The black bars are called letter and pillar boxing are a normal part of tv viewing. These bars indicate that the original content was intended for a different size screen than what is viewing it on.
This is when there are black bars on the top an bottom of the screen. This is done because most movies or films are shot in a widescreen format meant for movie theaters, which is wider than the format used by standard 4:3 TV and 16:9 HDTV. Many newer shows are presented in widescreen format; or classics were shot in standard 4:3 aspect ratio. An example of this is Lawrence of Arabia - the film for theaters was filmed in Super Panavi 2.20:1 ratio. When played on a 4:3 screen without letterboxing you would lose much of the grandeur of the vistas, even with pan & scan there is loss.
The opposite of letterboxing. This is when you have black bars on either side of the video being watched. This is when the original aspect ratio of the video was 4:3 but being displayed on a widescreen tv.
If you still wish to alter the size so you don’t see the letterbox or pillar box, there is the Zoom button on the Legacy TV remote. The Zoom button is to the right of the 0 button. If your set top box is configured for high definition tv, the zoom button will bring up a menu that has Aspect Ratio. Select it by pressing OK once it is highlighted. From there you can adjust the view by changing the video format. Be aware that zooming or setting to fill may distort or cut off portions of the video to accommodate the size of the screen. You can disable the zoom function by pressing the zoom button again & selecting Normal under Aspect Ratio.
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