I was watching “ER” last night and noticed I couldn’t read the credist. Either the first half of a person’s first name or the last half of a person’s last name, depending on which side of the screen it was on, ws cut off. I assume this is because of LCD and plasmas being widescreen. Perhaps with the digital transitition, they assume people would be buying them. So will all TV be like this with the transition? But what about the people, probably a large percentage, that have or buy CRTs, will we be stuck wonder what’s going on at sides of our shows? Would it be possible, with the subchannels, to offer widescreen versions of shows on one channel and traditional (full screen?) versions on another?
Televisions and/or converter boxes that are aware of aspect have a way to change how you view the signal. My TV has several ‘zoom’ modes, where a signal can be viewed in its entirety with letter- or pillar-boxing, as well as modes that clip the edges to show the center of the image (which is what you describe), or ignore aspect and squish the whole image into the screen so everything is visible, there is no letter/pillar boxing, but the image is distorted.
Nitpick - there are many widescreen CRTs out there.
And there are many non-widescreen LCD screens out there. Display type, digital and widescreen are all different concepts.
Digital TV is only widescreen if it’s HDTV. The transition to digital is NOT (necessarily nor usually) a transition to HDTV.
In your situation, what type of TV are you watching and what is the source (cable, satellite, OTA)? Both the STB (set-top box) and an HDTV will have various settings for aspect ratio and need to be set properly to see the whole picture in the way that you want it. All TVs will be able to see both analog and digital broadcasts (with the approprate STB, when needed) in either their original aspect ratio, letterboxed, or pillarboxed, depending on the various sources and displays, but you are never forced (but you may set if desired) to watch a picture that is cut off on the sides or top & bottom. Tell me what your setup is and I can tell you what you need to do to correct it.
Yeah, see if flex can help you. I have the same HD tuner now with my LCD that I used with my CRT that I gave away in July. With my CRT, the tuner just made the wide-screen picture smaller so it all fit on my screen, I used it that way for 2 years. It now just puts the whole picture in the whole LCD screen since it’s the proper aspect ratio now. So, dunno what’s up with your display, but maybe it’s just a setting that’s not adjusted yet.
I’ve only noticed it with the tv show “ER” so far. All the other shows seem the regualr format. I was watching it on a 5 month old CRT, which only has the basic picture controls (contrast, color, etc) with a cable box connected to a 4-input switchbox (DVD, VCR). My mother, who I spent the day caring for due to the flu, has the same setup and I didn’t notice any half-credits when we watched TV today. It could just be “ER,” but why would they do that?
Locate the television’s remote and see if there are additional controls on it. My old television only let you set the “zoom” mode (and quite a few other things) from the remote.
My parents have a 4:3 CRT HDTV set. Yes, it displays 1080i, and it’s not just a cheapo CRT television with an ATSC (digital television) tuner. I bought it for them several years ago, after the green gun on their old living room CRT set died. This was back in the time when LCD and plasma sets were still prohibitively expensive, and both 16:9 and 4:3 CRT HDTV sets were still on the market. My parents don’t like widescreen or letterbox formats, so it was the 4:3.
Most discount department stores will have a few 4:3 CRT sets in stock, with ATSC tuners for reception of digital television signals. They usually have standard definition displays, though; they downconvert HD into a low resolution display.
More info is needed (TV brand & model, type of connection between cable box & TV, cable box brand & model), however my recollection is (I don’t watch ER anymore so I could be wrong) that ER is broadcast letterboxed in SD. If that’s true, and you’re not seeing black bars at the top & bottom of the picture, then your picture is zoomed. That could be caused by either a TV setting or a cable box setting.
Not all digital televisions are widescreen. TVs that have the widescreen ratio and are capable of 720p and/or 1080i or 1080p are considered HDTV.
EDTV is another relatively-rare technology that is basically fills the gap between standard-def and high-def. The resolution is 480p or 576p and the screen isn’t necessarily widescreen on these TVs. It seems to me that in the US, EDTVs are virtually non-existent since HDTVs have taken over the market.
And I actually have a widescreen CRT HDTV in the bedroom right now, so they do exist (yet mine is pretty crappy due to vertical distortion toward the sides of it).