I have a JVC TV and COX cable. On non-HD channels it doesnt fill up the screen...?

Question

Notes: We use HD cables

On HD channels it uses the entire width (which is fine)

Regular channels it leaves like a 3 inch black border

This pretty much turns my 37" into a 31" TV

How do I change this so it uses the entire TV, it worked fine at my old house....

I tried going through basic tv and cable options to change this but the only thing i could do was zoom, but that usually cuts off the top and bottom of the screen.

It seems like the cable doesnt recognize the bottom and top 3 inches b/c even when i zoom in it doesnt fill in that black area.

I know this unused area works b/c it works with my video games

Answer 1

You can use a stretch mode, sometimes called full or just  which changes the aspect ratio.  

http://tv.about.com/od/hdtv/a/stretchpic...

Answer 2

TV Lesson:  

On standard TV the picture will  NOT fill the entire area of an HDTV set.  

Standard TV uses a 4X3 ratio-  4 units wide 3 units tall.

HDTV uses a 16x9 ratio.  16 units wide 9 units tall. Thus the area on the sides are blank.

Now on non-HDTV programs (channels) the best picture is obtained by using the 4x3 setting the TV offers.  

If you had it before you were stretching or somehow distorting the picture to make it fit the screen.  This is possible by using special setting in the TV remote.  It is a TV setting and NOT cable channels.

You can change it by using the format button on the remote and telling the TV to change the aspect ratio.

I find that using the 14x9 movie ratio (if your set supplies that feature) the picture on non-HD channels almost fills the screen and the distortion is minimal.