Digital TV – Widescreen

Most digital broadcasts from the BBC and the other main broadcasters are now in widescreen format. If you watch these on a widescreen TV set, the picture fills the whole screen.

If you watch digital programmes on a standard TV, there are two ways of displaying widescreen pictures without distortion:

• Letterbox mode shows the full width of the picture. This means there are black bands at the top and bottom of the screen because the picture is not high enough to fill the screen.
• Centre cut-out mode shows the full height of the picture. This means that the centre of the picture fills the screen but the edges of the widescreen image are cut off.

To change from one mode to the other, you can alter the viewing options on your digital receiver. Please see your receiver's manual for details.

Some digital programmes are in 4:3 format, such as old programmes from the archive. This also happens with, for example, sports coverage from outside the UK where the local host broadcaster is not yet able to deliver widescreen programmes.

On a standard TV set, a programme in 4:3 format may have a black border around the picture. To make the picture fill the screen you can change the viewing options of your set-top box to '4:3 full screen' rather than '4:3 letterbox'. For more details, please see your manual.

On a widescreen set, the 4:3 picture will have black bands on both sides of the screen.