Widescreen televisions

[Pete,A]

Why are widescreen televisions so popular ? People appear short and fat, footballs look like rugby balls, can't we have standard television and format. There are so many different television screens, the pictures are all distorted to make them fit.I often hear people say,use digital and it's ok.It's better, but look closely, it still doesn't fit.The only time it's ok is with a 16:9 broadcast,but that is still rare.

[jenstar]

Unfortunately, a lot of people who have widescreen TVs have never set them up properly. It IS possible to set them so that 4:3 pictures are shown in 4:3, 14:9 pictures in 14:9 and 16:9 pictures in 16:9. As far as I'm concerned, that's how they should be set up when they leave the factory, but unfortunately they are usually set to stretch everything by default and many people are, sadly, too thick to know the difference.

[khana]

Thats a little harsh although possibly true. Widescreen tv's are popular because the human field of vision is not 4:3 (eg normal tv). its not exactly widescreen either but its a hell of a lot better.

As to why people leave them so that the picture is streched, I can answer for myself in that a, my widecreen tv was expensive and I want to make every inch count, not have great big bloody bars either side of the picture and dropping the viewable area by a third and b, I quite like seeing people all stretched and fat, it makes me feel a hell of a lot thinner :-)

[dothawkes]

I can't drive mine but the youngest lad can in a split second, but he never seems to notice that the people are all short and fat!

[Gromit]

You've touched on one of my pet hates. I have a wide screen telly and it is brilliant. It is very easy to set up so that the picture format that is broadcast is the one your television displays. Particularly good for films so the edges aren't missing. So why do people have them distorted to fill all the corners really bugs me. My local pub screens sky matches that are broadcast at 4:3 and squeezes the picture to16:9. The result is a game between 22 didddymen. Yet in a room with 50-60 people, they all accept it as OK. ARRGG!!