I think (but am prepared to be corrected ) that most TV programmes have for some time been recorded/transmitted in 16:9 and that 4:3 TVs actually chop off a bit of the picture. Obviously older stuff recorded in 4:3 will have to be mangled to fit a 16:9 screen.

No I didn't. I only called Scan on Saturday. I will contact trading standards during the week. Thanks for the link.

I know of at least one program that is still transmitted live in 4.3 standard

family guy on bbc3 is pumped out at 4:3 and i belive i think most of itv4 if not there is one channel on the freeview line up that seems to be all in 4:3

my one is Ideal World Shopping channel, do not buy anything but wife likes the craft demos, chose freeview or freesat

am currently using a sky box with out card and any freeview/free to air channels that dont unlock in the skys tvguide i just find the settings for the channel and add them manualy. only downside is you have to go to other channels to sselect them and theres no tvguide for them.

i use tvcatchup on any tv /monitors that are under 20inch, thoe when they get round to adding a choice of higher Q streams i may be be able to use tvcatchup through out the house

I believe there are options in both Nvidia and ATi driver bundles where you can set the aspect ratio so that a 4:3 picture will display as 4:3 with black bars down the side. Also a lot of newer games support wide-screen output don't they?