I am thinking of buying a Sony KF60XBR800 television set.

Does the Sony KF60XBR800 screen, show all television reception in the
proper perspective?

I have seen wide screens that stretch out the picture, to the point of
poor perspective.

Also, I have seen wide screens that cut off part of the left and the
right side of the picture, in order to show proper perspective.

Hello clicker5,

I can tell you that this is an excellent tv set. I was looking over
television sets at a retail store and this model was one of the ones
that I saw. The picture quality at the store of a tv feed was
splended.

In the specifications, I found this bit: " Wide Modes (Normal/Full
/Zoom/Wide Zoom)" Source: http://www.sonystyle.com (dynamic URL)

You can certainly stretch out the picture to wide screen, but this
would not be the default setup and would cause the picture to look
funny.

See this page: http://ciscweb.sel.sony.com/scripts/web_access.cgi?FUNC=SOLUTION_DETAIL&SOL_ID=1670009078

FULL: As you can see, you can fill up the screen (which would have the
effect of stretching the picture out horizontally and keep the
vertical picture as is.
____________
|           |
|<--------->|
|___________|


WIDE ZOOM: As you can see in the picture below, wide zoom would fill
the horizontal, but would lessen stretching by extending the picture a
bit vertically as well (causing parts of the top and bottom to be cut
off) ZOOM would do the same thing, but even more of the top and bottom
would be cut off.
____________
|     ^     |
|<----|---->|
|_____v_____|


As for Normal, you would see a normal tv picture with black sides on
either side. In this case it would not use the extra wide screen:
____________
|B|   ^   |B|      (B = black)
|B|<--|-->|B|
|B|___v___|B|


"By 2006 broadcasters must relinquish the current analog broadcast
spectrum and broadcast only in digital. Stations that aren't ready may
not survive. If you're thinking of buying a new TV in the next two
years, remember that most people keep their main TV set for about 5-10
years. That means you want a future-proof TV when you buy one today."
Source: http://www.widescreen.philips.com/availability.html
(even though the above source is from a Philips website and not Sony,
the same idea applies. Slowly tv channels will convert to widescreen
and you will not have to worry about stretching out the image.

Here is another useful page to read through:
http://www.widescreen.philips.com/whywidescreen.html

I hope that this information is helpful to you. I do recommend that
you see this tv in the store before ordering it and ask a salesperson
to show you what a tv channel looks like in all four of the modes
described above.

Please let me know if you need any clarifications,

tisme-ga


Search Strategy:

KF60XBR800
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&safe=off&q=KF60XBR800

KF60XBR800 tv
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&safe=off&q=KF60XBR800+tv

hdtv widescreen channels
://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=hdtv+widescreen+channels

---

Request for Answer Clarification by clicker5-ga on 21 Jan 2003 23:58 PST

Hello tisme:

By reading most of the websites you presented, I am guessing, that the
Sony KF60XBR800 does not show all television reception in the proper
perspective.

---

Clarification of Answer by tisme-ga on 22 Jan 2003 00:02 PST

Hello clicker5,

Actually the Sony KF60XBR800 does show tv reception in the proper
reception which is using the Normal option (with the sides blacked
out):
____________ 
|B|   ^   |B|      (B = black) 
|B|<--|-->|B| 
|B|___v___|B| 

Note that a normal tv reception is not as wide as a wide screen tv is,
and that is why the reception is showing properly. It is not cutting
off the picture, it just has no use for the sides (where the B's are)
because the incoming feed is not brining in video wide enough to use
it. In the future, tv feeds will support wider pictures and the tv
screen will be full.

Note that it allows you to stretch the picture wider (this would fill
up the screen but not be normal). Because the tv real estate is wider
than the picture that is coming through the feed, there is no need for
the extreme left and the extreme right of the screen when viewing a
traditional tv feed. This will be a problem on *any* widescreen tv.

I hope that this clears it up for you. 

tisme-ga

Thank you.
Clicker5