I have a 46″ Samsung LCD HDTV (LN46A750R1FXZC) that looks pretty nice when viewing HDTV content. Like most HDTV's, they don't show Standard Definition signals that well due to their high resolution. It seems to me that you should be able to adjust the resolution so it will display lower resolution images clearly without stretching them out, like on a computer display. What gives?

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Answer:
Lets state your TV has a resolution of 1280×720

A standard def signal is 720×480; if you don't scale it, then you’ll see the signal in a small square in the middle of the screen!

The square will be even smaller for 1080p TV. I don't think you purchased a 46″ TV to have half the screen black.

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Answer:
You need to keep the aspect ratio the same as the content and not stretch a 4:3 image out to 16:9, which will make everyone look short and fat. This will necessarily result in black space at both sides of your widescreen 16:9 display, but that's unavoidable if you want to display the image properly.

I would expect that, over time, you'll see more and more content being produced in widescreen. But there will still be old Television shows that’ll have to be displayed with black spaces at the side.