Not so "widescreen"

Another problem with DVDs! Well, to be more honest, a problem with producing from a while ago, before widescreen TVs were all the rage.

In an effort to be "helpful" to all us purists who insist on widescreen version of movies, companies produced DVDs and VHSs (VHSes?) with the movies in widescreen. But because most TVs were not, to achieve the widescreen format, black bars were added to the top and bottom of the picture.

But now we have widescreen TVs, so we can enjoy the picture filling the screen. Except the picture still has those black bars. And is fitted to a standard size screen.

And thus, although I have a flash widescreen plasma, I have to have the picture on standard size (so get black bars, as it were, on the left and right) and have black bars at the top and bottom. So the big widescreen picture is in fact in about a quarter of the screen for my viewing displeasure.

(Unless I just never managed to work out the settings on my DVD player and TV to get the damn thing to show properly. Which is also annoying have to switch back and forth on my TV between standard and widescreen viewing anyway.)

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