Gawl Dang!!! Vertical Bars on LG Plasma HDTV

[GMaq]

Hi,
Recently got a LG 42PC3D HDTV, generally I'm very pleased with the picture quality etc, However when I view anything from an outside source DVD (fullscreen movies), iPod, VCR etc if the source is in 4:3 AR the TV shows vertical grey (not black) bars along the left and right sides. I realize this is only way to accurately display 4:3 but why on God's green earth would the bars be grey??? I've consulted the manual and obviously gone through the Display Menu several thousand times, When I watch satellite (Star Choice HD)it automatically corrects the picture to the Source AR with Black bars (not grey). Can anything other than Zooming (Yecch!) be done to correct this problem?? The grey bars are VERY distracting. Thanks

PS: edDV this has you written all over it!

[bmiller]

You have to set your tv to do one of the stretch modes.Some do it better than others my Toshiba DLP does it so well in theatre wide 1 mode no one has even noticed.

[adam]

I read the manual and under the aspect ratio section it says that when in 4:3 mode the tv will display grey vertical bars. I don't think there is anyway to customize it. I've heard of some tvs doing this as well, I have no idea why.

Btw, these vertical bars are called pillar boxes, not that this helps you any.

[GMaq]

You have to set your tv to do one of the stretch modes.Some do it better than others .

Firstly, Thanks for the replies, The stretch modes are OK but with VHS, VCD's, iPods etc they don't do the high compression sources any favours,

Pillar Boxes eh??? Thanks adam for at least upgrading my terminology skills, maybe I should run down to the hardware store, buy some curtain rods and have my wife sew some attractive black curtains for those "special" 4:3 movies.

[edDV]

Pillar Boxes eh??? Thanks adam for at least upgrading my terminology skills, maybe I should run down to the hardware store, buy some curtain rods and have my wife sew some attractive black curtains for those "special" 4:3 movies.

That is exactly what your local theater does when showing "academy" aspect movies



You can buy projection screens for home theaters with motorized masks.
http://www.loyola.com/av/products/projection/dalite_multimask.html

[GMaq]

edDV I knew you'd be all over this!!!

[SingSing]

The gray color is chosen to reduced long term burn in look. If LG uses black instead, and the TV is used to show mostly 4:3 video. The Plasma cells on both side will be much brigher, in 16:9 program, compare with the screen center which is subjected to long term burned out.

[adam]

Ahh, that makes sense.

[zzyzzx]

The gray color is chosen to reduced long term burn in look. If LG uses black instead, and the TV is used to show mostly 4:3 video. The Plasma cells on both side will be much brigher, in 16:9 program, compare with the screen center which is subjected to long term burned out.

Exactly what I was thinking also.

[GKar]

The gray color is chosen to reduced long term burn in look. If LG uses black instead, and the TV is used to show mostly 4:3 video. The Plasma cells on both side will be much brigher, in 16:9 program, compare with the screen center which is subjected to long term burned out.

Applies to my Hitachi 51F59 CRT Rear Projection TV for same reasons though different technology.

[TooLFooL]

i have 51" sony rear-projection and those freakin' grey bars burned themselves right into the screen...

[ricoman]

i have 51" sony rear-projection and those freakin' grey bars burned themselves right into the screen...

I never heard of that before on a rear projection tv. I have a 50" Sony LCD rear projection tv and have noticed no such problem. I would be interested to know if anyone else has had this problem with anything else but an older plasma. It was my understanding that they had corrected this problem with newer plasmas.

[bmiller]

Rear projection crt's,the first generation widescreen tv's were notorious for that.Lcd and plasma can have the same problem,but it takes much longer and is not as harsh.Dlp's use tiny mirrors,so it isn't a problem with them.Lcd and plasma tv's should be ok unless you watch them with blck bars on them all the time.
We have lcd monitors at work,and i've seen them after a year with bad burn in.They also run 24 hrs a day 7 days a week with the same display.

[GKar]

i have 51" sony rear-projection and those freakin' grey bars burned themselves right into the screen...

I read that to avoid the burning you had to limit your 4:3 viewing time to 15% of total time viewed. (applied to my TV but apparently yours and others as well...great! now they tell you , this applies unless 4:3 aspect was changed to stretched or zoomed...yuck )

This really sucks as a Star Trek/Lexx/Farscape fan as they are mostly 4:3, fortunately the upconvert player/hdmi combo sends a 1080i 16:9 signal to my TV so the effects are drastically reduced by nearly filling the TV without the grey bars or burn in problem without stretch or zoom modes being used. yay! (default grey bars set to black automatically, apparently grey isn't needed due to screen area covered is sufficient for burn in not to be a problem.)

[TooLFooL]

i bought mine about 3-4 years ago...
yeah my thoughts were, "why would a feature of the tv harm itself?", but i was wrong! ive gotten used to looking at people 'wide' now. the bars have faded a little, but they are still there.

also, i would believe they would indeed burn into a plasma screen, wouldn't they?

[yoda313]

Dlp's use tiny mirrors,so it isn't a problem

So are dlp's immune to any form of burn in?

