I'm apparently not making myself clear. With many 16:9 capable TVs, there are three ways you can view a 4:3 image: 4:3, zoomed, and 16:9.
With 4:3, the image is unaltered. What is noticeable is that the image does not fill the screen in either direction:
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The "zoomed" view retains the image's 4:3 aspect ratio and
completely fills the screen, but necessarily crops some of the image. This Samsung supports two flavors depending upon what parts of the screen get lost. Note there is no image distortion, - just a loss of content. This is most noticeable while watching sports where scores are frequently displayed in a strip at the bottom, but not obviously "wrong" or weird looking.
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And finally, the 16:9 view to which I refer. This approach fills the width by laterally distorting the image, but nothing is chopped off. Do you see how her face and even the text at the upper left corner is "stretched" vs. the other two modes?:
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This is the way my father-in-law does it and the way you see it in a range of public places where there is a TV monitor.