Why can't I see a circle on my TV?

[Mike Scott]

Every time I watch a Universal Picture, the globe is slightly flattened. Same with every other image of a perfect circle.  It's been like this on all the flat screen TVs I've had. There is no way to adjust it to correct it. How about your TVs?

[Sir Masksalot]

Universal Picture, the globe is slightly flattened

All I know is our earth is not perfectly round, it's oblate. Maybe Universal's globe was built that way.

[zombiehorror]

As long as your overall picture is appearing as a square (with black/grey bars on each side) when you are watching a fullframe movie there shouldn't be any reason for the effect. If you are watching a fullframe movie stretched to fit a widescreen tv then you will get that elliptical effect on circles but most tv's/dvd/bluray players automatically recognize widescreen/fullframe images unless that has been manually overridden by changing a setting on one of your devices.

[Mike Scott]

All I know is our earth is not perfectly round, it's oblate.

I doubt the FX guys who built that model were aware of that phenomenon. 

[Mike Scott]

As long as your overall picture is appearing as a square (with black/grey bars on each side) when you are watching a fullframe movie there shouldn't be any reason for the effect.

And yet, it's there.

[zombiehorror]

Can we get an image of this anomaly?

[Mike Scott]

Can we get an image of this anomaly?

This is pretty much what you see. An image that is flattened by about 10%. You don't really notice the problem, until you see something that doesn't look like it should, which is mostly circles.

[Buzzybean]

I was thinking about that Universal globe last week when I watched the Invisible Man and was wondering if it still exists and who owns it...lol

[Mike Scott]

I was thinking about that Universal globe last week when I watched the Invisible Man and was wondering if it still exists and who owns it...lol

I'd like to have the sparkly one from the forties! The one with the Jimmy McHugh fanfare.