[BJ_M]

yes - they dont have burnin like some lcd , crt and plasma


many older plasma can burn in an image in just one day or LESS

[FulciLives]

I have a 51" 16x9 HDTV Hitachi CRT Rear Projection unit and it also does GREY on either side of a 4:3 image BUT I do have the option to make it black instead of grey. However I have decided to leave it grey as that is supposedly better than making it black. Grey being better as in less chance of burn in.

Personally I can't stand watching 4:3 stretched to fit 16x9 although my TV does have a "4:3 ZOOM 1" mode that enlarges the 4:3 image proportinatly to fill the 16x9 TV screen. I use that mode sometimes when watching 4:3 letterboxed programs which are popular on THE HISTORY CHANNEL for instance which on my cable system is always 4:3 but often letterboxed. So with the "4:3 ZOOM 1" mode it just blows the image up so it fits the 16x9 screen from left to right and cuts off the top and bottom which is OK if you are watching 4:3 letterboxed images because then you aren't missing anything (although often times the channel logo is part in the black and part in the picture so it gets cut off but who cares). Another plus to this method is that nothing is stretched at all which is something I cannot stand.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[GMaq]

Hi All,
As I said at the beginning of the post, the grey or "gray" pillar boxes only show up with DVD and iPod, you guys are telling me then that the fact that the Satellite Box displays black pillar boxes is even worse? AAAAAHHH! I agree with FulciLives, 4:3 smeared across 16:9 just ain't natural!! If I can only watch 4:3 15% of the time I better start encoding movies 15% 4:3 and the rest 16:9!

[GKar]

Dlp's use tiny mirrors,so it isn't a problem

So are dlp's immune to any form of burn in?

No, but the fans will die (followed by the circuit boards they cool because of the extra heat), the spinning wheels will die..too many moving parts, I'll stick to crt rear projection.

[GKar]

I am just a worthless liar,
I am just an imbecil

Ahhh, a fellow tool freak....yeah

[TooLFooL]

hell yeah ogt baby!

[sorinicu]

No, but the fans will die (followed by the circuit boards they cool because of the extra heat), the spinning wheels will die..too many moving parts, I'll stick to crt rear projection.

And the CRT cathode (electron guns) will loose the emitting power, the phosphor on the screen can be burned-in like any plasma... No way to win this war
I am leaning towards the new mirror-projectors from Mitsubishi with 6 colors on the flywheel. The fans and bulb can be replaced easy. And I guess eventally the flywheel will last as long as a hard-drive spining motor (and those can last years and years, I have one HDD from 15 yrs ago still working).

[SingSing]

the CRT cathode (electron guns) will loose the emitting power, the phosphor on the screen can be burned-in like any plasma... No way to win this war

CRT's burn in problem is next to non-existing, due to improvement of targeted chemistry and design effort.

[neomaine]

I knew that plasma had the burn in problem, but, I thought that LCD was virtually imune from this problem. Its one of the main reasons (besdies power consumption) I bought my 42" LCD.

We still watch a fair amount of 4:3 programing and play a good amount of video games on it as well. Both things notirious for not choosing plasma or many rear projections, lcd rear projection being the esception.

[SingSing]

From what I read, LCD is not immune to screen burn. The LCD changes color by twisting, if the pixel is twisted on for long period of time to disaply a single color, that pixel will have one of these issues : stuck on, sluggish in on/off, or a permanent pre-twist.

I did not know how serve these are ?

The most common LCD issue is still dead pixel, which can happened on all cell based displays, such as DLP, Plasma, and Light ampilifier.

[Maks]

What are the 3rd-party devices that can effectively remove the issue of those horrible Grey pillarboxes, perhaps by converting the 4:3 programming to 16:9 with Black pillars? Can I run the RF signal thru an upconverting DVD receorder/Player to eliminate bars? Help.............

I just got a Samsung HP-S5053 for my SD Cable service and I love the quality of its 4:3 mode- we mostly watch 4:3 programming and would continue to do so, even if we opted for HD service with its smattering of HD channels that we're not overly interested in.

We bought the set for size-- but can't stand watching the Grey Bars. Also- we've explored all the built -in options: strectching 4:3 to 16:9, or the two zoom functions are just horrible compared to the normal 4:3 look.

Any ideas?

[GMaq]

Maks,
If you can set your Cable Box for 16:9 Display it will show your 4:3 programming with Black pillar Boxes instead of Grey, if you have a Plasma TV this will make the burn-in issue worse because of the contrast of the black pillar boxes versus the grey

[FulciLives]

Perhaps you already checked for this but my 16x9 HDTV defaults to grey bars on the sides of 4:3 material but in the TV menu there is an option to change it to black instead of grey.

So if you haven't checked your TV yet maybe you have the same option.

If not ... just get used to the grey. It didn't take me long to do so.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[Maks]

Thanks, Guys. I can't keep this set if it means grey pillars only in 4:3, which on this 50" Samsung comes out to 40" diagonal. I will ask if a new HD-capable cable box can output 16x9 on it, as you suggest. I may be SOL in terms of Samsung's menus for turning Grey into Black-- but I will recheck and hopefully I overlooked it. They must be nuts to think folks would be happy with grey-- makes me think burn-in is way more serious than advertised. I do know they ask in the manual to curtail 4:3 viewing to a small percentage of total viewing.

apresheateit,

Maks