Anyone else still have a 4:3 TV?

[HareBrain]

Mine might be one of the last ever made, and it still works well and I have no reason to change it.

EXCEPT, of course, everything is broadcast in 16:9 now and all the broadcasts get the sides chopped off. Fair enough, to an extent, but what's more annoying is that rather than putting subtitles or captions only in the centre of the screen to accommodate luddites like me (of which there must still be a fair number), broadcasters plaster them all over the place so I have to make educated guesses about what the whole thing says.

But what REALLY bugs me is that when they broadcast old 4:3 programmes, they don't show the whole image with black bars down the sides -- they chop the top and bottom off for the "benefit" of widescreen viewers. Some of whom would probably like to see the whole thing. And that means that I am only seeing a rectangle from the middle of the old image, because I've had not only the top and bottom, but the sides cut off too! I have the type of TV those programmes were made for! They should be broadcast to suit ME, and everyone else should have to compromise! Grrrr.

Anyway, I just wanted to know if I'm as alone as I sometimes feel. I can't afford a new-style TV -- from the link in the "Funny Amazon reviews" thread I gather they're about $40,000!!!

 

[thaddeus6th]

HareBrain, depending on how far away you'll be sat you can buy one for about £120 (21" or so, I think mine is).

I had an old, small, fat TV not too long ago. I played the first Uncharted game on it, and was astounded by the difference HD made.

And, to sound like a grumpy old man, I really dislike the way digital instantly cuts out sound and makes the screen choppy, whereas analogue could keep decent sound quality with a degraded signal, and even if the picture got pretty snowy you could still make out a semblance of what was going on. The moment a digital signal is slightly weak it ruins what you're watching.

 

[Pyan]

Yep - one in the kitchen, on an angle-bracket high up in the corner. As it's mainly there to avoid having to pause the main TV while I'm cooking, it tends to be more of a radio with pictures, so I don't really mind the chopped effect.

 

[J-Sun]

I have a 19" which was made in 1985 and a 14" from 2001 so, yeah, they're 4:3. My 19" doesn't even know what a VCR is, much less DVRs and digital widescreen. But I don't have any problem with what you describe except that, for some mystifying reason, the left edge of FOX doesn't show, at least on my 19". (It's really annoying as it cuts off part of the score "bug" of my football games and I can usually only see half of the stat comparisons which they put in the lower left rather than the center.) I'm in the US and don't have cable so I have a converter box and it lets me cycle through various views such as "zoom" and "16:9" and others. Don't really know why, though, as widescreen shows are letterboxed like they ought to be when it's set on "16:9" but 4:3 shows fill the screen like they ought to as well.

Absolutely agree with thaddeus6th about the analog signal degradation vs. digital elimination, though. But I used to just get about a half dozen channels and now I get about a dozen to help compensate. (I know that's comical to people with hundreds but my TV is free.)

 

[jastius]

all my tv's are plump.. we have a sony wega and suchlike.. i even have a black and white,,(gasp!) we have a console model that you punch channels into. that has a adaptor on it and gets a digital adapter on top of that.. makes no difference.. the digital has a remote and the tv plays it on channel three or four.. i have seen hd.. gives me a headache.. rather be a luddite without the migraine, thankyou.

 

[TheDustyZebra]

We have two old-style TVs, in the bedrooms, but finally broke down and got a widescreen for the living room. Problem is, many things still cut the sides off, even on the widescreen. I don't know why, but it will go back and forth -- it will be showing perfectly fine and all of a sudden the sound goes kind of hollow and the picture changes display to have the sides cut off. Then after a while, it goes back the other way.

 

[ibrooks]

I remember as a kid that my cousins house "still" (late '70's maybe early '80's) had a black and white TV. Their parents made the mistake of saying that they would buy a colour one when the existing one stopped working. If we were across there (and presumably when we weren't) as soon as the adults were out of the room one of the cousins would go and stand watch at the door whilst the other would go and lift the TV a couple of inches off the table and drop it.
My aunt and uncle finally gave in and bought a colour TV despite the black and white one soldiering on - not sure to this day if they know about the drop treatment. The black and white one went to university with at least one of my cousins - maybe two.


I also had an electronics teacher at college who had a colour TV in which the colour circuit was disabled/enabled via a magnetic reed switch stuck inside the casing at the top. There was a small ornament with a small magnet in it's base that sat on top of the TV to close the switch and enable the colour circuit. He only paid for a black and white license so if anyone knocked on the door that he didn't recognise he would move the ornament before answering so that the TV reverted to black and white. You can't do this sort of thing with these new fangled LED/Plasma/whatever ones.

He also used to diagnose problems with TV's with a wet finger (scared the whatnot out of me since I knew the voltages involved) and make his own hearing aids. He was ex-army which everyone seemed to think explained it all.

Iain

 

[TheDustyZebra]

He was ex-army which everyone seemed to think explained it all.

Iain

Or so he said....