Widescreen Premium a Rip-Off??

Hi Willaim, Depending on the size of your TV tube, widescreen DVD movies can begin to look quite small "letterboxed" across a conventional 4:3 aspect screen. Some companies, like Loewe's Aconda 16:9 TV, allow you to adjust the aspect ratio so that conventional 4:3 broadcasts don't looked squashed. Some do it better than other's, so audition the sets you are considering and judge for yourself. I personally like a 16:9 aspect ratio screen better. The problem with Loewe TV's is that they are not truly compatible with progressive scan DVD players (see earlier posts). I've seen people use a p.scan DVD player with a S-video hookup to the Aconda Loewe, S-video "outputs" 480i, so the Aconda's internal p.scan converts the signal to 480p. The same process would take place if you were using a conventional DVD player. Loewe's component video inputs don't accept a progressive scan signal from a p.scan DVD player. Though Loewe's sets will accept a P.scan DVD player's output through it's RGB input, P.scan DVD players don't use RGB outputs. I believe you could use a $350 transcoder to make this connection work, but it's a "work- around" that could futher degrade the picture quality. Panasonic makes a widescreen direct view TV(Tau CT-34WX50) that seems to be more compatible with what might come our way, but I think the Loewe Aconda has a slightly better picture and much better sound! Good Luck.

I have never looked back after switching to my Toshiba 40" widescreen. I find my movie viewing to be more important than my tv viewing, by far. Don't talk yourself out of it, 16X9 is wonderful. You will forget all about 4X3 watching in about an hour after getting a widescreen tv. Good luck either way.

I much prefer watching movies in widescreen format. Just use a dvd with both formats on it and see which one you prefer. One other thing to keep in mind even if buying a 16x9 setup is that a lot of movies are done in 2.35 to 1 aspect ratio which means you will still have small black bars top and bottom. Easy to adjust to and well worth it not to have to use 4x3.