Well currently its a breach of artists' creations, so of course it should look like that on widescreen sets and on 4:3 sets it will be underscanned and you would never miss any of the picture, although I can see a lot of people deciding to upgrade to 16:9 in that instance!

Many viewers don't understand what is what so broadcasters deciding for them like in the days TV was 4:3 permanently would be better. Although the broadcasters need to do things properly if they are to take full control, so stretching any pictures and no cropping unless absolutely necessary and fully agreed by the original makers of the source footage/program ect.

Over time everyone would get used to it and all of what we are discussing would be a distant memory.

Millions disagree!

Not on my sets they don't, but I always turn off overscan if I can, however they are definitely not 4:3 safe.

Might that have been in part due to the quality of the receiving apparatus?

The guest house we use on holiday uses TVs of this generic type, the picture quality is dire and the sound is worse. I use Freeview HD Sony's at home and they are superb as are my friends Panasonic's.

The life of a CRT tube is around 22,000 hours, I have replaced countless numbers of then in broadcast monitors and that is their life under 24 hour operation at much lower than domestic contrast levels. The chances of any domestic CRT TV in regular use having a good picture any more is remote which is why they mostly went to the tip years ago.

Even computers are in widescreen these days,

Agreed.

Maybe you have overscan switched off. With overscan BBC News graphics aren't quite 4:3 safe

They shouldn't crop the top and bottom of the picture. That blows, you lose tops of heads and the bottom of peoples feet. Leave 4:3 content alone and let people zoom and/or stretch to thier hearts content. People fit better into a 4:3 box than a 16:9 rectangle anyhow.

Because most people won't notice or care that the graphics are not touching the edge of the screen. 4:3 graphics on widescreen tellys look perfectly fine in my opinion while allowing those with 4:3 tellys (or those with a widescreen telly who mistakenly have thier set top box switched to 4:3) to see everything. This is esspecailly important for sports.

I beleive at least all important graphics (scoreboards, stats, credits etc) should be in the 4:3 safe area to make sure everyone sees them.

I agree with you that it should be left alone and not cropped, but this is the unfortunate reality.

Regarding 4:3 being better to fit people in, that should be up to the artist/director.
16:9 is unfortunately the best compromise between narrow and wide formats, so we all have to live with it.

I agree that dogs in the 4:3 safe zone may look out of place and could well get annoying. But these aren't important anyway. No one cares about a cut off dog. But important graphics such as credits, stats, name of someone speaking etc should be 4:3 safe so they can be seen by all.

Most old 4:3 tv's are small (many as small as 14 inch) so letterboxing makes the picture too small.

That's basically what I said, if you re-read it.

In your opinion. In my opinion they look horrible.

Well I have some old portable 4:3 TVs too but I certainly wouldn't say that you can't see things on them when letterboxed.
Anyway anything smaller than 19 inch I wouldn't have thought is really worth using anyway!
Sooner or later these devices will die and then people will be forced to upgrade to whatever they can get, which will be a small widescreen flat screen LCD panel most likely 19 inch anyway!

Oh right.

I agree, it's unlikely that any domestic CRT still in use is going to have anything more than an adequate picture. A properly set up modern TV will have superior picture.

Don't worry one day it will die and he will have to get a replacement that will be 16:9 LCD and full HD! Probably around 19 inches though!

Actually I think the opposite is true. For SD material, A CRT can have a better picture than a flat screen. I think this is mostly the case for LCD screens though. Large plasma screens displaying LCD material look pretty decent. I think it depends on the screen quality rather than the size as another poster suggested. On a small low quality LCD you can see blemishes in the picture as though the picture has been stretched to a larger size (like enlarging a picture on a computer screen).

BTW, I have a reconditioned 1970's TV and it is still going strong. I use it on average an hour a day and the picture is decent and colourful and skin tones look nice. It also has excellent sound quality, far better than the below par tinny sound of todays thinscreens.

Yes but they are still selling many 4:3, 5:4 (slightly taller than 4:3) and 16:10 (slightly taller than 16:9) online. Just look on amazon, ebay, gumtree or e-buyer etc.

Even though most people now have either widescreen laptops with a resolution of at least 1366x768 or widescreen monitors of 1600x900/1920x1080, websites continue to "pander" to those running at a resolution of 1024x768. Many major websites are no wider than 1024 pixels to make sure that those still using 1024x768 don't have content chopped off the edge of their screen and don't have to scroll horizontally to see it. As a result, If you have a screen wider than 1280x1024, you will likely get lots of blank space at the sides when web browsing.

Modern games also support 4:3 and 5:4 monitors by giving 16:9 the widest field of view and then cropping the sides for 16:10, 4:3 or 5:4 monitors, and moving the on-screen graphics further in. A few games letterbox the game but most will just adjust the field of view for the aspect ratio.

If you have a screen resolution of anything from 1024x768 to 1920x1200, you will be catered for.

If games and websites cater for virtually everyone no matter what their resolution and aspect ratio, then why can't tv?

It seems not everyone is viewing in widescreen, even with a widescreen tv. Just look at this tv on ebay showing a 4:3 cropped picture stretched to 16:9 showing BBC News: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/LG-32-INCH...item3cfca4085f


The BBC News graphics aren't 4:3 safe, you can see it is chopped off slightly on the left. BBC News should have made it 4:3 overscan safe not just 4:3 safe with no overscan.

No I'm not gonna buy a cheap 19 inch 16:9 tv with inferior picture quality to my current CRT's. Anyway a 19 inch 16:9 tv will only be about as tall as a 14 inch 4:3 set. This is because a 4:3 tv with the same diagonal size of a 16:9 tv will always be larger.

Look at this comparison to see what I mean: http://www.thehdtvgenie.com/wp-conte...creen-size.png




No, this is the type of tv I will likely be getting: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Bush-32-Tv...item3cfe3dc613


A 32 inch "boat anchor", a decent size screen in 4:3 format. When watching in Centre Cut Out or a 4:3 programme the picture will be the equivalent size of about a 40 inch widescreen.

I still watch a lot of 4:3 content anyway.

What if you can't find any 4:3 CRTs on sale? They won't last forever.

Btw I know about the different sizes and the fact you need a screen the same height in widescreen as you had in 4:3 which is actually bigger.
To be honest though I bet that is what a lot of people have done and maybe still will!

There are a ton of them on ebay and amazon. Just search for "old tv" and choose the size you require.

My point is yes they are currently selling cheap as hardly anyone wants them, but soon they won't be available because they will start dying.