Widescreen TVs/ DVDs/ broadcasts- how do they work?

Factual Questions
1

I suppose my question really is: how can I watch genuine widescreen TV or films on my TV?

I live in the UK, and receive only analogue terrestrial TV- not digital/cable/satellite.

On UK analogue terrestrial TV, if a programme or film is broadcast in ‘widescreen’, am I right to assume that this always means that it’s broadcast in ‘letterbox’ format (i.e. normal 4:3 aspect ratio picture with black bars top and bottom)

Similarly, if I buy a ‘widescreen’ version of a DVD, am I simply buying a 4:3 aspect ratio DVD with letterboxing? Or is there such a thing as a ‘genuine’ widescreen DVD, on which the picture is encoded in 16:9 format? If so, how would a ‘genuine’ widescreen DVD display on a ‘normal’ 4:3 TV? Would the DVD player ‘pad’ the picture with black bars to achieve a normal letterbox?

Now that digital TV has taken off in the UK, I’m also wondering if digital widescreen broadcasts are genuine 16:9 or letterboxed 4:3? Again, if the former, how does a digital widescreen broadcast look on a 4:3 TV?

2

Most DVDs are encoded in 16:9 format. The DVD player itself will then convert that format to 4:3 letterbox if you have that setting selected, by adding the black bars to the top and botton of the frame.