With all the bitching about pan&scan conversions of film to video this is horrible.
When you "magnify" you loose 75% of the picture! What good is it watching a dancer when all you can see is her face?
Just chock it up to many television oddities that never really became popular, like Zenith's phone in a TV. Zenith actually had a Zoom system on their later model System 3's, but it wasn't this severe.