Setting up your TVLetterbox format

Pre-recorded videos, some DVDs and some films on TV are in ‘letterbox’ format. On a conventional TV, there are visible black bands at the top and bottom of the picture.

Most widescreen TVs have a zoom that expands a letterbox picture to fill the screen reasonably accurately. But many films are made in ratios other than 16:9 (e.g. 2.35:1, which is ‘very widescreen’), so it’s not always possible to get an exact fit.