Neush

Title kinda says it all. I don't have a widescreen TV but I've been looking into getting one. One thing I can't get over is the gray bars that frame the picture on both sides if you don't watch a widescreen formatted signal, ie 4:3 movies or television. For those of you who have them out there isn't this extremely distracting? And do they make widescreen tv's that use black bars instead? It seems to me that this would be much more attractive.

What's the opinion on this?

Janitor

The bars are gray to help avoid (well - slow down actually) burn in. Yes, black bars are more attractive, but CRTs will wear unevenly at the edges of a 4:3 picture on a 16:9 display more rapidly.

Burn in is just an uneven wearing out of the CRT(s). The gray bars are an attempt at evening out the amount of light given to the entire display surface. Some TVs (Mitsubishi for one) very slowly move the 4:3 window back and forth to soften the edges of where the screen may burn in.

Goblincat

I use a stretch mode on mine. It stretches the sides more than the center so that images don't tend to look wider unless they are toward the far edges. It actually looks quite good this way and isn't distracting.

Low RG

Same here. I don't watch any programs with the gray bars on the sides.

Janitor

S'pose it's point of view, and maybe what TV you have. I've got a Mitsubishi, and the stretch mode isn't really worth watching. I find the gray bars much easier to get used to than oddly shaped people.

Of course, stretch mode will wear out the CRTs more evenly than narrow, whether your bars are gray or black.

JimRochester

I usually alternate between the Stretched and Narrow modes. Really just depends what mood I'm in. I prefer strecthed but sometimes with regular cable, the picture is so annoying that I switch to Narrow.