Vizio flat panel aspect ratio problem

[consumerx]

Perhaps someone here can help, i have literally searched google and beyond for an answer, i have tried other forums but no one ever responds. So here is my problem, I have a PS3 with HD, so when i hooked up to my POS Vizio 26' flat panel, for some reason the aspect ratio is off, all widescreen dvds become bigger, I have searched all over for some kind of setting but this pos tv has no wide screen setting.
I think the best way to describe it is in pictures:

this looks like this -> then if the aspect ratio is originally this, it would look like this ->

notice how everything zooms in??? i cant fix this and i tried every single setting! i dont know if its the crappy vizio tv or if i am missing something? any help would be appreciated. thanks

[jagabo]

Looks fine to me. Keep in mind many widescreen movies are wider than 16:9 (1.78:1), often about 2.35:1, and will continue to have letterbox bars top and bottom. 4:3 material should have pillarbox bars at the sides.

[consumerx]

So in other words the zoom is normal?

[jagabo]

If I understand your samples, what you are seeing is normal. A 16:9 movie (actually there are no 16:9 movies, the closest movie aspect ratio to 1.78:1 is 1.85:1, many TV shows are shot in 1.78:1 now though) should fill the 16:9 HDTV. Movies wider than that will have letterbox bars top and bottom. Movies narrower than that will have pillarbox bars.

Your TV may have some zoom/stretch functions to eliminate the black bars but the result will be a streteched or cropped image. Some broadcasters will stretch/zoom/crop non-16:9 sources to make them fill the 16:9 screen.

[consumerx]

I seee, I just couldn't understand how on a regular 4:3 tv the bars are there but in widescreen things were zoomed very odd

[guns1inger]

My reading of your post is that movies that should be very wide, such as 2.35:1, seem to be zoomed so you lose the edges and have less black bars ? Is this correct ? If so, check the upscaling setting in the pS3. Normal is best, but it has a mode called Double which will do what you are seeing. I suspect this may be your problem.

[consumerx]

woah you were almost right! now it looks like this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Windowboxed.jpg

sigh what a crappy tv, i can only think of a solution to this problem would be that my pos vizio is a pos.

[guns1inger]

Window boxing comes from either having your player set up to output 4:3 letterbox to a widescreen TV, or from a DVD that is mastered as 4:3 letterbox. In the case of the former, it is a simple matter of adjusting the player - in this case the PS3 - to send the correct signal through to the TV. In the case of the latter you have three choices.

1. Live with it, and use the zoom function on the TV to compensate

2. Use the Ltterbox to Widescreen conversion facility in DVD rebuilder to create a true 16:9 DVD (I have found this to be superior, in most cases, to the zoom mode of the television)

3. Go and buy a true 16:9 version of the DVD.

[manono]

Yes, I agree. I've seen nothing in these posts that argues for the Vizio doing anything other than what it's supposed to do, certainly nothing that should earn it the repeated insult of "pos". Vizios are considered fine middle-of-the-road and very inexpensive TV sets by most. Rather, I think the problem lies with the ignorance of the Vizio viewer.

[fritzi93]

Agree with the above. I have a Vizio 42" and, while it's not top-of-the-line, picture quality is good and settings flexibility is (just) adequate.

In two scenarios you may have trouble:

1) Analog cable feed that's letterboxed 4:3. (Postage stamp). Live with it at "normal" setting or set to widescreen and use the vertical size adjustment to compensate. Depending on the letterboxing, some amount of the top and bottom may be cut off. Personally, using the Panoramic setting isn't satisfactory (Widescreen, with the difference that the center of screen is unchanged, edges stretched).

2) 4:3 letterboxed DVDs, usually old. This cannot be easily compensated for on the set itself. Examples I've seen include Home Alone, Zulu, etc. Like suggested above, DVDRB can convert it to 16:9. Options -> AVS Options -> Advanced (Expert) Options -> Convert From LB 4:3 to 16:9 -> VTS_01 (usually the main movie).

Make sure your set-top DVD player and PS3 are set to correct output. Good luck.