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I'm hoping for some sage advice. I was placed in charge of looking into and ordering a bigscreen rear projection TV for my father-in-law. He is eyeing a SONY 51" HDTV-capable Digital Hi-Scan 16:9 Widescreen stereo TV, mainly Model KP51WS510. He knows nothing about these things, and I am not much more knowledgable. He NEVER rents DVD's or videos, and ONLY watches cable and network TV!!!! Does he even need widescreen, or should he go with a 4:3 square screen? If he is still adamant about the 16:9 widescreen, is it true that this TV will stretch a conventional 4:3 cable or network TV picture, and transform it to widescreen? Or will there be bars to the left and right? Also, is it true that when these TV's 'stretch' the 4:3 cable/broadcast TV signals, the picture looks unatural? Or is the conversion 'normal looking' to the eye? The man watches a LOT of old westerns, and I am afraid John Wayne may look like David Blaine (after the fasting stunt, of course)!!! Any info on the above topics would be GREATLY appreciated!! Thanks a lot in advance!!!
Follow Ups:
I took all your comments into consideration. Thanks. Considering there were about 30 rear projection Widesceen TV's and just 2 4:3 units at the electronics retail store, this had an impact on our decision. As did your comments about more TV programming increasingly being released in widescreen formats. Bottom line is we went with the 'Hitachi 51G500', rather than the Sony mentioned in my previous post. The Hitachi picture seemed more detailed and 'film-like', and the 'stretched' 4:3 images on widescreen seemed a lot more naturally proportioned and normal looking on the Hitachi. And we lucked out, given a good freind of the family works there as a Senior Sales Associate! He gave us the $1999 Hitachi for $1499, which was a steal! Either way, my father-in-law will probably 'poop his pants' when he sees his digital satellite cable images on the Hitachi, as opposed to the ancient TV he is replacing, mainly an old RCA 27" console TV from the late 1980's!!! In fact, I myself am a bit upset at my 2001 decision to purchase a 53" Sony digital 4:3 bigscreen TV, which is excellent, and works great, but is NOT widescreen. Oh well. I'll just have to contend with black bars when I watch DVD's and other widescreen programming.
HDTV will be widescreen, so he'll then have to look at bars on the top & bottom of a 4:3. I say push him into widescreen. He'll appreciate it in the long run.
Doug
Get someone to play a 4:3 movie on this or another widescreen display. Use one of the display's stretch modes (there's usually 2 or 3 modes) and see how he likes the picture.One thing to consider is that his viewing habits may change with a widescreen display. After watching a few 16x9 anamorphic DVDs of his choosing, he may cut down on his regular broadcast viewing in favor of more widescreen DVD content.
I hate to say this (being a widescreen FREAK and advocate whenever the subject is brought up) but given his prejudices and preferences I would go with a 4.3 for this man.
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