# Video through iPhone on old TV looks stretched

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-through-iphone-on-old-tv-looks-stretched/707840>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [December 21, 2014, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-through-iphone-on-old-tv-looks-stretched/707840 "2014-12-21T19:15:37Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![zataomm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/74df32/32.png) [@zataomm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zataomm)\
**Post date:** [December 21, 2014, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-through-iphone-on-old-tv-looks-stretched/707840/1 "2014-12-21T19:15:37Z")

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Hi All,  
I’m using an iPhone 4 and connecting it to an old Hitachi tube tv using an apple composite AV cable. When I try to play an MP4 movie it does not display in widescreen format and looks stretched vertically. When I use my phone to play Netflix or Youtube or other videos it displays in widescreen aspect ratio. Also, when I play other videos from the web the message on my phone says “TV Connected. This video is playing on the TV”. There is a picture of a TV and both the text and outline of the TV are white. However when I play an MP4 the image of the TV in the message is outlined in blue.

Also when I switch to regular TV broadcast it displays in widescreen. There is a TV out setting on the iPhone where you can toggle either widescreen on/off or NTSC/PAL. I tried toggling both but no help.

Thanks,  
Leroy