4:3 letterbox on HDMI through sky box - need help

jaydeeuk1

In older shows you will get black bars to the sides, nowt you can do about it on a modern tv without ruining the picture.


Same as watching films which arent recorded in 16:9 ratio, you will get bars along the top and bottom.

System

I got into the sky HD picture box settings, should I change that to 16:9 or leave it at 4:3?

marcarm

Change that to 16:9, as there will be more shows recorded in widescreen than not.

With the older shows, that is how they were recorded so nothing you can do as has been said. You will get used to it though

RumRat

kazwilko wrote: »

I got into the sky HD picture box settings, should I change that to 16:9 or leave it at 4:3?

You should leave it at 16.9 the change to 4.3 should be automatic when required. Which is why you see the black bars only when needed.

J_B

On a slightly different note ...

Mrs B sometimes watches BBC iPlayer on the Wii
It is connected via an 'AV' socket with three plugs, yellow, red and white.
The people on the screen are all 'short & fat' as the 'black bars' are top and bottom.
Why??

It's a freeview TV which looks fine in normal 'antenna' mode and also when connected (by HDMI) to our DVD/HDD machine

System

jaydeeuk1 wrote: »

In older shows you will get black bars to the sides, nowt you can do about it on a modern tv without ruining the picture.


Same as watching films which arent recorded in 16:9 ratio, you will get bars along the top and bottom.

You'd think that in this day and age, all channels would broadcast in 16:9 so we wouldn't have this problem!

marcarm

But they can't change something that was originally recorded 4:3 into 16:9 as that would affect the picture. They are constrained by the source material.

They can only broadcast what they have, I'm sure people would complain if they changed it and missed off the top and bottom of the picture as they would have to stretch the sides, then to keep ratios in proportion the top and bottom of the picture would be off the screen.

I like old films, Hitchcock era etc and these have the same problem. You will get used to it.

You could try zooming your tv so the picture fills the screen and you will see how awful it looks.

penrhyn

O dear, it used to be everyone looks fat on my widescreen TV.

Surprised you are not complaining about the black bars above and below the picture when a film is shown in 21 x 9.

It should be possible to use your Sky remote, in TV mode to zoom the screen.

On my Samsung, you press TV on the Sky + remote ,then use the play button to change the screen aspect ratio.

System

penrhyn wrote: »

O dear, it used to be everyone looks fat on my widescreen TV.

Surprised you are not complaining about the black bars above and below the picture when a film is shown in 21 x 9.

It should be possible to use your Sky remote, in TV mode to zoom the screen.

On my Samsung, you press TV on the Sky + remote ,then use the play button to change the screen aspect ratio.

The black bars above and below don't seem as annoying as the side black bars - suppose i will have to get used to it.

System

marcarm wrote: »

But they can't change something that was originally recorded 4:3 into 16:9 as that would affect the picture. They are constrained by the source material.

They can only broadcast what they have, I'm sure people would complain if they changed it and missed off the top and bottom of the picture as they would have to stretch the sides, then to keep ratios in proportion the top and bottom of the picture would be off the screen.

I like old films, Hitchcock era etc and these have the same problem. You will get used to it.

You could try zooming your tv so the picture fills the screen and you will see how awful it looks.

I will try messing around with my settings on my tv remote.