No full widescreen on HD broadcasts

Hello

If you are watching television and you see black lines on the left and right sides of the screen, check to see if you are watching an HD broadcast or a standard definition broadcast. You can do this by bringing up the TV guide menu on your remote. If the show is in HD, it should take up the full screen. However, if it is not HD, bars will be present on the left and right of the screen. That is because standard definition programing is in 4x3, which will not take up the entire screen.

If the picture you are watching not only has black bars on the sides, but on the tops and bottoms of the screen as well, your "Zoom" mode has somehow gotten off-kilter. Press the "Zoom" button on the remote until the image appears correct. If this does not work, power down the television, wait a few moments, and power the TV back on. The image should be correct now.

If the image on the screen looks stretched or squished, this is because your HD cable receiver is not set up properly for your widescreen television. Press the "Menu" button on the receiver

There are a few picture sizes out there 4:3, 16:9, as well as some for movie screens. New televisions are 16:9 and when you are watching a true HD program, it will fill the screen perfectly. However the program may be broadcast in one of the other formats. This results in the bars on top/ bottom or on the sides. This is true for commercials too. If the commercial is or isn't in HD will determine if there are bars or not. All this is normal operation.

This is a function of your set-top box (STB), and has nothing to do with the TV. I know several FiOS users with the same trouble, and it's annoying but there isn't anything you can do to "fix" it. What is really strange is that the screen size can change even on the same channel, depending on the particular program being broadcast. It has to do with the aspect ratio of the programming from the provider.

Not all programs are broadcast in HD yet. The picture should fill the screen if it is broadcast in HD. The TV will shrink the picture of a SD broadcast to give you a correct picture aspect. SD is broadcast in 16:9 and HD in Widescreen

Hope this explains it.
Kaufman605

Look on Amazon for a pattern dedicated remote for your tv. They aren't expensive and will allow you to access the set's menus.

try adjusting the aspect ratio. on widescreen movies or shows you will still get the black bands on the top and bottom. if you play with the aspect ratio you can sometimes get rid of it

Sorry, you didn't provide enougb information for anyone to accurately answer your question. The most important thing you omiited was the nature of your video source. If anyone does answer this, I assure you it will be a wild guess. Here's my wild guess:

Your HDTV has a widescreen aspect ratio of 16:9. For every 16 units of width, there are 9 units of height. That ratio matches the exact ratio used in widescreen television broadcasting. However, most feature films (movies) on DVD have an aspect ratio of 2.35:1 or even wider than that. These films will display with horizontal black bars at the top and the bottom, so that you can see the full image. Unless you choose to use one of your TV or your DVD player's options to zoom or crop the image, the bars are 'correct' and there's nothing wrong.

Another possibility is that you have not configured your video source, such as a DVD player, to 'know' that you have a widescreen TV. Nearly all DVD players ship configured to output using a NON-widescreen aspect ratio, so you must adjust this setting using your player's setup menu. The same is true for most cable boxes and satellite receivers.

Finally, just because your TV is widescreen, the video source itself may not be. Most standard-definition broadcasts are NOT widescreen, for example.

If you re-post your question with adequate information about which video source exhibits this problem, I'm sure you will get much more specific and helpful answers.

Depending on the manufacturer of the cable box, there will be a menu somewhere regarding aspect ratio using the terms - cropped, zoom, and a few other terms as well. You probably want cropped, which will cut some of the sides off, but you wouldn't miss the picture as a whole when view at full screen. Hope this helps!

in order to get the full HD experience you should be using HDMI cables. if you're using the white/red/yellow cables then your HD channels will not broadcast in full HD and you'll be stuck with the annoying black things around your screen

If you have black panel os sides the picture is not HD. Not allways the HD broadcasting have HD shows. The advertising for example is not HD. Check the picture size in the tv to be "allonged" and play with the screen size with your cable box remote. Usually is # button.
From what I know LC42D62U has no TV Guide feature.