Widescreen
Widescreen televisions have now become commonplace in the UK, but just because you have a wide screen TV it does not necessarily mean that you are watching proper widescreen pictures. By default, Freeview and Sky boxes are usually set to provide a correct picture on a standard (4:3) television. If this picture fills a TV with a widescreen all that happens is that the picture is stretched until everyone looks short and fat. This is not what widescreen is about.
The set-top box needs to know that you have a wide screen and then it will provide the extra areas of picture so that you do not need to stretch it to fill the screen. Click here for more detail on Widescreen.
High Definition
In contrast to widescreen, the concept of High Definition is a much easier concept to understand, but follow this link for a brief explanation of HD-Ready, HDMI and Blu-ray. Click here for more detail on High Definition.
The following paragraphs describe widescreen in more detail and how to configure settings on a Sky digibox.
|
Widescreen
|
 |
|
For years television pictures have been this shape:
|
|
But now, most new televisions have screens which are this shape:
Much better, isn't it? Or is it?
Look again. Look at the building on the left of the picture. All we have here is the same picture stretched so it's wider. There's nothing new to see, it's just that everything is wider and fatter. For a while this sad sight was commonplace in many shops and electrical superstores. Sadly it's still commonplace in pubs and other public places, and that's all the benefit some people are getting out of their widescreen televisions.
|
|
|
Now, let's do the job properly, shall we?
There. See the difference? It's a proper widescreen picture with more detail at the sides and eveything the proper shape again.
Most new TV programmes are made like this, in widescreen, but you need to tell your Sky digibox or Freeview set-top box that you have a widescreen set or you will just see stretched picture full of fat people. So, how do you do this...?
|
 |
|
With a Freeview box you will need to explore the menu system with the aid of the instruction book to find the appropriate settings, but you'll get the idea from the way it's done on a Sky Digibox:
|
|
1. Press the Services button on your Sky remote control.
|
 |
|
2. Choose SYSTEM SETUP by pressing 4. (Alternatively, you can move the cursor down to option 4 then press Select.)
|
 |
|
3. Choose PICTURE SETTINGS by pressing 1 (or Select)
|
 |
|
4. What we're looking for at this point is the Picture Format. The format of a widescreen TV is 16:9. If your box is already set to 16:9 there is no need to change anything. Press Back up repeatedly until you can see a TV picture again and ignore the remaining steps. Your work here is done.
|
 |
|
5. Chances are your box will be set to the factory default of 4:3. This is not corrct for a 16:9 widescreen tv.
|
 |
|
6. Pressing the right arrow on the Sky remote will change the 4:3 setting to 4:3L (This is the setting for viewing widescreen programmes letterboxed on a traditional, non-widescreen tv.)
(Stretch this out to fill a wide screen and it's still very obviously wrong!)
|
 |
|
7. Pressing the right arrow again will change the setting to 16:9
|
|
|
8. You now have to save your changes by moving the cursor down to the Save New Settings.
Now press Select to Save.
Finally, press the SKY button, top centre, your TV picture will return and you're done. You can now enjoy true widescreen pictures.
|
 |
|
This finally produces a correct widescreen picture for a widescreen set.
|
|
|
Of course not all programmes - or all channels - are in widescreen and it is normal, on a correctly set up widescreen tv, to see old-style 4:3 pictures with black bars at each side when viewing non-widescreen programmes.
|
 |
|
