Widescreen is a feature of the digital television services which have now commenced transmission in Hobart, the older analog television set has a viewing screen width to height ratio of 4 to 3 (4:3), digital has a wider picture ratio of 16 to 9 (16:9 ) which matches the screen size ratio of a cinema screen (Widescreen). Cinema screens do have an even wider format (Cinemascope) which has a ratio of 23 to 10 (2.3:1) even with widescreen television a small compromise still has to be made to transmit a Cinemascope movie.

To allow a digital widescreen picture to be viewed on the older 4:3 television sets the Set Top Box can adjust the picture to prevent us seeing long tall pictures by showing the picture in letterbox mode (cropped at the top and bottom of the picture).

Not all digital programs are transmitted or even made in widescreen and as such a widescreen television will show the picture in pillarbox mode (cropped at both sides of the picture).

Without a digital Set Top Box or inbuilt digital decoder the widescreen television receiver is only capable of stretching a letterbox picture to fill the screen height which wastes picture quality as the number of vertical lines which make up the picture is reduced from 576 lines down to 384.

A Set Top Box will receive the letterbox picture at the full number of 576 lines and the more expensive HDTV Set Top Box can show up to 1080 vertical lines.