Someone please help me and answer this.


Why do I have a 42 inch tv, and a, watching some things in high def on cox cable. How come some things cover the entire screen, while others are put in a box with black bars at the side. I watched a cbs college game last week and it was the full 42 inches, now I got some stinkin box knocking off about 5 inches on each side. Why does this happen, is it the way its broadcast????

thanks for any info, I am Tv Illeterate.

That's because a widescreen tv has a 16:9 aspect ratio, while a standard def one has a 4:3 ratio.

When you are watching a high def show it will broadcast to you in 16:9, thus filling your 16:9 screen.

When you watch a stardard def show it is broadcast in 4:3.  Your tv is merely centering the image and showing it to you that way.  It's little different than the black bars on the top and bottom of downscalled HD shows watched on an SDTV.

You may want to RTFM and see if there is an option for zooming in 4:3 signals to fill the screen, my Sony tube HD monitor does that and the picture still looks good.

Aspect ratios, my friend.

Your TV is a certain aspect ratio (vertical measure to horizontal measure). If you watch something that is to a different ratio (either taller or wider) it will add those black bars to the top/bottom or sides. There should be an option to stretch whatever image you're looking at so it always matches your aspect ratio and fills the entire screen, however it can distort the image (think: it looks like people's heads are like Charlie Brown's when it's stretched width-wise)