Having had a widescreen TV delivered last week and paid the extra for it to be set up (worth it cause I'd have been ages setting up the stand!) but found that they didn't even bother adjusting the set up of my Sky Digibox or my DVD player it does make me wonder how many people have bought widescreen sets and don't even have them set up correctly!

I don't mean people on this site as I'm sure most people are fairly technology minded given the posting I've read.

But talking to a guy at work he was telling me that he went to watch rugby at a friends house on Sky and noticed the Sky logo and score were in the corners of the screen meaning he was watching it with a stretched 4:3 pic rather than 16:9, when he pointed this out to his friend it transpired that he'd had the TV a year!
He also mentioned that he knew of people that didn't have multi-channel tv but had a widescreen TV with stretched 4:3!

Last night I was watching "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" on DVD and I couldn't get it to display correctly - the DVD said it was anamorphic DVD but in regular mode it the sides were cut off, full mode just stretched it, we ended up having to watch with the sides cut off, I found out today that my DVD player was set up in 4:3 mode and not 16:9 (the setup key doesnt allow me to access the menus unless the DVD is on the intial DVD logo screen hence why I couldn't get into it last night!) - was the first anamorphic I'd watched so the other 2 or 3 I'd watched I could set TV at 16:9 zoom and it was ok.

I've now got used to the black bars down the side of the 4:3 pics - it was wierd at first but just kept telling myself it was still a bigger picture than I had on my old TV and at least I'm watching the pictures as intended - would have been a bit hypocritical to be telling a friend who doesn't like widescreen that I bought the TV cause I want to see programmes and films as intended only to end up watching 4:3 stretched!

Just led me to think that there must be loads of people who have them set up wrong and don't realise, no wonder some people have negative views on widescreen when you see how TV stores have them set up!

I guess there are a lot of people with it set up like that.

With our widescreen set, the Sky Digtial (and ntl last year) installer left the box in 4:3 mode

Our's is set to 4:3 Letterbox as it's also connected to 3 other tv's which arn't widescreen sets, hence would have to watch a squashed picture.

Ironically, the one 4:3 set in the house that has a "Wide" button to squash it down is the only one not connected to the Sky box!

Sadly you've discovered something that's very common about widescreen TVs and their owners.... a vast majority of widescreen TV owners don't have their equipment properly setup, don't know what a proper setup should be or don't care as long as the image fills the screen (ie stretch-o-vision)

I used to install TV, video and DVD equipment etc and found that many people only had one thing in mind when they got a widescreen TV... as long as the picture filled the screen they didn't care about aspect ratios.... 4/3 strechy mode (smart mode) was fine...

Many supposed engineers don't seem to know any better either.... composite PAL in 4/3 works just fine on a widescreen TV they seem to think!

Luckily you can find good websites that help clarify the mysteries of widescreen TV!

At least they are not using pure region 1 NTSC DVD PLayers

My DVD is RGB SCART on the TV, or SVideo on The PC (shame that only works on R2 discs )

What astonishes me is the number of displays you see in retailers (some of them respected specialist dealers such as Richer Sounds and the Sony Centre) where high-end pieces of equipment, such as thousand-pound-plus widescreen TVs and megabucks plasma screens, are incorrectly set up!

You would think shops would want these machines to be showing off the best they are capable of, to entice people into parting with their cash. Yet in my local Dixons, all the sets, both 4:3 and 16:9, seem to be connected via an extremely low quality RF distributor, and the widescreen sets are all either showing a stretched 4:3 image, or a zoomed in 16:9 picture with the tops and bottoms cut off.

You can forgive this kind of thing in a branch of Tesco's, maybe; but it strikes me as astounding that specialist AV electronics dealers can't tell the difference between proper aspect ratio and squashy-vision. Or, more importantly, that they don't seem to care.

I agree!

The dealers are completely useless.

The only place I have been where all the TVs were set up properly was a very specialist shop in Glasgow selling Loewes and similar sets.

Comet, Currys, Dixons - and to my disappointment, our local independent Euronics branch - are complete cretins with no interest in proper demonstrations at all - with generally sales staff to match (with a very few noble exceptions who know what they are talking about.)

Of course as usual, it's the fat cat managers who are to blame, not the troops, but they just get fatter and richer all the time and care not a jot about anything except the cash register.

They probably watch their TVs at home in "Stretchy vision" and bore their neighbours about how good it is...

Still nothing gets in the way of corporate greed these days.

Funny you should mention that store in Glasgow, Jim, but if you're talking about the Linn Centre in Princes Square (just off Buchanan Street), just a couple of months ago I complimented the sales guy in that very same shop that it was the only hi-end AV dealers I'd ever been in in which all the sets on demonstration, without exception, were set up correctly! And I live in the deep south of England (well, Worcester...)

Is this really the one and only TV retailer in the UK that gets it right?

A colleague at work and more recently my brother in law said they would never buy a WS TV as people look fat and distorted on them

I've been into houses where they have a WS TV and no digi box or DVD player and just watch a stretched analog picture!

My brother had been watching digital cable on the RF channel for about 6 months until I set it up on RGB scart. Needless to say he was astonished at the difference in pic quality.

This is something that I've done wirh sveral set ups with friends etc. I'm surprised at the number of people who just do not undertand the different SCART settings and as for trying to explain anamorphic WS....forget it, most people (I know anyway) just cannot grasp it !

One dealer I spoke to admitted that he set up most sets installed with satellite receives to 4:3 to avoid all the complaints about lines down the side of the picture when the broadcasters transmit older 4:3 programmes.

