Plasma TV's - Widescreen Viewing

[97thruhiker]

I'm looking to get a plasma tv this summer.  I was wondering if anyone here has one (or widescreen LCD / Projection) and can tell me about casual tv viewing.  If you are watching regular satellite tv will you have the black bars (4:3 Aspect) on the side of the screen if its not in HD?  Can you make all programming widescreen (16:9)?  If you can make everything you watch in widescreen does it distort the programming to where it is unwatchable? I haven't done much research yet but value the opinions of you guys here.

[chopps]

I have a samsung DLP tv.  I watch everything in widescreen.  If you are really picky you might not like the SLIGHTLY distorted picture, but it doesnt bother me.  IMO it looks better in widescreen than having the black bars on the side that I would in 4:3 mode.   

[AtomSmasher]

If your watching 4:3 on a 16:9 screen you have two options, have black bars on both sides or stretch the image out.  Most people I've seen just stretch the image out to take the whole screen, its still watchable, just adds about 20 lbs to everyone, and just makes things look a little funky.  Personally I hate watching it stretched out and prefer having the black bars.

[Hurray Banana]

I've got a sony 32" LCD

for 4:3 viewing you can have:

black bars
Smart stretch which loses some picture at top and bottom then progressively stretches the picture from the centre out so the main part of the image isn't too distorted
or a couple of zoom modes which don't stretch but force the top an bottom of the picture off.

You get used to certain programs being stretched, I find that most of the time stretch is ok, if it bothers you on certain programs just flick the TV to 4:3 with black bars, you tend to not notice them after a while.

Most TV's at least do zoom modes.