Bah! Those cursed black bars!
 

Hmph - I never thought I'd hear myself say that, but damn I hate those stupid black bars!

See, I've got a big screen TV and I just picked up the new Malata DVD player (My old piece of crap Sampo was about to die and I wanted some nice progressive scan action anyway). However with the Malata in 16x9 mode, it automatically plays all 4:3 discs with black bars on the left and right, and not in the theater wide mode that I usually watched my 4:3 discs at.

Strange thing - I can handle black at the top and the bottom, but not at the sides. It just seems. . . I don't know, distracting somehow. But suddenly I find myself feeling how Joe 6-Pack must at times. However, unlike JS6, I'm smart enough to either turn off the 16x9 mode or I'll deal with it and just get used to them in time.

Well, at least they're BLACK, and not the really annoying gray that my TV defaults to. At least this way the burn in will take much, much, much longer.

Re: Bah! Those cursed black bars!
 

Wrong. Burn-in will be quicker since there is a bigger difference between the picture and the bars. That's why sets use the gray.