Mitsubishi 8040 Dvd player video setup

2 posts / 0 new
Last post
dvdmrp
Mitsubishi 8040 Dvd player video setup

I just have a quick question regarding my Mitsubishi 8040 dvd player in regards to the menu setup for video. Also, I have a 55 Inch Mitsubishi Hi Def monitor and I have it set on the proper mode so that is not the problem.
The dvd player offers 2 16:9 settings 16:9 normal and 16:9 widescreen. For the past year or two, I have had it set at 16:9 wide. Every widescreen disc that I had appeared to be fine. The disc played in the proper format. Finally, I watched an old movie filmed in fullscreen. Whenever I watch a fullframe movie on dvd, it has always filled the whole screen. Finally today while watching a fullframe dvd, I realized, since I have a widescreen tv, shouldn't a fullframe dvd have bars on the sides of the screen?
The movie that I watched happened to be Soup to Nuts(1930)which was an early sound on film movie, so the aspect ratio was 1:20. I figured that since it was less that 4:3 I would have slight bars on the side. The image totally filled the tv. I thought that since I had a widescreen tv, the fullscreen dvd would have bars on the side? I looked in the dvd menu system and there were 2 16:9 choices. 16:9 normal and 16:9 wide.
When I switched the settings to 16:9 normal, all fullframe dvd's have bars on the sides. and any 16:9 or non animoprhic disc looks to be just fine with either no bars on the top or very tiny bars. Which is the proper way to watch these movies? When I watch a fullframe movie with the 16:9 wide setting, is it zooming my fullframe discs to fit the widescreen tv? Does this cause a loss in the image?
Sorry to send such a long letter. Any information would be great! Thanks again,
-Mark Pytel

Matt Whitlock (not verified)
Hey Mark! What do you think

Hey Mark! What do you think of TechLore?

Natively, a film with a ratio of 1.20:1 would have plenty of blank space on the sides of the DVD. However, many widescreen televisions default to a non-adjustable full stretch mode when a 480p or greater signal is input into the set, which means that full frame movies would be stretched to fill a 16:9 area horizontally. This in turn would make people look fat and distorted.

Your 16:9 normal mode is a prevention for this to occur on non-anamorphic or full-frame DVDs. This mode will either disable the progressive feature during playback so your TV does not default to a widescreen mode, or it will put non-removable black bars on the sides of the image in a progressive scan mode. You could determine which is the case by pressing info on your remote during playback and see whether the input signal is 480i or 480p. Either way, its intention is to not force to watch full-frame DVDs in a stretched mode if you don't want to.

To directly address your questions, when in 16:9 wide mode, the DVD player isn't doing anything to the image at all. It's the TV that is stretching (not zooming, which would degrade image quality) the image. There is no reduction in image quality, other than the shape is distorted. In fact, if you permanently disable the progressive feature in the DVD player's menu, you'll probably discover that this issue disappears entirely, regardless of whether it's set to wide or normal.

Don't let the 1.20:1 ratio confuse you. Technically, a 1.20:1 ratio would leave small black bars on the side even if it were stretched to widescreen since it is narrower than a 4:3 image. The reason you saw no additional blank space is because the television's overscan covered up the blank space (same reason why 1.85:1 DVD images fill a 1.78:1 area without blank space at the top and bottom of the screen).

I'm surprised you haven't been having issues with non-anamorphic DVDs prior to this, but maybe you were and you didn't notice the change in geometry, that or your TV gives you an expand mode on progressive images to alleviate the effect. Since your set locks you to one or two full modes with progressive signals, I'd leave the setting on normal to give you more flexibility in how these images will display on your TV. I'm more than happy to answer follow up questions.

 

Connect With Techlore