Question, regarding HDTV's and/or Gaming consoles?

[JaredC]

I'm actually asking this for my friend, since I'm not sure he really realizes there's a problem. Every time we play Xbox 360 or PS3, there are these strange, discolored "bars" on the left and right sides of the screen. It difficult to describe, but it's like the "Normal" part of the screen is perfect, while the "Widescreen" part on the sides is slightly different.

I've never encountered such a problem on any other HDTV before. Does he just have a crappy TV?

 

[DLV]

From the sound of it, you are playing on a plasma TV and playing the game on standard definition. Using the yellow cable for video will only give you SD, not HD. standard definition is not widescreen, so the bars on the side compesate for the empty sides. This only happens on plasmas since LCD can shut off individual pixels