I got myself a 47" Samsung widescreen HD rear-projection tv recently. Awesome picture in HD by the way. The question is when I play a DVD, I still get the bars on top and bottom. I have to go to zoom 2 to get rid of the bars. Is this normal with widescreen TV's?

 

By Widescreen, I assume you mean a 16:9 aspect TV... Check the settings on your DVD player. Once I told my DVD player that it was playing on a 16:9, not a 4:3 the black lines disappeared.

Good luck-

-Scubaduck

 

I'll check that, thanks

 

On some DVDs you still will get the bars on the top and bottom since it's the aspect the film was filmed and others are filmed in a less wide aspect and fill the screen perfectly. Episode III has 'em and so do some others.

 

you will have to learn to live with unless you distort the image to fit the screen

 

and

 

some new movies are shot in an even wider than 16:9 aspect ratio, meaning even in 16:9 mode on both the player and the monitor you still wind up with black bars top and bottom



if it was the red version you can see how it would wind up with black bars top and bottom.

 

Football is awesome in widescreen HD.

 

FWIW, ATSC specs says when showing something in HD, it is widescreen, minimum 16x9.

so saying "widescreen HD" is redundant... kinda like shimano SIS, or the SIGARMS SAS.

 

Not really, because the only widescreen HD programming out there right now is in 16x9, but spec wise, it COULD be a different ratio as well.

Back on topic...if you have a DVD player that allows it, you could either do the whole black line deal or resize the picture to fit the whole screen (cutting part of the picture as well) or resize it another way to distort the picture with no black bars or the loss of picture.

 

note, i said MINIMUM 16x9, or 1.7:1 ratio.

i get a few pay cable channels and their HD channels and sometimes, they will show the movie in their original aspect ratio, like a 2.35:1 , which means on my 16x9 HD tv, i do get the black bars on the top and bottom.

and i couldnt care less...

i'm seeing the movie the way it was meant by the director, the DP, etc...

no. because you cant get something out of nothing.

in the end, you are just zooming pixels to fill out the black surround. and on my set, it looks bad...

 

buy an upconvert dvd player. trust me when i say it is an unbelievable picture difference. i am a stickler for quality and when i bought my 50 inch plasma i loved watching movies but not the way i had to stretch it from my older dvd player. bought an upconvert and its closest thing to HD you can get with a dvd (other than the new HD players that are outragously expensive!)
good thing is its free to try it...best buy for sure does not have a return policy within 30 days! so i have tested four of them and toshiba is the best.!....only if they let you do that with high end subs!

 

My dad just got a widescreen, and we are waiting until a little later this year when there are more options of HD DVD players to choose from. Personally, I like watching in widescreen with bars where I see the whole picture. I dont like it distorted or zoomed to the point that some of the picture is cut off.

 

If you use the zoom feature than you're seeing only part of the picture and killed the whole reason for widescreen in the first place.

 

Correct me if I'm wrong.

Regular TV 4:3
Widescreed 16:9 1.85:1
Cinema 2.35:1

My fav aspect ratio is 2.35:1

 

 

When do you want it in ?

We have quoted similar set up for customers.