@MightyQuinn wrote:
Hi @Royf59 What resolution have you set on the Sky Q box? You will probably find that you can only change the aspect ratio on the Sony by choosing 1080l/p on the Sky Q box. Sony lied to you, you can only alter the aspect ratio on a TV. I personally haven't played with aspect ratios since the 1990s. I prefer to watch films etc. the way the director wanted us to view it.
@Royf59
As @MightyQuinn says you won't be able to change any aspect ratio if the resolution is set to 2160p as that is a fixed ratio of 16:9
Most Tvs will allow you to play with aspect ratio in HD mode but note the actual signal from the HD channels is usually still 16:9 - the broadcaster adds the black bars to older 4:3 SD programmes to maintain the correct aspect ratio.
The problem of course is that 4:3 signals don't fit 16:9 TVs so there a few choices available - the one used is to maintain orginal screen ratio and add the bars either side to fill the 16:9 screen.
The others that the TV may allow is to stretch the image sideways to fill the screen - this can be a uniform stretch which can be very noticeable or a more gradual stretch that leaves the centre fairly untouched but streches the edges even more .
An alternative is to zoom where the TV will fill the screen sideways but end up loosing the top & bottom of the image
We used to have the flip to this in the days of 4:3 TVs and films produced in 16:9 or wider -in those days the braodcasters often used a thing called Pan & scan where they zoomed the image and lost part of the image at the sides but would 'pan' to make sure the main action was included (e.g. sometimes the position chosen would be at one side rather than the middle). Again as an alternative they would add black bars top & bottom to allow all the image to be seen. This letterboxing was probably more used in Europe than here.
Personally I have always preferred to see the image in original ratio format with black bars added when needed.
