Stretch mode on Plasma for SD

[omeletpants]

I'm cosidering the Samsung HPS4253 but don't want to deal with stretch modes on SD. The manual and salesperson says it's required. But with the gray sidebars and pixel shift (Samasung feature) is it really required?

 

[Cold Irons]

Don't know why it would be "required" - assume this is to avoid burn-in, but if you watch a lot of HD & use the grey sidebars on SD, I think you'll be OK. The first thing to do when you get it is to calibrate the TV so that the contrast/brightness is not set too high.

I pretty much never use Stretch mode on my 50" Panisonic Plasma - I hate the resulting distortion of the picture.

 

[waltinvt]

Some TVs have a special combination stretch / crop mode that's much better than those on the Dish receivers. It uses some kind of algorithm that combines a slight crop with a little stretch at the edges to convert 4:3 to 16:9. The distortion is hardly noticable - nothing like the receiver's stretch mode.

It's by no means perfect but many prefer it to side bars. Where you will notice some distortion is at the scrolling banners, like on the news channels. The letter pitch of words increases near the edges.