[MartinP]

I see that some people have a new 32" widescreen Sony TV. We've just bought one and I have a question that I hope you can help with. On the "Smart" setting the picture seems to be more stretched/zoomed than the Sony widescreen I bought 4 years ago.
For example on Sky News we can only just see the top of the bar at the bottom showing email: news@sky.com etc. and the Sky News logo is almost out the picture at the top (I admit that many people would pay good money to get rid of this screen junk!) News24 and other widescreen channels are fine.
Can anyone confirm if their picture is the same or is there some adjustment I need to make to the TV (Sky box is set to 16:9)

TIA
Martin

[Alandw]

I have the exact same effect on my Sony 32 inch for all 4:3 broadcasts viewed in 'smart mode'. Personally I prefer to watch channels in the correct format, and have the 'format correction' setting switched off. You get black bars either side on 4:3 broadcasts, but the picture is not then distorted.

[MartinP]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alandw

I have the exact same effect on my Sony 32 inch for all 4:3 broadcasts viewed in 'smart mode'. Personally I prefer to watch channels in the correct format, and have the 'format correction' setting switched off. You get black bars either side on 4:3 broadcasts, but the picture is not then distorted.

And on Sky News do you lose almost all of the bottom "info" bar?
I think they must have changed the "smart" setting in the past few years on Sony TVs
Thanks

[David (2)]

Yes Sony has modified the Smart stretch slightly - making the image slightly bigger overall with slightly less stretch. This means that those ticker tapes like CNN use right on the edge of the screen maybe lost whereas they were "just" on the screen before. We have on older WS Sony and a new 24" WS Sony, and you can see the difference when tuned to the same channel. With 4:3 material on new Sonys, you have live with it or select 4:3 mode on the widescreen button - but then you have to live with black bars left + right on 4:3 pictures.

Dave

[MartinP]

Thanks Dave; much appreciated