As someone said earlier, you're asking a pre self selected audience so going to get a skewed answer

But interesting contradiction mentioned already

"Most people are probably leaving it to "auto", and for most TVs that means stretchy/fattyvision"

"Told him that it was the correct aspect ratio and recommended not to use that button (keep it on AUTO), "

What does 'auto' mean to different manufacturers

I made that comment. My TV is a Panasonic and according to the operating instructions the AUTO aspect setting does this:

- The best ratio is selected automatically according to the "Aspect Control Signal".

Assume that by "best" it means "correct". Just selected the CBS Reality channel on freeview which is showing an episode of Judge Judy and it switched to 4:3 with black bars.

My setup is complicated by the fact that my TiVo box has its own aspect ratio settings. It's currently set to "Panel", which preserves the original aspect ratio. Just selected the Gold channel which is showing an episode of 'Allo 'Allo and it also switched to 4:3 with black bars.

Suppose if the "Aspect Control Signal" is not correctly sent then I may get fattyvision, but have never noticed that happening,

Well for Panasonic, AUTO seems to stretch the image (so anything in the image will be taken out if black). For a few brands (I don't know which ones) the auto mode will display the picture in the original ratio with bars at either side. I know one SONY TV which will by default crop the top and bottom of 4:3 content if in auto.

What source are you using?

If it's Sky you need to select Automatic in the resolution settings - 720/1080 will not preserve SD 4x3 in it's correct AR.

Using any other source, you need to check the output, ie upscaling yes or preselected resolution 720/1080 will most likely send full screen signal to which the Panasonic will interpret as widescreen.

We still have a tiny, standalone grundig LCD which works fine but the widescreen switching never works, no matter which setting you leave it in. So as most broadcast TV is now widescreen, the set is just left in that mode all the time. But when showing old 4x3 content the image is stretched as the TV is still set to wide mode.

My last CRT Sony had no 14x9 mode which also wasn't ideal.

I also recall seeing last of the run Sony wega crts with so called intelegent switching which meant if it detected black bars it would expand the image, even if the image was letterbox format. It did same if you gave it a music video in letter box format with the channel logo in the black bars- the logo would be half of the screen.

I also didn't like the various geometry issues with widescreen crts, as many if not most did not have a correction function for the tilt.


In conclusion,
There are no hard and fast rules, so how the average person is expected to know, I just don't know.
Widescreen CRT sets were not a happy union of widescreen and CRT technology,

I can't watch a distorted picture and the black side bars match the black-framed TV anyway.

Built in Freeview.

Black bars, if its meant to be 4:3 or horizontal black bars if the picture is 2:35.
Ever since I saw Brotherhood of man in their white pants in fattyvision, I've made sure my settings were right.

Brotherhood Of Man were supposed to look like that!

I would never watch a 4:3 image stretched to 16:9. It spoils the image in my opinion. I think the 4:3 image should be watched in the 4:3 aspect ratio. I'll never understand why some will happily watch a 4:3 image stretched to 16:9.

When I bought a TV in Currys ( know ) around 7 years ago I wondered what the picture size would be in 4:3 the salesman was horrified that I would watch 4:3. He said you wouldn't you would use a mode that adjusts the picture to fill the screen. I also had a work colleague who accidentally put the tearoom TV into 4:3 mode on a 4:3 program much to everybody's distaste so I had to "fix" the setting to restore the fattyvision out of the 15 people there nobody could see what was wrong with the stretched picture.

Have you never heard of 'personal choice'?

People have the right to watch how they want, there's a LOT of arrogant people on here who seem to imagine that only THEY are 'right'

That's because we are right. When it comes to Aspect ratio there is a right and wrong people who want watch a correct picture and those that prefer their viewing to be distorted.

I think you can try to educate people but ultimately if they want to watch everything stretched and the colour and brightness turned up to the point your eyes melt within 5 minutes that’s their choice.

It's the same with anything,
I have posted before, that our friend & neighbour won't believe me about backing up her pc onto a 2nd drive. She thinks the partition is another drive, but it isn't.

People who leave their TV or dedicated system in surround mode when listening to stereo music.

People with either hd ready or full hd tv's who automatically think they have freeviewHD built in.

I wonder how many people have hd digi boxes connected to hd tv's with hdmi but the box is outputting 576i (sd).

It also depends on your tv.

Cheaper tv's don't tend to make as good a job of stretching pictures as more expensive ones. I'm presuming the expensive ones probably throw in some interpolation and crop for good measure.

I would have thought very few, as it's not the default setting.

Now how many are using SCART leads rather than HDMI?, that's a VERY different matter

It used to be difficult to find a widescreen version of "The Commitments" although it was available from 20th Century Fox. The cropped 4X3 version was in the shops and mail order sites for years.

More and more TV channels seem to be reducing SD resolution from 704 to 544 pixels of horizontal resolution. Watching these channels on a 1080p screen in stretchyvision is truly horrendous -- it's bad enough in 4:3.

I just don't understand the thought processes of someone who does this ... it's like buying a Golf GTi and using it to drive down the motorway at 52mph in the middle lane.

I really can't believe how bad quality modern TV transmissions are. Watching Woman In Black the other day at one point I was left with just three bands of wobbling grey areas on the screen and even the HD channels show visible compression artefacts on my 14" CRT telly.

Transmissions need to get MASSIVELY better.

You quite often see quick cars being driven slowly

And you quite often see capable TVs being set up retardedly

If you think stretchy-vision is bad, friends of mine insist on using "smart mode" for 4X3 material which makes people go fat-thin-fat as they cross the screen, the top of peoples heads get squashed as well! They objected to "those black bars" when I showed them proper 4X3. I'm philosophical about it, provided that I don't have to watch it.

Stretchyvision is the mark of a complete Philistine, along with dog eared pages and cracked book spines.

When my neighbour got her HD tv some years ago, I asked her if she'd got Sky HD. When she said no I asked her where the HD picture would be coming from. She looked at me like I was the crazy one.

Okay, well this shocked me yesterday when I found that Pick was displaying a 16:9 programme in 4:3 (I don't remember what it was). And it wasn't letterboxed, it was being shown in "squashyvision" so that it only looked right when displayed in 16:9 with the logo stretched out. So some TV stations are actually assuming that people watch old stuff this way... Why didn't they display it in the correct 16:9 ratio - I've seen the channel display other stuff this way.