We have a 36" Proscan TV - 10 years old? - and a Panasonic DVD player and most DVDs I play are "widescreen" but half the time our tv displays them fullscreen - meaning I am watching stretched out, ugly faces.
Someone at the video store had heard of this and thought it was something about the Tv's display settings. Does anyone know why it won't show the DVD the correct way and how I can change it?
Thank you -
DVDs not displayed in Widescreen
Tue, 10/11/2005 - 19:15
#1
DVDs not displayed in Widescreen
Is your TV widescreen or fullscreen (4:3)? I think that the only way that you will see stretching is if you display a fullscreen DVD on a widescreen TV.
Here are a couple of articles that should help explain the differences between the different aspect ratios and how they appear on your screen.
http://www.techlore.com/article/10025
http://www.techlore.com/article/10295
My tv is full screen - the traditional (4:3) and widescreen and cinemascope aspect ratio DVDs display full screen with the people stretched vertically. No black bars top and bottom.
Is that a problem with the TV format/mode or something in the DVD player?
I'd like to see the widescreen version - with bars - and not have it stretched to fit my screen but I can't seem to find a setting on either tv or dvd player to make it play correctly.
Check your DVD player's setup menu. There will be a setting that indicates what kind of display your player is hooked up to. If images are stretched vertically (people look really skinny), then your player is set to output video to a widescreen TV (meaning that the anamorphic image is not being unstretched prior to leaving the DVD player). Change the display setting in your DVD players setup menu to 4:3, and this problem should go away.
On your TV, widescreen (1.85:1) movies should have moderately sized black bars, scope (2.35:1) movies should have large black bars, and 4:3 films should fill the screen (but will be missing the sides of the movie).
Thank you Matt -
After some searching I found the right menus and changed the settings in the DVD player - the remote is confusing in itself. (Yes, I'm blonde! )
:-)
I'm glad you got it working right. Enjoy those DVD movies, and tell all your friends about TechLore!