Here are five settings that you may want to change on your HDTV itself or on devices plugged into it. I won't be able to give you exact directions, because the steps differ from one manufacturer and model to the next. But I will tell you where you can typically find these options, and what they're usually called.

Your HDTV receives both standard- and high-definition TV channels, and automatically upscales standard-def video. The question you need to address is how the set should handle the aspect-ratio difference.

Standard-definition video uses a 4:3 aspect ratio. That's only three-quarters the width of your new, high-definition TV's 16:9 screen. HDTVs generally offer three ways around the discrepancy: They can stretch the image to fill the screen, which makes everyone look fat. They can blow up and crop the image, losing the top and bottom and making everything look fuzzy (because they're using less of the low-res image to fill more of the screen). Or they can pillarbox the image, displaying the unaltered 4:3 image between black or gray vertical bars.

Go with the third choice. True, you won't get the "Wow! I have a widescreen TV!" effect, but the resulting image will be the one you're supposed to see. And when you switch to an HD channel, the "wow" effect will be even greater.