Got this new lcd tv and am thinking it has some nice hidden features

[Syco54645]

Well, it may be just me, but as an early xmas gift from my gf's parents we got a 19" lcd tv (trutech brand, bought on black friday). I must say that the video is quite good as is the colour. The only bad thing about it is the speakers... they are very quiet and cannot be made loud enough (nothing that a nice receiver and some extra speakers wont fix) and the remote sucks. Well the remote only kinda sucks(more on this later). At first glimpse, the tv appears to be wide screen, but there is in fact a black bezel around the outside of the screen (basically where the widescreen's screen would be if the top and bottom were cut off a bit). Now for the fun stuff. On the remote there is a button labeled format. Being inquisitive (and not reading the manual) I pushed this button. Well to my joy it stretched the picture to take up the area outside of the actual viewable area (under the bezel). Upon trying this button more and more, it appears to be the stretch feature of all widescreen tvs to stretch the standard 4:3 screen size up. Upon trying this with a widescreen dvd, much to my disappointment, it only stretched it wider, not higher. At first I was thinking that there is more screen under the bezel and old target just decided to slap that bezel on there so that they can make, in essence, one model. One with a 4:3 bezel and one with the widescreen bezel, but now i am not so sure that is the case (because of the actual dvds not stretching their height and their ar getting all out of whack). In the manual it says that specific button is used to select the picture format. I know, its a lot of help.

If anyone has one of these tvs and is going to use it rather than sell it, i would very much like to know your thoughts on this matter. Heck, even if you dont have it, i would still like to see what you have to say.

-Syco54645

[Syco54645]

i should also note that this only happens when it is on composite video (well, not that i have tested it on anything but composite and component). Also if what i say seems a little outlandish, companies do this all the time. Check out most sony md players... most can output to spdif, they just lack the $5 part to do it. Some video cards, cdroms, etc can be flashed to be better models too (ati video cards come to mind... as does the xbox360 drive)

[BJ_M]

they use the same panel for pal and ntsc ... but it is not wide screen ...


unless they are using defective wide screens ... and there a LOT of those on those cheap brands ive seen lately

[Syco54645]

ahhh ok. i could personally care less as we are poor college students and this just made our room less cluttered, and have a nice conversation piece... not to mention an awesome tv!