Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.video (
More info?)
"Bob Niland" <email4rjn@yahoo.com> wrote in message
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psnwfhvo1ft8z8r@news.individual.net...
>>>> "Bill Stock" <me7@privacy.net wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Do any of the TV Tuner software packages support
>>>> stretching a 16:9 image broadcast in 4:3 format
>>>> to fill the screen. In other words, I want to get rid of the letterbox
>>>> on my widescreeen LCD.
>
> The word you are looking for is "scaling"; increasing
> the image size by an equal amount in both horizontal
> and vertical.
>
>> The new monitor is 16:10. Shows on the satellite
>> like SG1 and Atalantis are broadcast in 4:3 with
>> black bars (letterbox) top and bottom. So the actual
>> viewable image is 16:9. My current TV software
>> (Winfast PVR) will let me stretch the image
>> horizontally to fill the screen, but not vertically to
>> get rid of the black bars. So the image I'm watching
>> now IS distorted AND Letterbox.
>
> Letterbox laserdiscs pose the same problem for wide
> displays. Any w/s TV that lacks scaling is worth avoiding,
> and this includes several recent LCD models. If there
> were high-quality inexpensive aftermarket scalers available,
> it would be a different matter, but I haven't found any yet.
> It sounds like it's not a common feature of soft tuners either.
Agreed. A friend recently bought a 27" ViewSonic LCD TV from Costco for a
"good price". But it does not do Scaling, so now he's looking for an
external solution. My Toshiba WS CRT TV has several cropping/scaling options
built in. I guess the software tuners haven't adjusted to the new reality
yet, as my older PowerDVD software does a decent job of scaling my DVDs to
the proper aspect ratio.
> The reason wide TVs lack scaling is that it isn't trivial
> to do properly. So anyone for whom it's an issue is
> advised to bring test programming to the store, or only
> buy when there's a return privilege.
>
> --
> Regards, Bob Niland mailto:name@ispname.tld
>
http://www.access-one.com/rjn email4rjn AT yahoo DOT com
> NOT speaking for any employer, client or Internet Service Provider.