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Thursday, January 02, 2003

By Don Lindich

Q: My husband and I want a 48-inch television. We have been told so many different things by salesmen we are totally confused. We were told that if we buy the 48" regular screen HDTV there will be black bands at the top and bottom when everyone goes all digital. We don't want that -- we won't even watch those strip movies when they are on. Then we were told the wide screens will not have as good an analog picture. Any enlightenment you can provide will be more than appreciated. Actually, if you can just tell me what to buy that would be great.

-- Carol West, St. Joseph, Mo.

A:You are not alone when it comes to being confused. The ongoing transition to digital HDTV has made buying a television much more complicated than it once was.

The black bands are caused by differences in picture aspect ratio. The NTSC analog television system we are used to is a 4:3 aspect ratio, which means for every four units of width, there are three units of height. The new HDTV television system is designed around a wide screen 16:9 ratio. Because of the difference in aspect ratios, watching a 16:9 HDTV signal on a television with a 4:3 aspect ratio yields bands above and below the picture. Watching a 4:3 signal on a 16:9 TV yields bands to the left and right sides. Sorry to be the one to tell you this, but you are going to have bands in your future no matter what TV you buy, unless you buy an expensive front projection system. The full transition to HDTV is scheduled for 2007, but because much of the programming we will be watching was recorded on the old system, there will always be bands no matter what aspect ratio TV you buy. If you watch a rerun of an old sitcom on your 16:9 TV after the digital transition is complete, you will have bands on the sides. If you watch an HDTV show on a 4:3 TV, you will have bands top and bottom.

When you say that a wide screen TV will not have as good of an analog picture, this may be partially true, but it does not have anything to do with analog vs. digital. For example, a DVD player uses digital technology to produce an analog NTSC signal, and you will find that DVDs on a 16:9 HDTV look fantastic. Picture quality issues are usually the aspect ratio differences causing problems again. Watching 4:3 TV broadcasts on the wide screen, you have to stretch or expand the image to fully fill the screen to protect the picture tubes from damaging burn-in. Stretching causes distortion, and expanding means the top and bottom of the picture is cut off and resolution is lower. If you watch the 4:3 show with the side bands, the picture should look very good, but you run the risk of damaging the picture tubes due to burn-in if you watch with the side bands more than 15 percent of the time.

Most people find side bands less irritating than top and bottom bands. I can't tell you exactly what to buy, but based on your strong dislike of the top and bottom bands, if you buy a 4:3 TV now you will probably be very unhappy in 2007 when most programming is in 16:9 HDTV and you find everything to look like a "strip movie." I'd recommend you consider a good wide screen model and watch 4:3 programming in expand mode most of the time, with side bands for your favorite shows.