New to widescreen TV - Question? - Please help!

[garylawton]

Hi,

I've only recently got a decent wide tv for the living room. Its a Tosh 32".
The silly question is - What format should i have the picture in? Aspect
ratio?

I know about dvds, upto a point, about anamorphic etc, but when watching tv
broadcast from digital/analogue how do i know what format its in?

I know its a silly question, but can anyone point me in the right direction?
Its a shame the tv can't tell you what aspect ratio the broadcast is in!

I get the feeling there are more 16:9 broadcasts on digital, but i'm never
"sure" wether to have the tv in "wide" or "super live"?

Thanks for any help,

Gary

[Double Doom]

"garylawton" <garyl...@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
news:1s4r8.673$776....@news6-win.server.ntlworld.com...

There are no anamorphic widescreen broadcasts on analogue terrestrial.
Having a widescreen tv without a digital tv source is almost a waste of
money. For analogue terrestrial, you want to keep the tv in 4:3 mode (my
choice) or Super Live, if you prefer to stretch and crop the picture to fill
the screen.

With digital broadcasts, the tv will remain in the 4:3 or super live mode
unless it detects an anamorphic widescreen transmission, in which case it
will automatically go into Wide mode and back again to the previous mode
when over.

The only exception to the above is Channel 4 on analogue terrestrial which
sometimes uses PAL+ and will put non-anamorphic widescreen transmissions
into CINEMA mode using line 23 WSS (and back again when over).

Wide is only for anamorphic widescreen. In a way the tv does tell you what
aspect ratio to use as much of it is automatic.

David