🙂

Kimbie
 
Kimbie said:
The other option is to get all your programmes in widescreen, just like we have in the UK 🙂

Kimbie
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While the majority of British TV is widescreen and has been for quite a while, we still don't have ALL of our programmes in widescreen. A lot of old repeated TV shows and most American series are still broadcast in 4:3.
 
I stretch 4:3 content. It doesn't bother me too much, although I don't watch too much SD content anymore. Since Craig Ferguson, The Daily Show, Colbert Report, Simpsons and South Park went HD, and U-Verse added MSNBC HD, I hardly watch any SD.
 
jdm111 said:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6yn4__nWEs
Enjoy
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That was perfect, I feel the same exact way. I should email that to some of my friends. My wife is notorious for watching low def programs (4x3) on 16x9. Whenever she does this and I see her doing it I have to grab the remote from her and change it so I can go about my day. I guess it is an OCD thing.

I have also noticed that some of the older HD content Comcast broadcasts in the incorrect aspect ratio. This also drives me bonkers, paying a premium for television and having to adjust things myself. Shouldn't the cable provider fix it or at least know how to broadcast it?

Maybe some t.v. manufacturer will come up with a way for the t.v. to automatically change it for you without any tinkering. Maybe that is asking for too much.
 
OllyW said:
While the majority of British TV is widescreen and has been for quite a while, we still don't have ALL of our programmes in widescreen. A lot of old repeated TV shows and most American series are still broadcast in 4:3.
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I've been rewatching Garth Marenghi's Darkplace (2004 or so?) and that was in 4:3 for effect purposes. But yea, I like that pretty much everything is in widescreen now. It pains me when my sisters watching US shows (mostly on Disney) and it's all stretched and blurry in that upscaled 480i they're big on over the pond.
 
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