confused by DVP3962 setup

[ieee488]

I have a widescreen LCD TV which I have set the display to display what is SET BY PROGRAM. This works fine with cable.

Today I bought a Philips DVP3962. I have connected the player to the TV by HDMI.

If I leave the TV as it is now, the Philips will play a DVD of a TV program (Mission Impossible 1960s) in widescreen which is the wrong aspect ratio.

What settings do I set the DVP3962 to so that if I play a DVD of a TV show program, it will display 4:3 and if I play a movie DVD, it will display 16:9? I want it to do it automatically.

[Krispy Kritter]

Typically, you set the DVD player to output based on your screen type. In your case, it would be widescreen or 16:9. You then make any other adjustments on the TV. The TV typically has normal/standard option (which should do exactly what you are asking) and several other stretch/zoom modes.

[jman98]

My Toshiba HD DVD player will correctly send out 4:3 to my TV when the source DVD video is 4:3 and 16:9 when the source is 16:9. It's the only DVD player I've ever had that does this. For every other player I have, I have to set it to send out everything as 16:9 and change the aspect ratio on the TV to 4:3 as needed. Just get familiar with the remote control for your TV and the button to switch aspect ratio to 4:3.

I doubt that there is an automatic solution for you as it's a failure of the DVD player to intelligently switch the signal between 4:3 and 16:9. If you don't like my suggestion, I think you are probably out of luck.

[ieee488]

Thank you both.

I have an older Cyberhome DVD player, but I bought the DVP3962 based on its ability to upscale to 1080i and thinking that the autodetection would work better than on the Cyberhome.

Since the remote on the TV is miles better than the sluggish remote on the DVP3962, I guess that it is something I can live with.