TV viewing distance and can you reduce the picture size on LG or Samsung TVs?

molerat

Neil_Jones wrote: »

Any TV set up properly will show 4:3 SD as 4:3, ie black bars either side of the picture. Any 4:3 SD material that "makes people look short and fat" means the TV isn't set up correctly.

I suspect the ability to force everything to 16:9 was to placate people who buy widescreen TVs and then complain that their picture doesn't fill the screen, beause I can't see any other reason why such an option would even exist.

In the case of Channel 4 HD, they pillarbox the 4:3 content so it is displayed correctly. You need change nothing for that.

Not necessarily. Some channels often broadcast programmes in the wrong ratio, the Channel4 offshoots seem particularly bad at this.

Neil_Jones

almillar wrote: »

No, this is my point. C4 are broadcasting 4:3 short and fat. You shouldn't have to squish the picture to make it the right shape. It doesn't matter if you've got HD, because it's all broadcast correctly, as far as I've ever seen. The problem goes back to old CRTs, and the move from 4:3 to 16:9, which happened in the analogue days. Either they broadcast it without the bars, and we get short and fat people, or they broadcast it with the bars, and everyone with 16:9 screens gets it right, but anyone with dumb (as in can't manipulate the picture) 4:3 screens (surely very few people now), will get the bars down the side, and very tall and thin people!!

Then the correct way to deal with this is to set the Freeview receiver (since its probably safe to say that 4:3 TVs are so old they predate Freeview integreated tuners) to 4:3 Letterbox mode. That will preserve the widescreen picture while 4:3 material gets to fill the screen in the normal way.

In fairness this will generate a "floating picture" effect on 4:3 material that is pillarboxed, ie you'd have black bars all around the picture but it will be correct.

LucianH

almillar wrote: »

As I say it's really not much of a problem these days, apart from when OP comes on specifying watching old stuff on a new screen. He, specifically, will have to get familiar with changing the aspect ration on his new TV.

I agree that 4:3 ratios broadcasts do not all appear to be automatically corrected for aspect ratios. Had to manually chage apsect ratios on my old Smart TV (7yr old Samsung) when watching the odd 90's nostalgia - the auto settings didn't do it. I'll be interested to see of the LG fairs any better.

mobileron wrote: »

Hope your wifi can handle the 4k streaming.

Should be - have fibre to property and getting in excess of 70 Mb/s

The LG is still sitting in it's box begging me to unpack it - but waiting for new TV Stand to arrive before I can set it up! :sad:

almillar

Then the correct way to deal with this is to set the Freeview receiver (since its probably safe to say that 4:3 TVs are so old they predate Freeview integreated tuners) to 4:3 Letterbox mode. That will preserve the widescreen picture while 4:3 material gets to fill the screen in the normal way.

In fairness this will generate a "floating picture" effect on 4:3 material that is pillarboxed, ie you'd have black bars all around the picture but it will be correct.

The real solution, for me, is what I would be doing anyway, watch the HD channels, which *broadcast* the programme in the correct ratio, instead of the workaround in SD. This saves having to mess around with aspect ratios. It's a problem that has been solved by HD, if you can get it.

Neil_Jones

Like I say if a TV and a receiver is setup correctly the aspect should take care of itself.

The main exception to this rule is Sky+HD and SkyQ which will not present 4:3 SD content correctly for reasons best known to Sky if the box(s) are in 1080i mode. If you set to Auto, yes you'll get a blank screen for two or three seconds while the TV switches but it should be okay if the TV is in auto mode as well.

By default most TVs will stretch 4:3 material to fill the screen because that's what people want apparently and that's how you see them in the shops. They seem to want to see all their pixels being used.