In a 4:3 Windowbox w/ Black Bars On The Sides (OAR)

I think you mean Pillarboxed. Windowboxed would have bars on all sides, like when you watch a non-anamorphic widescreen DVD on a 16:9 display without zooming it in.

4:3 OAR Pillarboxed with grey bars on the side (for my Panny Plasma).

Everyone I know who has a widescreen HD set watches their SD cable/satellite feeds in stretch mode. Drives me fucking crazy.

On my set, 4:3 material is watched pillarboxed. Letterboxed stuff that is non-anamorphic gets zoomed.

OAR, always.

I'll stretch "lower value" stuff like old TV shows, Korean soap operas, random comedy shows or concerts. If it's a movie, I watch that OAR. Watching too much stuff 4:3, though, risks leaving burn marks on my plasma screen.

People keep bringing the sunject up, but burn-in has not been a real problem for some years... and if it were, having side pillars showing as a 50% gray tone would be better for the screen than having them black. Which is how I set the side pillars to appear on my 40", 6+ year old Panasonic... as recommended by the Panasonic manual.

And, btw, it's strictly OAR all the way for this moviephile

^ You realize what you quoted was written six years ago, right?

I'm strictly OAR, but I find myself watching older 4:3 movies on the square tv in the bedroom.

That's how I do it as well.

On my Samsung TV (I forget what the model is) I noticed that for Blu-Rays like Casablanca it displays the picture pillarboxed. But when I watch stuff like classic Doctor Who (which would be 4:3) the picture is stretched. Would this maybe be an issue of some 4:3 material not being enhanced for widescreen TVs, so my TV stretches it? I have my TV set to 16:9, but again Casablanca was pillarboxed when I watched it.

On BDs, generally the image of the main feature is 1920x1080 (16:9 ratio). On a disc like Casablanca, the film is in a 4:3 section in the center of the screen with black space filling in the rest. So it's not really encoded as 4:3, unlike that Doctor Who material.

This.

Nope... I missed seeing the date it was posted. However, in my defense, I still read/hear people complain/worry about burn-in. Even after all this time I guess the word hasn't gotten out.

However, I think I'll file a forum complaint that post dates should be 36 point, ultra-bold Arial.

It's my belief that people should be required to take an exam and test before buying a widescreen TV, as they are for a driver's license. Those who fail should be quarantined

I've been to MANY restaurants that show ESPN on widescreen TVs, coming from a standard 4x3 source with the picture letterboxed- they feed that to the TVs and then STRETCH that so you have a super-wide picture with the "dreaded black bars" on top and bottom. I never leave a tip if I eat anyplace that does that.

You do realize that the waitstaff probably doesn't control the televisions don't you? Who are you, Mr. Pink?

OAR all the way. Only time i would ever 'zoom' is if its a widescreen show in standard def. ie TCM and Fuel TV

OAR. It was made that way. It'll be seen that way.

While reading the first page, I totally thought this was a new thread until the comment about Casablanca and The Adventures of Robin Hood being released on HD-DVD

I am also in the OAR camp, meaning pillarboxed 4:3 and zoomed non-anamorphic widescreen. Both my parents and my wife's parents have their TVs setup for stretching content and it bugs the crap out of me.
I was recently at my parents' house, and NBC was on, and I said there's an HD channel for it, but my mom complained that sometime the stuff on the HD channels doesn't fill the screen

It has to be OAR for me.

but since NBC letterbox'es their shows that means if its stretched, there are black bars at the top and bottom!

Depends on the affiliate. My local station airs the shows zoomed, even when they're supposed to be letterboxed. I bitched about this to them many times before I finally converted to HD. They don't care. They probably got more complaints from the heathens when they were airing it letterboxed.

OAR all the way.

(however..I see that I actually voted "stretch" in the original poll...WTF??)

This is very simple for me. I don't watch anything that isn't HD.

Isn't it still possible to zoom in 4:3 material in HD?

Also, while I try to watch everything in HD if possible, some very good stuff simply isn't HD. I recently got the Get A Life DVD boxset, which is a great show not available in HD.

On TV, some channels aren't available in HD by my provider, so shows on those are watched in HD. And some HD TV channels stretch SD shows, making the SD option more palatable.