Plasma TV: Wide Screen

Aspect Ratio

The widescreen aspect ratio of 16:9 for plasma television was so designed originally to match human eye’s natural field of vision. The widescreen in a plasma TV enables us to view a movie in the format intended for by the maker of the movie. The HDTV content is best displayed through this format of 16:9 aspect ratio irrespective of the type of broadcast.

Scaling Techniques

A computer image or a TV programme has the standard ratio of 4:3. A plasma television has the ability of scaling the images suitably so that the joy of watching is not lost. The incoming video signal is required to match the 16:9 native aspect ratio of plasma and to achieve that scaling of images, several algorithms are used. The plasma screen converts in varying degrees of quality a 4:3 image to widescreen monitor. The scaling is done in various ways like making the image larger than screen size and then cutting the edges or confining the stretching to the centre of the screen, etc. The possibility of distortion of image is eliminated by effecting maximum stretching only on the edges of the image through such scaling techniques. Incoming 4:3 standard pictures from cable TV, satellite, etc. can thus be displayed by the plasmas in various ways like bars on sides or the most preferred zoom mode where the full screen can be covered with the image with little or no distortion. The zoom mode however may cause grainy appearance on a image and distortion in image motion due to too much pruning of the image around the edges.

Best Option

The best option for conversion of a 4:3 image adopted by most plasma manufacturers but in different names is called the “Full” or “Just” mode. This algorithm for conversion by use of combination of techniques eliminates stretching to such an extent as to make it not noticeable. This technique employs very little cropping of the image and confining the stretch distortion to the outer edges of the image.