Stretching the picture
 

Over Thanksgiving, I got into a debate with my family over viewing preferences on an HDTV. I'm fairly certain they're just nuts, but I'll let the community at large decide.

When I watch normal, non-HD programming, I set the TV in 4:3 mode. Yes, it puts black bars on either side of the screen, but it's the correct resolution. My father and brother, on the other hand, watch everything in 16:9. "Standard cable looks like crap on HD anyway, and we'd rather fill up the whole screen than have the giant bars on either side," they say. They don't understand that I don't want everyone on the screen stretched to Mo0-size proportions. Does anyone else leave their HDTV in 16:9 mode all the time?

I watch everything in its native aspect ratio, because I'm not retarded. You don't stretch a photo when you put it in a frame that is too big for it do you? No, you just mat it like a normal person. Same thing with a tv.

When I visit my family every now and then, I tend to find all of the widescreen televisions set to 16:9. This is especially curious since there are no HD playback devices in the entire house.
I used to covertly adjust the televisions so that they intelligently decide on the proper aspect ratio depending on the inputs, only to have to do the exact same thing the next time I visit.
Once, when I did that while other family members were watching with me, I got into an argument about how distracting it is to see Dylan McDermott resemble Michael Moore, and for some unfathomable reason most of my family was convinced that the grey/black bars were infinitely more distracting.
On top of that, my dad made the argument that he did not buy widescreen televisions just to "waste all that screen space."

Since there is no arguing with any of my family on any issue whatsoever, I continue to change the aspect ratios every time I visit.

I always watch 4:3 content in 4:3, no matter the aspect ratio of the screen it's on. Nobody else I know does this. It is apparently acceptable to watch things in stretch-o-vision. People actually complain about the black bars.

This is the problem with being a perfectionist.

black bars suck. :<
I stretch that shit, doesnt even look funny.

I suppose I should have put a poll on this. A mod can feel free to add one.

Cryptic poll added!

I have a 4:3 TV and tend to watch most things in 4:3 even if it is widescreen content. At least I let the edges get chopped off instead of doing squishovision which is even worse than wiiiiiiiiiiiidescreen on normal TV.



Total mod actions for RR this year++

I don't have HDTV so everything is in 4:3 mode, though I like squishovision with black bars on the top and bottom of the screen when watching widescreen movies. It looks like a "real" movie.

In gaming, I leave it on 16:9. Otherwise normal TV stays at 4:3 (black bars doesn't bother me that much). Much better than seeing shit stretched and therefore looking messier.