Overscan occurs on your high definition LCD, plasma and projection TVs when the video image is enlarged slightly and the outer 3% is cropped off. Engadget HD has an extremely thorough explanation of overscan, but we’ll boil down the important points here for you.

Overscan is a remnant of CRT TV days when images needed to be enlarged slightly to ensure the quality of the image at the center of the screen. There is no real excuse for continuing the practice today other than, “that’s how it’s always been done.”

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One of the most common questions from new widescreen TV owners is: “Why are there black bars on my widescreen TV?” The simple answer is that your TV and the video you watching have different aspect ratios. There is nothing wrong with your TV.

This “pillar box effect” most often happens when you are watching a video or broadcast that was shot in standard definition with an aspect ration of 4:3. Because your widescreen TV has an aspect ration of 16:9, the picture can not properly fill the entire screen.

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