Plasma Perception Problems. Prescriptions?

October 12, 2008 8:24 PM

I have a 46" inch plasma (panasonic). Viera TH-46pz80u. When I play movies they are slightly squashed (as is some programming). These movies when shown on T.V. in WS, display normal proportions. What gives?

Now, when I had my rear projection 36" all television programs looked normal and widescreen viewings of movies presented me with two black bars( top and bottom) and widish screen viewing with no picture distortion.
Nowadays, some programs are displayed in a 16:9 and on my old 36" those programs displayed perfect picture with black bars at the top and bottom.
When it was a 4:3 screen it filled my T.V screen up and looked normal.
With this new T.V. it's like it wants everything to be widesreen. 4:3 is streched out but things presented in widescreen look just fine. ( Usually) Even the 4:3 aspect just cuts the left and right off a 16:9. So instead of the T.V.'s 4:3 mode looking normal with black bars on the side of the viewing screen it's just a 4:3 swatch of the already slightly squashed (top to bottom) 16:9. What the frag?
And.
I could almost deal with that, but the movies...
Grrrr....
I've toyed with the format button but can only find brief solace in that and I end up toggling between two or three modes.
All the reviews I've read, people friggin' love this T.V., but I cant seem to find a fix for what ails me...

posted by thaworldhaswarpedme to Technology (4 answers total)

it sounds like you have the tv set in "16:9" or "full screen" mode, which stretches everything to fit the screen.

On my TV at least, there's a mode called "aspect," which means keep the original ratio of the content, leaving bars where it doesn't fill.

(I also had a side issue with my dvd player, which has its own ratio setting. I set that to 16:9 to match my tv, then use the tv's "full screen" mode to watch widescreen dvds.
posted by drjimmy11 at 8:55 PM on October 12, 2008

Questions: Was your 36" rear projection TV a 4x3 or 16x9 display? Are you watching primarily standard definition sources or HD sources?
posted by taubman at 9:03 PM on October 12, 2008

Response by poster: The format button in T.V. mode switches from full to just to 4:3 to zoom
In D.V.D, format is full, H- Fill (which is horribly stretched horizontally), just and zoom.
All options only adjust from an already skewed starting point.

@taubman

-The 36" was a 4:3.
-Primarily standard but my D.V.D is a 1080 upconvert with HDMI.
Crystal clear ... and a lil' squashed
posted by thaworldhaswarpedme at 9:57 PM on October 12, 2008

Panasonic tvs have a few different aspect ratios: 4:3, 16:9, "widescreen," "zoom," "stretch," and maybe one or two others. (My in-laws have a large Panasonic; I'm doing this from memory, so please excuse the incomplete knowledge here.) All I can tell you is, there is some magical combination between your dvd player's settings and the tv settings. On my in-laws' set, I had to set the dvd player to 16:9, and the tv to the same thing. However, that screwed with the tv settings for broadcast. So basically, I had to switch tv settings if I went from the dvd player to broadcast and back. It's a small pain, but doable.
posted by nushustu at 8:22 AM on October 13, 2008