I've gotten used to the "strech". That Samsung set sucks. I wouldn't mind if the bars were black, but they are gray and really distracting. And everytime I turn off the TV, it forgets that I set it to 4:3 mode and then I have to dig ito the menus to change it back. It's such a pain. I only got the set for my bedroom because it was an open box model at Sears and was almost half off. I couldn't pass that deal up.