I would have thought it would be easier to explain this to customers and he did say he had tried but most still called to report faults, so he gave up and set everything to 4:3.

I've recently bought a new TV and there appears to be a fault on RGB. Watching a 4:3 picture as 4:3 the image is about 1inch narrower than watching the same channel with the Sky box set to PAL.

It was collected for repair and came back in exactly the same condition.

The only difference was it was set to stretch mode with a note from the engineer on how to set the picture to stretch mode.

Needless to say I'm less than impressed. If that's how the engineer thinks it should be set up what chance have you got.

Most TVs have some kind of auto setup - how about an how-to-use demo on startup? Or they could lock it the TV with a pin code and hide it in the manual, forcing you to RTFM.

But then, if you don't notice the problems (and TV shops teach very bad habits), then you'll probably be prefectly happy until someone points out that your dvd/digibox/tv is in the wrong mode.

When my Dad got a widescreen TV and paid for install (why he did that I don't know) they left it set up incorrectly and didn't even bother linking the VCR up.

Had to retune it all and do everything over myself - all they did correct was make the stand and I'd have done that myself as I do like to make those things - they are like stress toys to me, lol.

Have to admit that he's one of these people who like the full screen filled else he thinks he's losing out on something.

they reminds me of a conversation I had with one of my friends about 6 months ago his tv was about to pack up and he was still on analogue, when he'd been round to mine to watch the footy he'd liked the widescreeness and wanted one. I had to show him what analogue would look on widescreen before managing to persuade him to get freeview or sky. I still can't persuade him to get it setup completely correctly. The simpsons for instance has the top and bottoms chopped off rather amusing (4:3 is zoomed rather than stretched)

Yes this staggers me.
I get quite annoyed when walking down the high street looking at places like Sony Centres, and the amount of widescreens set up incorrectly.
I have been round to many reletives/friends and noticed that they have incorectly set up their TV's/Sky digi boxes.
I guess some people just don't get it

A belated reply to Alan from Worcester...

Yes it was the Linn shop in Princes Square in Glasgow I was talking about.

Very tasty tellies - and every one set up to perfection.

And of course the sound was pretty good too!

How it should be done.

And of course it is not just the widescreen set-up. What about the actual settings (colour,contrast,brightness etc) Some of these are so far out! The brightness way up till "blooming" is very apparent, Contrast all over the place, and colour like jam, causing skin tones to be way off. It's a wonder they ever sell the kit. I used to help a specialist retailer in Birmingham many years ago (over 20!) and I was FOREVER changing the settings on the TV's and Audio kit. I will get off my soap box now and sit quietly in a corner

...and dont forget all the Pubs advertizing "Watch live sport here on large widescreen TV"

only to find they have set it up to 4:3 sretchovision!

Agreed - and if the likes of Dixons/Comet/Currys can't get it right then what chance have the general public got, bearing-in-mind that that's where they mainly buy their sets from.

It works the other way around too - I was 'round someone's house last weekend who had a freeview box that had quite clearly been set to anamorphic widescreen and yet he has a 4:3 TV - didn't bother to say anything as I didn't fancy explaining the difference between 4:3, 4:3 letterbox and true widescreen.

Mind you, going slightly off tack, I always find it surprising how many enthusiasts think that component video is simply RGB going through different (non SCART) connectors!

Matt.

There should be a consortium setup to promote correct usage of widescreen tvs. I would bet that the vast majority of people do not have their widescreen tv's setup correctly or even know that they are not setup correctly. Still, so long as people are happy who am I to poor water them by telling them they aren't using their tv's properly.

I agree totally, it's so frustrating the amount of ignorance about proper w/s. Here are some observations I’ve noticed:

Harrods is the only electrical shop I’ve ever seen in Britain which has their windscreen sets set up properly, they are mostly connected to DVD players using proper anamorphic DVDs.

I was talking to a guy who installs Sky systems in France, he was slagging off widescreen TVs for just been stretched out pictures and he just looked confused when I said that many channels on Sky are broadcast in true 16:9 widescreen

Yes. My elderly parents were suckered into buying a w/s TV & video combo from a local, supposedly respected, independent dealer. They weren't even asked if they had sky/freeview, which they didn't. I got them an old ITVDig box and they now love it.

ours is set up perfectly in the frotn room

heck i have my freeview & satellite decoders as well as my dvd player set to 4:3 widescreen so when something is transmitted in widescreen it puts the black bars on my screen

no choppy or strechy for me


& i do agree currys are pants to buy stuff from (i used to work for them, it is so cut throat i actually got assulted by another memember of staff as i was sellign more than him) but when i worked there & if i sold a widescreen tv i wrote down all the settigns for that model on how to set it up to acess the 16:9 from dvd players & decoder box's

But if you have a widescreen TV then you should set up your decoders and dvd to 16:9 so that they transmit the widescreen correctly and you don't have black bars top and bottom. You then set your TV to auto so it switches to 16:9 when its a widescreen picture and 4:3 when it receives a 4:3 pic!

the widescreen is downstairs & is setup for widescreen on the sat decoder & dvd player

i have a small 14inch portable so i told my dvd player & decoders to put bars on my screen so i get the propper aspect ont he image as i hate stretchy vision

Well, I just read in the Sunday Times today that now a quarter of UK homes have a widescreen set!

Wonder how many are set up correctly though, all my friends ones arnt, they scream at me to change it to "strech-o-vision" when they are round my house cos they hate the black bars...