Got a Panny TX32-PM1.

The "Goldfish Bowl effect" is starting to get right on my nerves.

When I am watching Sky News/Sky Sports News the news bar across the bottom of the screen is like looking at letters on a bent piece of card. the letters on the outside of the screen are stretched and bigger, and in the middle are normal.

When I watch certain programmes where people are stood on the sides of the screen, their shoulder closest to the edge of the tele can seem overly wide.

Yet, the most annoying....when im watching football on the TV, its like im looking through a bowl, and the TV just seems all exagerrated, and magnified in the wrong places.

CAN THIS BE FIXED AT ALL?

[GaryB]

This is as a result of trying to stretch a 4:3 picture to fill a 16:9 screen. If you don't like it, the only option, until Sky decide to switch to widescreen for those channels, is to switch the set to 4:3 mode and live with the vertical bars either side of the picture.

[Battlestar]

Originally Posted by GaryB

This is as a result of trying to stretch a 4:3 picture to fill a 16:9 screen. If you don't like it, the only option, until Sky decide to switch to widescreen for those channels, is to switch the set to 4:3 mode and live with the vertical bars either side of the picture.

Perhaps, but not always the case. I have owned sonys and panasonics and a thoshiba. streching a 4.3 image to fit a wide screen did not have any distortion apart from making people look slightly fatter.
I think what kopitelad is describing is the same problem I had with my 2 Loewe Nemos 32" crt televisions. I had this distortion and fish bowl effect even when the image I was watching was a proper 16:9 wide screen one. I improved it buy increasing the over scan of the picture to the left and right of the screen but it did not cure it. I think you may find it is down to the prosessing the display is using as I have now seen 2 Identical televisions next to each other displaying the same picture ,with one having this effect and the other not. If the tv is relativly new and still under garanty get some one out to look at it.

[red16v]

I have to agree with GaryB - the symptoms you're decribing are exactly those you get when trying to fill a 16:9 display with 4:3 originated pictures. Tv manufacturers have lots of different ideas about how to fill the screen - Kopitelad inadvertantly 'describes' one method (as further described eloquently By GaryB). Your tv (of which I am not familiar) may have other different ways of filling the screen - try a few scan selections and see if you prefer the 'other' results. It's not a fault as such. Regards, yt.

[harmunt]

Originally Posted by KopiteLad

Got a Panny TX32-PM1.

The "Goldfish Bowl effect" is starting to get right on my nerves.

When I am watching Sky News/Sky Sports News the news bar across the bottom of the screen is like looking at letters on a bent piece of card. the letters on the outside of the screen are stretched and bigger, and in the middle are normal.

When I watch certain programmes where people are stood on the sides of the screen, their shoulder closest to the edge of the tele can seem overly wide.

Yet, the most annoying....when im watching football on the TV, its like im looking through a bowl, and the TV just seems all exagerrated, and magnified in the wrong places.

CAN THIS BE FIXED AT ALL?

This was the exact reason why I did not get this particular TV.
I have seen four of these sets and out of those, two exhibited this problem.

Ive chucked the box away that it came in, otherwise id be sending it back

[GadgetObsessed]

If you want to get a 4:3 picture to fill a 16:9 screen then the picture either has to be stretched or zoomed or a combination of the two - it's not really a fault on the TV.
Different manufactures use different approaches. Some stretch the picture more at the edges (like my PD30) so that the centre of the screen is not distorted but the outsides are disproportionately stretched. Others stretch more evenly, or combine stretching with zooming - thus cutting off the top and bottom of the picture.

I get a similar effect on my Panasonic PD30 if a watch a 4:3 broadact with the 16:9 option. Does your TV also have Zoom and 14:9 - do you find that you prefer these?

For me personally I cannot stand any distortion so always watch 4:3 broadcasts as 4:3 with black bars down the sides. To me this is not a problem as most of what I watch is broadcast in widescreen. However, it is annoying that some channels such as MTV only seem to broadcast in 4:3.

