Ok, I have a 17" widescreen laptop and whatever the Aspect ratio is of whatever dvd I'm watching always seams to fill the screen out perfectly without any ugly stretching. Given at times I've either got black bars on the sides or just the top, but not both and no stretching. But I've just got a 40" 1080p lcd hdtv and when ever I watch anything that isn't exactly cut for a 16:9 it stretches the image to leave no black bars at all but still distorting the image like a smeared photo. And with a 4:3 video it either stretches that outrageously or leaves it in the center of the screen like a little square with black bars all around it top, bottom, and on the left and right sides. And I've searched the net and people just say get use to it, but what I'm asking is why the hell cant an expensive ass hdtv work video as easily as my widescreen laptop? I've also got a tvtuner card on my laptop and if the digital transmission is widescreen it goes widescreen and if the transmission isn't widescreen then it's just the sides that go black, again without any stretching or black bars surrounding the 4:3 image. What the hell?
Well I guess you are just ranting. Seems you bought the wrong 'expensive ass hdtv'. Although not automatic at times, my Panasonic plasmas easily adjust to all sources.
