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Widescreen TVs - What's with the Gray bars?
6 Oct 2006 03:44:04 -0700
rec.arts.tv
previous
videonovels...
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Whenever I see an old "square" 4:3 show or movie on a widescreen set,
its displayed with gray bars on the left and right.
Why gray?
That's incredibly annoying on the eyes. Why don't the TV-makers
program the set to use black bars (i.e. turned-off pixels on an
LCD/plasma display)? Using gray makes no sense.
Larry Bud...
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To prevent or reduce burn-in. The idea is that grey will be the
"average" in phosphor usage, while black would be none.
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neil...
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must be your TV. I always see black bars. Try adjusting your contrast.
videonovels...
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Actually, it's not just my TV. "Aldo Pignatti" posted in the other
widescreen thread, that his wide-tv shows gray bars on the left &
right. And at Sears, I've sampled their wide-tvs and they too show
gray bars.
It's not something you can eliminate through adjusting contrast. It's
a *bright* gray... it's always there.
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~consul...
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It can be broadcasted that way as well. KCAL 9 does that for some of their tv shows. I
think they use grey instead of 'no pixels' for the folks who have Plasma, which needs to
have something on screen to prevent burn-on/out. I believe that there is some sort of life
expectancy with the plasma pixal use, so they want them all to burn out at the same time
instead of in chunks, and so some broadcasters help out with this with the grey bar broadcast.
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Rich Clark...
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It's to reduce burn-in; there is less contrast between gray and the average
value of the colors in the picture than there is between black and the
picture. Plasma screens are particularly prone to burn-in, and if you watch
a lot of 4:3 material on them you'll start to see a ghost of the black bars
after relatively few hours.
Most, but not all, sets have options to change the bars from gray or dark
gray to black, at your own risk.
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pepsi...
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Gray bars, black bars, what's the difference as long as you can get a
beer and play some pool?
Howard Brazee...
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Was it "Fun with Dick and Jane", where they accidentally pick a black
bar?
edrhodes...
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Yes. Great sequence! (Was it in the version? I only saw the old
one.)
Howard Brazee...
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