stupid question regarding my new HDTV and aspect ratio (x post)

[Dominic]

first of all, I've ALWAYS bought widescreen/letterboxed DVDs, as I'm an advocate of seeing a film the way the filmmakers wanted me to see it.

Anyway...my new TV is a widescreen, with an option that lets you change the aspect ratio between:

16:9 standard
16:9 zoom
4:3 standard
4:3 expanded
4:3 zoom1
4:3 zoom2

Now...when I put in a widescreen DVD....say, Kill Bill...the 16:9 standard is both letterboxed and looking a little squeezed. The best of my choices seem to the 4:3 expanded, as I see most of the picture (only a little bit of the right and left edges are cut off) and it fills more of the screen than the 16:9 standard. All the other choices cut off too much of the available frame for my liking.

I guess because most films I'm looking at on DVD seem to have been shot in 2.35:1,, I'm going to see the letterboxing even on my wide screen. The only time I won't is if the film haappened to have been shot in 16:9 - which very few films are.

Am I right? Or am I missing something easy that will fill up my big, beautiful screen???

[Link774]

You are correct. Here's a quote from a wikipedia article:

[ QUOTE ]
The 16:9 format adopted for HDTV is actually narrower than commonly-used cinematic widescreen formats. Anamorphic widescreen (2.39:1) and American theatrical standard (1.85:1) have wider aspect ratios, while the European theatrical standard (1.66:1) is just slightly less.

[/ QUOTE ]
- Link