Widescreen TV setup

[Way2Go]

Over the festive period we visited three people who happened to have their widescreen TV on when we arrived, but they all had them setup incorrectly. Every one of them were watching a squashed picture where even Twiggy looked like Billy Bunter! How on earth can they sit down and watch anything in this format? Can they not 'see' it looks strange? We have a widescreen and it correctly automatically switches between the old 4:3 format and the widescreen 16:9. Anyone else noticed this?

[BGD]

It's not a mistake, it's a clever feature built in to these TV's by the designers to change viewer perceptions about themselves.

 

This is how it works:

Because the owners have been bingeing and stuffing their faces throughout the entire seasonal period, and have of course been slobbing in front of their new widescreen toy for hour after hour, they have (understandably) bloated into zeppelin-like proportions.

 

However, if they then manage to push their enormous bulk out of the sofa and waddle as far as the set, or even just summon the energy to lift the remote control, and re-set the TV fomat to 4:3, then bingo!!..............

 

All the people they watch on any channel the TV therefter are suddenly and constantly gross and fat!!!!

 

Thus in the watchers minds whenever they then tear their eyes from the TV just for a few moments to waddle to the toilet or kitchen and pass a mirror, and they look at their own bloated, fat, slug-like bodies, they then appear not to have gained the kilos of whale-blubber that in fact they have.

 

So they can waddle back to the sofa, and carry on stuffing and gorging yet more calories without any worries about the real world beyond their widescreen TV one.

 

"Fat TV, makes you look slim by comparison!"

 

 

 

 

 

 

B-)

 

 

[crinklystarfish]

To be honest I just don’t get the whole widescreen thing. To me, even when set up properly, widescreen just looks unnatural. I’ve recently had to replace a TV and a PC monitor, and on both occasions had to work quite hard to get the spec. I wanted in the 4:3 format. Widescreen is like looking out at the world through the gap that has just formed between your new Swift’s door frame and the surrounding bodywork.

Another example of how fashion supersedes function.

[KD]

football on hd is better than being at the match, i couldnt see how you could improve my old picture but hd is like looking out of your window, this cannot surely ever be improved

[Way2Go]

crinklystarfish - 2007-12-30 3:20 PM

To be honest I just don’t get the whole widescreen thing.

When setup correctly it's fantastic and you end up seeing a few inches more of the screen on either side and IMHO is more realistic than a square 'box' - more like real life with regards to peripheral vision.

. . . . and on the subject of HD . . . woof, brilliant (especially in widescreen - setup as widescreen not normal 4:3 stretched to fill the screen).

[crinklystarfish]

Hmmm, do you guys have one of those TVs where the people on it are bigger than the people watching?

If so, I guess it doesn’t really matter what the format is. I’d agree though that high definition is, in cases where the TV takes up an entire wall; and could in fact easily act as a dwelling’s structural component, probably a useful addition to televisual technology.

After all, watching Jeremy Kyle with anything less than absolute clarity just wouldn’t do.

I guess my peripheral vision must be more akin to 4:3 than 16:9. When I look around, I see more or less an oval, only slightly wider than high. I certainly don’t suffer from anything like the ‘letterboxing’ that widescreen purports to be reality.

If you like it chaps, good for you. I can’t help but think it’s all a bit faddy.

I wonder who suddenly decided humankind would benefit from a short / fat view of the world.

[Way2Go]

Hmmmm . . . . well that's the end of that thread then.  Bye

[davenewellhome]

Widescreen set up properly is far better than 4:3. What irritates me is now we have 16:9 ratio widescreen TVs we get films on DVD or via satellite in some other ratio they call letterbox.

 

Crinkly, yes those of us who don't suffer tunnel vision do, generally speaking, see the world as a horizontally orientated oval, its because most of us have two eyes set side by side :-) . The nearest to that we can get with current technology for viewing screens is widescreen. 4:3 is not a natural viewing ratio for the majority of the human race.

 

D.

[colin]

I've noticed that nowadays more shops set their tv's correctly, previously they often had the squashed people look, how they ever sold them I don't know. I find to get decent picture you need a IDTV like mine or a digibox, expanding analogue picture never seems very good.

[crinklystarfish]

I tried it last night. I set my telly to 16:9 (on a program that wasn't being broadcasted in 'letterbox format) and after a while just didn't notice. When I changed back to 4:3 it looked odd for a few minutes; but then I stopped noticing that too.

I accept that I may be missing some 'off-screen' action by not having a widescreen, but don't feel like life is particularly impoverished as a result.

I guess the upshot is that providing the TV is set to accomodate the format being broadcasted without distortion, then the brain quite happily compensates. I'm still left wondering, therefore, why he format needed fiddling with in the first place.

If indeed human vision is more akin to 16:9 than 4:3; then it was very kind of the whole televisual industry to enhance our lives by changing the standard. I'm sure it has nothing at all to do with planned obsolescence. In fact I'm sure it's just a happy by-product that hardware manufacturers will be enjoying an unprecedented upturn in profit as a result of the blind consumer rush to conform.

And sorry to W2G if I appeared a bit brash. I mean nothing by it. My dry irony is often misinterpreted as confrontational. I really must make more use of those ridiculous smiley things that people use to cover all manner of shortcomings.