Having been away from my computer for an entire week now, I realise you will be expecting me to return with something very bright and wickedly insightful. Well, friends, prepare to be not-disappointed.
I have traveled around a bit in the past week and I have looked carefully at things and, as you quite rightly expect, I have reached a conclusion.
And it is this;
I have traveled around a bit in the past week and I have looked carefully at things and, as you quite rightly expect, I have reached a conclusion.
And it is this;
Many of you have simply not come to terms with the concept of Widescreen TV.
Don’t get in a huff now, don’t ‘hump off’ with that ‘face’ on you. This is simply the fact of the matter and you might as well face it now as later. So, let’s face it together.
You remember when you all went out and got these widescreen TV’s? Mostly, it must be said, because your old telly blew up in accordance with the laws of built-in-obsolescence and you couldn’t find another square shaped one to replace it. Fine, so here you all are now with your wide screen tellys and my observation is that a considerable percentage of you have not the first feckin’ clue how to use them.
Which is sad, really. I’ve always been in love with the concept of widescreen. We ’see’ in widescreen, after all and the movies have, for the longest time, recognised this fact and given us the marvellous wide experiences which our brains covertly desire. Telly screens were only ever box-shaped on account of technological shortcomings which I won’t go into here mostly because I don’t have a clue what the hell they were. I remember once journeying to Harrods on the strength of a rumour that they had a widescreen television on display there. That wasn’t today or yesterday, I can tell you. Well, let’s be blunt, it was a bloody long time ago. Widescreen has been with us for a long time now yet still the widescreen telly in the corner of your room is not doing what it should be doing and, guess what, it’s all your fault.
Stick around and I’ll tell you why.
I tend to get quite anxious about screen-ratios. It’s definitely one of my foibles. I get upset when the correct proportions are not applied to the film or programme I am watching. I get itchy.
Only yesterday, I was in a fine cinema watching ‘Super 8’. I had made a special journey to see it there and I was excited to do so and very very pleased with what I saw. More on that in a minute. But, before the main feature, the adverts and the trailers where all projected onto the screen in a different ratio to the screen on which they were being shown and I was edgy (really) that the main event was not going to fit the screen. Had that been the case, I would have sought out the projectionist and had a chat with him about it. That’s the kind of thing I tend to do.
While we’re close to the subject, go and see ‘Super 8’. My wife loved it, my kids loved it and I especially loved it. For me, it was a new experience. It was a nostalgia film which was nostalgic for the exact time when I was a teen – the very late seventies. Interestingly though, it’s not nostalgic for that era, as such, rather it is nostalgic for the films of that area. The big Spielberg productions. It nearly made me cry for that very reason. Apart from being a great movie, it was like a validation of my time as a teen, a sort of ‘okay, yeah, you were cool too.’
A lovely lovely film. Go and see.
Now… about those tellys of yours. Here’s where you most likely went wrong.
Back when you got your spanking new widescreen telly, you embraced the concept wholeheartedly, didn’t you? You said, “Right, now we’ve got bloody widescreen, we’re going to have everything in widescreen.” And you twiddled with your telly until everything on it looked widescreen. The trouble was – and still is – that not everything is widescreen. These days, almost everything is but there are still a few throwbacks to the old 4:3 screen ratio of your old Bush (no, ‘Bush’ was a model of TV, missus).
You hated to see any black bands on the side of your screen when a 4:3 ratio programme came on your shiny new telly so you ‘fixed’ them, didn’t you? You zoomed and stretched the picture until the entire tube was filled with glorious widescreen content. But, look carefully, it’s all Kak, isn’t it? That lady's’s right shoulder is twice as wide as his left one and the titles of the programmes are shooting out the side of the telly and into the curtains. Your telly picture looks crap and it’s all your fault.
You can fix this. I’ve done it to three tellys as I mooched around this week. (And when the owners find out they’ll probably kill me). Here, in fairly general terms, is what to do.
First, are your settings actually wrong? Let’s see. Find an old episode of ‘Friends’ on some channels, More4 or something. Let’s face it, it’s not hard to do. ‘Friends’ was made in 4:3 format so you should have black bands on the left and right of the screen on your widescreen telly. If you do, you’re probably okay. If you don’t then you, or some other git, has stretched your picture to fit the telly and it looks crap.
Set your Sky Box or whatever you have to output in 16:9 format. I don’t know where the setting is, what am I, Handy Andy? Go and bloody find it yourself.
When that’s done, go into your telly settings and set the zoom to ‘Auto Zoom’. Then it will zoom in and out all by itself to give you the optimum viewing experience. It’s worth it. Correctly set widescreen is wonderful and incorrectly set is the exact nemesis of wonderful… whatever that is.
