If I see bars, I just change the channel. Stretching and bars just seem to annoy me.

I have a CRT HDTV so I stretch or zoom all 4:3 programming. I already have a slight burn-in on the sides already, I don't want to make it too much worse. I zoom in on letterboxed 4:3 programming. I use the zooming feature of the SA 8300HD PVR. I don't much care that the image looks a bit distorted.

I have a front projector so burn in would never be an issue. So I leave the broadcast in its natural format.

never stretch. Zoom only if i have to like testikoff said. OAR is the only way to go.
I think I might have said it a few times before, maybe even in this thread, but I try to watch the part of the screen that has content on it, not the part that doesn't. While watching TV, if you're noticing the pictures on the wall aren't straight, you're not watching TV!

Too funny Tom...for whatever reason...that really made me laugh...I just pictured Homer looking at the picture over the tv and saying doh...

Anyway...I do tend to stretch some things...but not many.

For instance NASCAR, although now it is almost entirely in HD...but before if you zoomed...you lost sight of the lap counter and the bar that tells you where everyone is on the track.

Also Hockey...same reason...you lose the timer if you zoom...although again...most...95% of what I watch is HD now.

Depending on the content, I watch SD in normal, zoom or partial zoom. Very rarely use stretch due to the distortion.

It works much better with a side view of a woman's torso...
Yeah. I always need to duck when watching Dolly Parton in 3D. :D

On my Toshiba LCD, I use Theater Wide One only on DVDs. I never use Theater Wide Two,Three, or Full due to the distortion. When we were first shopping for HDTV, my wife vetoed the purchase of a Hi-Def set because she said that the actors heads "looked like pumpkins" due to the extreme stretching of the image and they also had the tint and colour cranked to the max giving the actors' faces a very unnatural orange colour.

I like the NON-LINEAR stretch mode (smart stretch or HORIZON or whatever) because the center looks relatively unaltered but the sides are stretched to fill up the black bars. LG Plasmas user here so stretching 4:3 is a must for me. I have gone almost all HD so it's not a big issue anymore.

Like many others, I tend to switch channel whenever the content is 4:3 with black pillars...I do it on both my TVs even the Samsung actually has a stretch mode for 1080i 4:3 content.

i have a Panasonic plasma and never stretch 4:3 content. I do watch probably 85% HD but see no reason or benefit in stretching 4:3.

OAR all the time.. the only time i zoom in is if i am watching SD feed that is window boxed to 16:9, then i zoom in to fill the screen and suffer the lower pic quality

OAR. My front projector has no burn-in issues, and I can't stand "modified" aspect ratios.

OAR. I can't stand when A&E HD shows half of their content in HD, and the rest in stretched, just so it fills the screen.

I only stretch DVDs that don't automatically stretch for 16:9 display.

I use zoom to display those shows with horizontal bars, so that the picture occupies the entire display area.