Over the past year plasma screens have been increasingly showing up in public places, such as airports, hotels and company reception areas. They are normally 42 inch widescreen types.
Since the begin of the year, everyone I have seen has been displaying BBC News 24.
But here is what bugs me:
EVERY single one has been displaying a 4:3 version (ie sat or free-view box set to 4:3 cutting off the sides of the picture) stretched to fit the 16:9 screen! There really is no excuse for this.
Has anyone else noticed this?
I was also around a friends house last week who has had a 42 inch 16:9 plasma (which he runs from a sky box) since December. Again he had the box set to 4:3 and the screen on stretchy-vision. He is an IT consultant, so technical inability wasnt the reason. (Maybe not reading the manual was!)
(Also a colleague at work recently told me that this was why he had just brought a new 4:3 LCD TV rather than a widescreen one because everyone looks short and fat on widescreen TVs! )
Im not against watching 4:3 programs in stretchy-vision what ever floats your boat and I understand screen burn problems that watching in pillarbox could cause. But it makes no sense at all to crop your loverly 16:9 picture to 4:3, then stretch it back out to fill a 16:9 display.
Since the begin of the year, everyone I have seen has been displaying BBC News 24.
But here is what bugs me:
EVERY single one has been displaying a 4:3 version (ie sat or free-view box set to 4:3 cutting off the sides of the picture) stretched to fit the 16:9 screen! There really is no excuse for this.
Has anyone else noticed this?
I was also around a friends house last week who has had a 42 inch 16:9 plasma (which he runs from a sky box) since December. Again he had the box set to 4:3 and the screen on stretchy-vision. He is an IT consultant, so technical inability wasnt the reason. (Maybe not reading the manual was!)
(Also a colleague at work recently told me that this was why he had just brought a new 4:3 LCD TV rather than a widescreen one because everyone looks short and fat on widescreen TVs!
)Im not against watching 4:3 programs in stretchy-vision what ever floats your boat and I understand screen burn problems that watching in pillarbox could cause. But it makes no sense at all to crop your loverly 16:9 picture to 4:3, then stretch it back out to fill a 16:9 display.
