Because it’s usually face the fucking nation not lord of the rings, seriously, most TV not in HDTV is not terribly visually stunning anyway I’ve told you the gray bars bother more than the mild distortion. I promise I am not lying about my preference. I am also not stupid, a nutcase, a lunatic or nuts.
No, just this. Spend extra money to distort a percentage of your programming, whereas if you stayed with your standard TV, 0% of your viewing would be distorted. It’s that simple dissonance that makes up my beef.
You still seem to be having trouble with the concept that people buy HDTV because of High Definition broadcasts. It’s a tradeoff, you get to see High Def, which is way better than Standard. Standard Def isn’t quite as good as it used to be, but you are willing to have that than miss out on High Def.
and 0% would be in hi-def, whereas, if you buy an HDTV >0% will be in hi-def
lieu, Cheesesteak, whole bean - you guys are crazy. 
to quote Cee-Lo, “probably.” takes one to know one, buddy
I have a HDTV too. I trade off nothing. I get to watch HD broadcasts and my SD shows look slightly better than before. Because I’m sane.
:rolleyes:
No, you’re just a dick. There’s a difference. A sane person would not get all bent out of shape because somebody else is using their own television “wrong.” A dick, on the other hand, would.
You ever heard of a messageboard? It’s a place on the internet where people discuss petty things with remarkable vehemence.
My mere pointing out of the phenomenon of people using their TVs wrong, and chiding them for it, is nowhere near “bent out of shape”. But considering the fact that so far, as a rule, any HDTV that I see that’s not mine or a store’s (i.e. family members’ houses, gyms, bars, lounges, waiting rooms) will be displaying distorted content, it’s an annoyance worth mentioning.
That’s why I like having the remote in my hand. There is one person on earth who watches TV in the correct way.
Except that it isn’t wrong. It may be grating to you, but there is a large portion of the population that the stretch doesn’t bother in the slightest. It’s not being stupid in any way, shape, or form.
I have to admit I am in the camp that hates people with widescreen tvs who can’t get the aspect ratio right. I tried explaining this to my father while we were watching the NFC championship game. I used the remote to switch it to the correct aspect ratio and he put it back so that everything looked fat and squished. All of the manuals I have seen that come with widescreen tvs have a nice, easy to follow diagram of the various aspect ratios with little circles in the corners that show you the trade off with each choice. What irritates me is how my dad will claim how good his picture looks. No, it looks like crap because everything looks fat and squished. I prefer an accurately framed picture, not something that merely fills up my widescreen tv.
I use this site when trying to explain to people the difference in aspect ratios:
http://www.thedigitalbits.com/articles/anamorphic/aspectratios/widescreenorama.html
Who said I had a beef? And who did I call stupid? I don’t understand your post at all.
Are there HDTV sets that automatically adjust the aspect ratio?
When I bought my parents an HDTV set a couple of years ago, I got them a CRT with a standard aspect (4:3) tube. Yeah, I know they suck, but there’s a reason why I did it; it looks like a “normal” television to them. I adjusted the set and cable box so that with 16:9 broadcasts, the edges are clipped off. No distortion. It’s just like what they’ve been used to watching since 1952, only with a much sharper picture. I’d rather see that than have them watch 16:9 broadcasts squished into 4:3, or fiddle constantly with screen ratio settings on both the set and cable box remotes.
Besides, they’re in their late 70s. They’re anti-elitists who, when renting videos, shun the widescreen version for the pan-and-scan, because they think the black bars at the top and bottom of the screen are distracting. They grew up in an era of 4:3 movies. They just want to turn on the TV, pick a channel, and watch something.
Is this a real product? I can comprehend a 4:3-sized HDTV, though I’ve never seen one, but I didn’t think it was even possible for a CRT television to be HD-ready.
My BIL has a 4:3 HDTV CRT. He is very happy with the Over the Air HD signals he gets from the NYC broadcast channels.
Jim
What?! I have a CRT HDTV (16:9, though). It looks better than any other type of HDTV - in fact it’s the only HDTV that I find acceptable. All current flat-panel technologies are a miserable downgrade from CRTs, with their washed out picture and their heavy artifacting, and there’s not much I have to say about rear-projection TVs. Yet, no one will believe me when I tell them that my cheap CRT behemoth shows a better picture than fancy new plasma’s and LCD’s, until I sit them down and show them.
Oh, but I should mention that CRTs have a quick cutoff in size, which is where the biggest trade-off is. Generally, you can’t go any larger than 32".