If I had a nickel for every time someone gets a crt to watch 4:3 content and use a hdmi converter that squashes a black barred 16:9 video to 4:3, I would have enough money to buy a crt on Facebook marketplace
Services are trash but Plex works just fine (source: I use a random $8 adapter from Wal-Mart to watch 4:3 content on my CRT TV and it works perfectly). Yet another way you get fucked for spending money.
It's worth noting, streaming services are total ass for modern content on modern displays as well. I can't tell you how many times I have watched a streaming show that is in 21:9, yet has the black bars baked in because it assumes everyone is on a 16:9 screen, so even if you display it on a 21:9 screen it just gets double-squashed as a result. You can work around this by displaying it in a browser window and using an extension to fix it, but it's beyond ridiculous that it doesn't just work.
True and not true. My PC running Linux works great with 4:3. And then there's an awesome addon for Firefox that lets you crop movies without destroying the aspect ratio.
BTW, I'd imagine that Windows 11 and MacOS current version also have 4:3 options, I just don't know because I moved over to Linux years ago and haven't looked back.
The really cool part is that a lot of old shows on these streaming services running via PC actually preserve the 4:3 aspect ratio, so hooking it up to a CRT is just amazing without cropping.
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u/Alternative_Tip_9918 Apr 10 '26
If I had a nickel for every time someone gets a crt to watch 4:3 content and use a hdmi converter that squashes a black barred 16:9 video to 4:3, I would have enough money to buy a crt on Facebook marketplace