If my instructions are too vague and, yes, of course they bloody are, then do a little internet research or get your son or idiot cousin to sort it out for you. It’ll take them ten seconds and the self-satisfied sneer they will surely impose upon you will be entirely worth it on account of your improved telly-viewing experience.
Go and do it now.
Go on.
I’m waiting…
Don’t get in a huff now, don’t ‘hump off’ with that ‘face’ on you. This is simply the fact of the matter and you might as well face it now as later. So, let’s face it together.
You remember when you all went out and got these widescreen TV’s? Mostly, it must be said, because your old telly blew up in accordance with the laws of built-in-obsolescence and you couldn’t find another square shaped one to replace it. Fine, so here you all are now with your wide screen tellys and my observation is that a considerable percentage of you have not the first feckin’ clue how to use them.
Which is sad, really. I’ve always been in love with the concept of widescreen. We ’see’ in widescreen, after all and the movies have, for the longest time, recognised this fact and given us the marvellous wide experiences which our brains covertly desire. Telly screens were only ever box-shaped on account of technological shortcomings which I won’t go into here mostly because I don’t have a clue what the hell they were. I remember once journeying to Harrods on the strength of a rumour that they had a widescreen television on display there. That wasn’t today or yesterday, I can tell you. Well, let’s be blunt, it was a bloody long time ago. Widescreen has been with us for a long time now yet still the widescreen telly in the corner of your room is not doing what it should be doing and, guess what, it’s all your fault.
Stick around and I’ll tell you why.
I tend to get quite anxious about screen-ratios. It’s definitely one of my foibles. I get upset when the correct proportions are not applied to the film or programme I am watching. I get itchy.
Only yesterday, I was in a fine cinema watching ‘Super 8’. I had made a special journey to see it there and I was excited to do so and very very pleased with what I saw. More on that in a minute. But, before the main feature, the adverts and the trailers where all projected onto the screen in a different ratio to the screen on which they were being shown and I was edgy (really) that the main event was not going to fit the screen. Had that been the case, I would have sought out the projectionist and had a chat with him about it. That’s the kind of thing I tend to do.
While we’re close to the subject, go and see ‘Super 8’. My wife loved it, my kids loved it and I especially loved it. For me, it was a new experience. It was a nostalgia film which was nostalgic for the exact time when I was a teen – the very late seventies. Interestingly though, it’s not nostalgic for that era, as such, rather it is nostalgic for the films of that area. The big Spielberg productions. It nearly made me cry for that very reason. Apart from being a great movie, it was like a validation of my time as a teen, a sort of ‘okay, yeah, you were cool too.’
A lovely lovely film. Go and see.
Now… about those tellys of yours. Here’s where you most likely went wrong.
Back when you got your spanking new widescreen telly, you embraced the concept wholeheartedly, didn’t you? You said, “Right, now we’ve got bloody widescreen, we’re going to have everything in widescreen.” And you twiddled with your telly until everything on it looked widescreen. The trouble was – and still is – that not everything is widescreen. These days, almost everything is but there are still a few throwbacks to the old 4:3 screen ratio of your old Bush (no, ‘Bush’ was a model of TV, missus).
You hated to see any black bands on the side of your screen when a 4:3 ratio programme came on your shiny new telly so you ‘fixed’ them, didn’t you? You zoomed and stretched the picture until the entire tube was filled with glorious widescreen content. But, look carefully, it’s all Kak, isn’t it? That lady's’s right shoulder is twice as wide as his left one and the titles of the programmes are shooting out the side of the telly and into the curtains. Your telly picture looks crap and it’s all your fault.
You can fix this. I’ve done it to three tellys as I mooched around this week. (And when the owners find out they’ll probably kill me). Here, in fairly general terms, is what to do.
First, are your settings actually wrong? Let’s see. Find an old episode of ‘Friends’ on some channels, More4 or something. Let’s face it, it’s not hard to do. ‘Friends’ was made in 4:3 format so you should have black bands on the left and right of the screen on your widescreen telly. If you do, you’re probably okay. If you don’t then you, or some other git, has stretched your picture to fit the telly and it looks crap.
Set your Sky Box or whatever you have to output in 16:9 format. I don’t know where the setting is, what am I, Handy Andy? Go and bloody find it yourself.
When that’s done, go into your telly settings and set the zoom to ‘Auto Zoom’. Then it will zoom in and out all by itself to give you the optimum viewing experience. It’s worth it. Correctly set widescreen is wonderful and incorrectly set is the exact nemesis of wonderful… whatever that is.
If my instructions are too vague and, yes, of course they bloody are, then do a little internet research or get your son or idiot cousin to sort it out for you. It’ll take them ten seconds and the self-satisfied sneer they will surely impose upon you will be entirely worth it on account of your improved telly-viewing experience.
Go and do it now.
Go on.
I’m waiting…
