I have a few questions regarding the visible display on a widescreen TV under different circumstances. Using cable (analog) as my source, what exactly will I see ( by 'see' I mean will there be blank space above/below , will the screen be filled, will I see more detail than on a 4:3 screen for the same program)on the screen when:
1. watching The Today show or live sports
2. watching The Sopranos on HBO in widescreen format
3. watching a rental tape movie
4. watching a DVD
5. any other sources
The TV would have the ability to switch formats such as Sony calls it "Enhanced" or some other catch phrase.
I hope I made myself clear-if not, advise.

As a 16x9 owner who communicates with many others through the net, I think I can safely generalize in saying we don't use our sets for NTSC or VHS sources. Watching Katie on a 30" DirectView is one thing, on a 56" screen - don't go there.

Most RPTV's today have all kinds of "Stretch" modes so that you can fill the screen with NTSC image material. Forget VHS entirely - 480 lines interlaced(240 lines rastered every 1/60 sec.) doesn't cut it, stick with DVD - 480 lines progressive(480 lines rastered every 1/60 sec.) is acceptable for a widescreen.

What these sets are made for is HDTV. At 8ft away from a 56" screen, the 1080 interlaced line pictures are gorgeous. Soprano's look twice as threatening in 16x9 format.

All RPTV's can display NTSC, SDTV and HDTV. The SONY "enhanced" I believe is called DRC, where they take formats that are generating less than 1080i and scale those lower resolutions up to 960i. This is reported to give a better looking picture than the original source resolution one.

To see what some low resolution capture images of HDTV on a Widescreen set check: [Link: members.home.net]

Thanks for the reply. I was looking for answers to my questions though, and not to the quality of the picture.That part is a given as my source is cable.

Okay, with a stretch mode capable RPTV, as an example the new Toshiba 50hx81 your options 1-4 would all be viewable as full screen. No black bars. I am not sure what you mean by option 5. Since you are using the same source signal in 4:3 mode as 16x9 you would not see any more detail in 16x9 mode. Also when scaling an originally sourced 4:3 signal the stretch modes will change the geometry going to 16x9, an example people might look a little compressed. But most people acclimate to this very easily. If the stretch mode does some scaling and also lops some of the sides of the image you may not get this compressed effect at all, just as if you had "zoomed" into the image.