I will admit, I'm new to HDTV. Im an AVID gamer, who wanted a great TV to play my XBOX360 and PS3. I also use it to watch football and Heroes, mainly. I bought the 52" TV because of its HUGE screen obviously, and 4 HDMI inputs so I can connect my games and HDDVR no problem.

Here is my issue with this TV, if it is a simple problem please forgive my ignorance. When veiwing TV the SD channels are displayed in 4:3 format. Yes there is a button on the remote to zoom in to 16:9 but its fake 16:9. The screen image is cut off around the edges. The image just literally zooms in, it doesnt format to fit the screen.

I have friends with HDTVs and all thier channels are displayed in 16:9 with no zooming necessary. After dropping over $2000 for this TV im feeling a little depressed that some (actually most) channels are only 4:3. Is there anything I can do?

Also PIP would have been nice.

1. For 4:3 images, you can learn to watch them as 4:3. After all, that's what you did on your 4:3 TV. This provides the best picture quality and no distortion and since it's an LCD, there's no burn in concern.

2. If you want to stretch 4:3, you can do so without zooming, rather stretching the image horizontally. Check out the following threads.

http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showthread.php?t=96891

http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showthread.php?t=76074 Stretch modes


And the following post, useful for those new to the forum, please read it and the appropriate links.

http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showthread.php?t=57741

I will admit, I'm new to HDTV.... When veiwing TV the SD channels are displayed in 4:3 format. Yes there is a button on the remote to zoom in to 16:9 but its fake 16:9. The screen image is cut off around the edges. The image just literally zooms in, it doesnt format to fit the screen.
You should be using the TheaterWide 1 picture size if you don't want to see the side bars on a 4:3 input source. It will strecth but won't zoom-in the picture - just like every other HDTV.
Though personally, I leave it on Natural mode.

You should be using the TheaterWide 1 picture size if you don't want to see the side bars on a 4:3 input source. It will strecth but won't zoom-in the picture - just like every other HDTV.
Though personally, I leave it on Natural mode.
No, the TheaterWide 1 from Toshiba is the best stretch mode in the market (except the king of display....Pioneer). After having the 545 for 2 months now, I am quite pleased with it. It is still not a Kuro but with 1/5 of the price, it is not bad at all.

reviews for LCD TVs including the Toshiba XV545U

http://www.ultimateavmag.com/flatpaneldisplays/

http://ultimateavmag.com/flatpaneldisplays/toshiba_52xv545u_lcd_tv/

bought one of these when they came out Oct 2007 -- that is, the "fat bezel" model 120 Hz Clear Frame yada yada. It's fabulous (and much cheaper this year). Go for it. I don't know what the issue is with "no support for LCD market".

He is reaching on the " no support " comment, 100% not true..They are very big on their LCD's..Heard this from alot of vendors.

I tend to use theaterwide 2...does 1 do a better job?
I thought 2 was full stretch.

Theaterwide 1 is a "smart" stretch mode for 4:3 to 16:9. What it tries to do is leave the image area in the center of the screen at a normal 4:3 aspect ratio and then stretch more of the side areas away from the center. That way the image area in the center of the screen doesn't make everyone look short and fat like a regular stretch mode does (but anything on each side of the whole image does get stretched out of shape). For the most part it works really well and was one of the reasons I bought the Toshiba. You tend to not notice the stretching at the sides as much when the center area is still at a correct aspect ratio so it's a really nice touch if you tend to zoom a lot with 4:3 material.

I had this smart stretch mode available through my Microsoft Media Centre when I was still using the old analog tuners in the home theatre PC. They called it an Anamorphic Zoom mode and I seriously missed that mode when we went digital and had to dump the PC for watching TV. My Samsung 46" that we bought a couple of years ago didn't have a smart stretch mode so everyone on screen looked short and fat when we zoomed.

One thing to watch for though is occasionally you'll see a 4:3 broadcast where they are showing what looks like a 16:9 broadcast but in a 4:3 space on your set. If your TV was set for Native mode so that you have black bars on each side of a 4:3 broadcast, then you would also have black bars on top and bottom of the image in the 4:3 area when they broadcast like this. It's like a "mini movie" on the screen with black areas completely around the video image. In that case, Theaterwide 2 works better as the image is already in a miniature 16:9 format and mode 2 will simply stretch it out to the edges of the screen with no distortion. Cheers!

James

I just picked up a 52XV545U last night for a song on a sale that started today. So far it looks great (deep blacks and good detail on SD programming), but I'm run into a quandry that has kept me up all night. Perhaps one of you Regzanites might have a solution:

I've read the pertinant parts of the manual inside out and backwards, and no matter what I try I cannot get "Optical Output Format" in the Audio Setup menu to become "un-greyed out". I know that the TV can output audio through the digital optical output in either PCM or Dolby Digital formats, but I can't seem to change the setting to Dolby Digital. My receiver (a Technics SA-DA 10 - an oldy but a goody) requires the Dolby Digital feed to produce 5.1 surround sound, but the default PCM feed only allows for 2 channel listening.

In case it makes a difference, my setup has HDMI cables from the Shaw HD PVR, a DVD player and an Xbox into the back of the TV and a digital optical cable from the TV to the receiver.

Please help! This is more important than sleep right now.

Most HDTVs cannot output DD5.1 signals that are going "through" a TV. You need direct connections from each device to the AVR. Please read the following post on the topic:

http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showthread.php?t=17870 Bolding.


Please also read the following post with useful search tips and FAQs for those new to the forum.

http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showthread.php?t=57741