If anyone has a WS TV...
 

Ok, so I just got a new 32" LCD TV. It's pretty damn nice, but it's 16:9 widescreen which makes the picture kinda weird. There's 3 settings for the screen...regular, overscan, and wide. Regular makes the picture exactly the same as a standard 4:3 TV so there's big black areas on the left and right side of the screen. Overscan stretches the 4:3 picture to fit 16:9 so the aspect ratio looks all kinds of funny. Wide looks good, but it cuts off a bit of the top and bottom. Anyone know if there's a way to make the 4:3 image fit on a 16:9 screen without stretching it or cropping it? I wouldn't even mind letterboxing.

Nope, those are your options from what I've found. I usually just watch it overscan. True HDTV fits perfectly and looks fantastic, because it's sent in 16:9 ratio. I just watch HDTV as much as I can. Keep watching one format long enough you get use to it. I can't stand the standard modes because I hate the black edges, and the wide mode can get annoying because it can cut off some things that you want/need to see.

Yeah...I called my cable company and asked if their box could adapt to the 16:9 image. They said normally it can, but since I have an old set-top box (apparently 2 years is just ancient!) it doesn't support the aspect ratio change. If it bugs me enough I'll just go trade it in for a newer one. Oh well.

Thats cool. I've played with the aspect ratio settings on my cable box and all it does is do the overscan feature like your TV would do, it still makes things look stretched. It doesn't work on HDTV channels that isn't playing HD shows either. They all have the black bars on the side unless I change it on the TV itself. Thats for my brand of cable box anyway.

That sucks balls. I imagine mine will be the same. Oh well...now I just have to wait until network/cable programming catches up to technology. That should only take...what...10 years or so?

if not more....

i think it's mandated by the fcc for the broadcasting to switch to digital by the end of 2008

I think originally it was '08 but I think they pushed it back to 2010. Then again, just because it's HD doesn't mean it'll be 16:9.