[LV426]

Agree with garydhooper. There's no power on this earth that will force a 4x3 image to fill a 16x9 screen without either distorting it (evenly or unevenly) or cropping it.

My choice is undistorted, uncropped. Which means it doesn't fill the width of the screen.

One could always refuse to watch such programmes, until they start to broadcast 16x9. If enough do, viewing figures will drop and they'll change. (Not holding my breath, though).

[Battlestar]

OK.
is the tv in "just" or auto "mode" these do seem to be the ones that can cause the most distortion.
If you try and fit a 4:3 image to fill a 16:9 screen using these type of modes ,that can be a problem. Using wide or 16:9 mode should just make people fatter on the screen. you should not be having a problem with the sky news tickertape at the bottom of the screen.
The smart mode on my old sony would do this, I would just swithch it to wide and it sorted it out. the auto mode on my panasonic plasma allso does this. Again I just switch it to 16:9 mode all the time and it sorts it out.
The thoshiba picture frame tv I had did not have any of these problems just a lot of others and the panasonic pd30 i had would also distort the picture in just mode but not in wide mode even if you were fitting a 4.3 image on a 16.9 screen.
The two Loewe tvs I had would distort the picture no matter what mode you had it in which is why I got rid of them and went the plasma route.

[LV426]

With respect, using the (whatever they call it) true 16x9 mode for a 4x3 source will distort the image. It will, indeed, do so evenly, so the "curl" in tickertape won't be apparent, but as you say, the image will be (unformly) too wide. People will be too fat. footballs will be oval...etc. That's still distorted. Just evenly so. 4x3 signals are properly watched, 4x3.

[Battlestar]

Originally Posted by nigel

With respect, using the (whatever they call it) true 16x9 mode for a 4x3 source will distort the image. It will, indeed, do so evenly, so the "curl" in tickertape won't be apparent, but as you say, the image will be (unformly) too wide. People will be too fat. footballs will be oval...etc. That's still distorted. Just evenly so. 4x3 signals are properly watched, 4x3.

Yes nigel , of course you are right I was just relaying some of my personal experince with some of the tvs I have had recently. I prefer to watch every thing in wide mode to fill the screen. 4.3 on a wide screen tv I find distracting with the bars at the side. considering 95% of the stuff I watch on tv and dvd is in anamorphic anyway I just leave it in wide mode all the time.
IN fact I have gotton so used to every thing in wide mode that when i acidently switched on one of the episodes of startrek on dvd to 4.3 it did not look right

Thanks for the advice.

Any other Panny owners with this???

[Paul Cooksley]

Hi there

I currently have (for the next week until it goes back!) a Panasonic 32" widescreen, model number TX32PS500.

I too, amongst other things, have noticed this effect - and I am talking about watching a "true" widescreen broadcast in 16:9 mode - so the picture should not be distorted or stretched in any way. But yes - any "rolling" captions left to right (or indeed on my set up and down too!!) do seem to distort.

I've also have the "dirty screen" effect - on fast moving/panning images especially on bright colours and you can see these grey static patches - they are simply awful. Also the corners of the screen especially the right hand side also have like a small rainbow effect (colour purity) problem.

This is the second Panasonic I've had and after alot (and I mean ALOT) of hassle from Curry's (I would urge ANYONE to think TWICE before purchasing from this retailer) I am having it taken back and I am buying a Sony 32" (KV32CS70) from a local retailer.

Personally, and of course this is purely my personal point of view, I would not ever buy Panasonic ever again because of these duff sets. I've even noticed that whilst standing around for 4 hours in the Curry's showroom whilst my fight to get it taken back was going on, that the Panny's on display seemed to exhibit these purity/dirty screen issues.

I know others will say they've had bad experiences of Sony/Toshiba/Philips/cheapo brand etc.. so as I say, others will have differening opinions, but just thought I would add this to your thread!

Cheers

Paul

Good points Paul. I must say that more recently, by setting my TV to widescreen constantly instead of Auto, that it is almost perfect. Plus ive just upgraded the scarts and the picture quality is quite immense.

But there are still some flaws.