Name the symptom first
Four different things get described as "the wrong size", and they have different causes.
- Stretched. People look wide and short, or tall and thin. Circles are ovals.
- Cropped. Proportions are right but the edges are missing — scoreboards and subtitles cut off.
- Bars. Black borders at the sides, top and bottom, or all four.
- Slightly soft with everything a fraction too large. Usually overscan, covered below.
The circle test settles stretching quickly: find something round on screen and see whether it is round.
Where the shape gets decided
Three places, and they can each override the others, which is why the setting you change sometimes appears to do nothing.
The source. Channels are broadcast in a particular shape. A channel carrying older 4:3 material inside a 16:9 broadcast will show bars at the sides no matter what you do — that is the content, not a fault.
The player. Most players have a zoom or aspect control, often on the playback menu. This is the setting to check first because it is the one most easily changed by accident.
The television. Sets have their own picture-size control, and it applies after the player has done its work. A player set correctly and a television set to zoom still gives you a cropped picture.
Fixing it in the player
Look for an option called aspect ratio, zoom, or picture size, usually reachable while something is playing.
Options normally include:
- Fit or original — displays the picture as broadcast, adding bars where needed. This is the correct default.
- Fill or stretch — distorts the picture to fill the screen. This is what causes stretching.
- Zoom or crop — enlarges until bars disappear, losing the edges.
Set it to fit. If the picture is still wrong, the television is overriding it.
Fixing it on the television
The control is usually under picture settings, named picture size, aspect ratio, screen fit or wide mode depending on the manufacturer.
Choose the option that displays the signal without alteration. Samsung generally calls this 16:9 standard or fit to screen, LG original or just scan, Sony full with wide mode off.
Overscan
Older televisions deliberately enlarged the picture slightly and cut the edges, a habit inherited from analogue broadcasting. It makes everything marginally soft and pushes edges off screen. The fix is the setting named just scan, screen fit, full pixel or 1:1 — names vary, effect is the same. On a modern set this is usually already correct.
When it affects only some channels
This is normal and usually not a fault.
Line-ups carry channels from different broadcasters, and not all transmit in the same shape. A news channel carrying archive footage, a channel that has not moved to widescreen, or a feed with bars already burned into the picture will each look different from the channel before it.
The giveaway is that the same channel always looks the same way while others are fine. If a player setting fixed it, it would fix it everywhere. Bars that are part of the broadcast cannot be removed without cropping something you want.
When a zoom setting is the right answer
One legitimate case. If a channel arrives with bars already encoded into the picture and your television adds its own on top, you get a small image inside a large border. Zooming to remove the encoded bars is reasonable here.
Do it as a per-channel adjustment if your player supports that, rather than changing the global setting, or every other channel will be cropped instead.
A short order to work through
- Is it stretched, cropped or bordered? Use the circle test.
- Does it affect every channel, or one? One channel is the source.
- Set the player to fit or original.
- Set the television to its unaltered mode, and turn overscan off.
- Only then consider a per-channel zoom.
If the picture is the right shape but looks soft, that is a separate matter covered in why your picture looks soft.
Frequently asked questions
Why is my IPTV picture stretched?
Almost always a fill or stretch setting, either in the player or on the television. Set the player to fit or original, then check the television is not applying its own zoom on top.
Why does one channel have black bars and others do not?
Because channels are broadcast in different shapes, and some carry material with bars already in the picture. That is the content rather than a fault, and no setting removes it without cropping.
What is overscan and should I turn it off?
Overscan enlarges the picture slightly and cuts the edges, a habit from analogue broadcasting. Turning it off — look for just scan, screen fit or full pixel — gives a sharper picture with nothing lost.
My subtitles are cut off at the bottom. Why?
The picture is being cropped, either by a zoom setting or by overscan. Set both the player and the television to display the signal unaltered and the edges will return.