Page 1 of Widescreen Ratios - best settings advice please (soooo confused!!)

I recently purchase an LG 32" Widescreen TV (my first widescreen) and love watching movies in either 16:9 ratio or "zoom" ratio. But, I am confused as to what settings I am supposed to use for normal TV viewing without stretching the picture. To make everything `normal` I use 14:9 ratio but obviously have black strips to each side. I cant work out what 4:3 ratio is for other than to make everything really small (black strips at bottom, top and sides!). What do most people do - watch TV is 14:9 ratio, and watch widescreen films in 16:9 or "zoom"? I always thought TV was in widescreen, but is it just wider than normal TVs, and not true cinematic widescreen (inbetween the 2)? What do the rest of you do? Thanks :-)

Well, I`ll try and help.......

First off, analogue terrestrial TV doesn`t broadcast in widescreen/16:9, apart from the odd movie where you can "zoom" in. Only digital TV broadcasts a true widescreen picture (providing you have your digibox set to 16:9 format, and your TV set to "wide").

A true widescreen picture is when the picture is compressed - then a widescreen TV "stretches" it out (this is called anamorphic widescreen). On analogue terrestrial TV, a widescreen picture has black bars at the top and bottom (this is called letterboxing), so you have to "zoom" in - thus losing some picture quality.

4:3 format is the size of standard TVs - so if you have a widescreen TV and set it to 4:3, you will get the black bars at the side, and in the most cases, at the top and bottom too (small ones for programmes like Eastenders etc, and larger ones for some movies). There are some 4:3 programmes where you won`t have tiny black bars at the top and bottom - it will fill the 4:3 screen completely.

As for what format to set the TV on for "normal" viewing, I always go for 14:9 when the programme has small black lines at the top and bottom, or 4:3 when the programme is broadcast that way ie. no black lines at top and bottom.

Anyway, I hope some of this makes sense!!

Thank you kindly Hulk Smash!. So when you set it to 14:9, you end up with black bars to each side? This is the setting I have been using for terrestrial TV - it stops people looking like someone has sat on them when in 16:9 ratio!! :-)

I found this previously posted link quiet informative for apsect ratio`s

http://www.thedigitalbits.com/articles/anamorphic/aspectratios/widescreenorama.html

While on the subject... on the rare occasions that I set my (toshiba) telly to "Super Live" (eeks out a 4:3 broadcast to fill the width, least stretching in the centre) it also seems to do a bit of vertical stretching (loses the top of the picture). Any clues? The instructions book is rather vague (on everything!).
Ta

I too have just bought my first widescreen , and found that we consumers seem to be getting ripped off again. The last upgrade to picture quality we got was to move from 405 lines to 625 lines and was informed at the time it was for clarity of picture, which indeed it was. What seems to have happened now is to squash more programs into the bandwidth available, they companies have reduced the picture quaulity, at least on my television, back down to somthing like 405 lines. (Sorry can not be bothered to do the maths), and then tell us we all have to upgrade. I now tend to check in 4:3 mode how the picture is being transmitted, and then move genrally to 14:9 if I do not want to lose lines off the top and bottom, and if I still get blank lines top and bottom, then switch to widescreen.

Another thing I have noticed, is that there is now a black shadow to the right of any high contrast colours, even when viewing on a strong signal. This is most noticable when watching tennis with a nice bright white line. I suspect this is another problem generated by trying to squash more horizontal information into the scan than it can cope with. Anybody know better.