CRT for regular TV watching

I've been using my Trinitron for a good while to watch old shows on DVDs I have (part of my morning routine). Recently though, I decided to hook it up to the antenna (using a homeworx digital TV converter). And I've been pleasantly surprised. Most of my live over the air TV watching is football, and it's great for this.

One thing that's surprised me is the issue of aspect ratio. With converter I have the option to change the display ratio so that I can get it to go 16:9 and show the widescreen broadcast that's standard nowadays (and so with black bars on the top and bottom). But, what I've noticed is that keeping it as 4:3 pan and scan, so that it's using the full screen while cutting off the extra right and left of the display (as opposed to smooshing it all together to fit in the screen), you really don't lose much. All the important stuff is in the middle, and the extra space isn't really used for much. This definitely is the case for watching a football game, but even the commercials look largely "normal" when viewed this way and at most you might just notice some titles getting cut off.

Makes me wonder if this is semi-intentional, that even though widescreen is standard nowadays things are still filmed with a "get all the important stuff in the middle" frame of mind.

While I'm still not a big TV watcher, having broadcast TV available on the CRT actually is making watching TV more appealing now. A lot of old shows get broadcast on the over the air channels, so there's plenty to watch. There's just something about watching TV like the ones I grew up with (though, rather nicer) makes me enjoy watching it more it seems whereas I hardly ever watched it (other than football) on my LCD TV. Helps it's in the living room and next to the kitchen, which makes for more comfortable casual watching.