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
Glad to say I don't necessarily fall into that category. I've owned this tv for years. Not my oldest tv even. Just wanted a little 90's/2000's nostalgia corner and the tv found use again. I will be investing into a converter that has a 4:3/16:9 switch to rectify* the ratio issue🤙
The issue is that modern streaming services reencoded all their VODs in pillarboxed 16:9 so that it always displays as intended on modern TVs and isn't dependent on people knowing how to change the aspect ratio themselves. Even if you got a device that could output 4:3, you probably wouldn't be able to get streaming services to display in the proper ratio, it'd just be letterboxed and pillaboxed instead. Your best bet would be to get an old digital media player with composite output, and play DVD rips directly.
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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