Annual BBC RBS tests

What doesn't help is a lot of TV's also crop off the overscan area, effectively making the black bars too big and the picture starting to look too thin.

Ideally, Sky will add a 16:9 Pillarbox option to the aspect ratio list. especially on the HD boxes. I'm sure Virgin boxes have such an option.

Perhaps you could post some sketches, because I don't follow at all what you mean ?

When I watch analogue on my Panasonic CRT 16:9 television, the picture is slightly stretched width-wise but I'd rather have that than big fat black bars. When I watch on digital, however, the picture ends up being too tall although at least I can cut it down a bit by setting the television to the 16:9 setting.

Basically, the idea is that it would work the same way as 4:3 Letterbox, so that when 4:3 programming is on, the box will pillarbox it so it is 4:3 in a 16:9 frame.

Yes - it has an annoying feature to have missing. Most US HD boxes have it...

(And why do Sky Sports not pillarbox their 4:3 SD content - Sky One, C4HD and Artsworld do...)

Yes, letterbox as it's known on here.

I think he's referring to watching a 4:3 show on a 16:9 HD set. Therefore pillarbox is correct

Yep - pillarbox is black bands at the side, letterbox are black bands at the top.

Oh apologies, thought they were the same.

No Pillarbox is where you add bars to the left and right to fill the frame, letterbox is where you add bars top and bottom to fill the frame.

There is also a term called Window box, Postage stamp or "floating" where you Pillarbox a signal that has been already letterboxed and end up with a small image in the middle of the screen with black all the way round.

If you watch UKTV or analogue channels on a widescreen TV in 4:3 mode the signal is pillarboxed. However if the channel is carrying widescreen material it is often letterboxed to 14:9 or 16:9, so you end up with pillarbox bars on the left and right, and letterbox bars above and below - and thus get a postage stamp or window box...

Carlton Cinema used to broadcast 4:3 programming on ONdigital in a pillarboxed 16:9 signal. Was bloody annoying, especially as my box was set to letterbox by default.

So if you're using your set-top box to watch the boxing on the box on Boxing Day and you want to see a letterbox picture don't choose the pillarbox because if you have a window box it's letterboxed and pillar boxed?