I have some old DVDs that are presented in non-anamorphic letterbox widescreen. I can either zoom in using my HDTV's picture settings or use the built-in zoom on my Blu-ray player. Is one method preferable over the other, and if so, why?
Try StreamFab Downloader and download from Netflix, Amazon, Youtube! Or Try DVDFab and copy Blu-rays! or rip iTunes movies!
+ Reply to Thread
Results 1 to 15 of 15
Thread
-
-
I guess it depends on the model. Cheaper blu-ray players might have a crappy zoom/resizing functions.
Have you tried and compare? Do you notice any big difference? -
The zoom on the Blu-ray player can use pan-and-scan information on some DVDs to zoom into the portion of the picture that's of interest. The TV won't have access to that information and will just zoom in to the middle of the frame.
-
Well, the BD player seems to leave a slight black edge on the sides (to avoid overscan? I didn't think that awas an issue). It also keeps the removable subtitles (on foreign language discs) in the same place on screen as if the DVD was not zoomed.
-
Normally TV's overscan. So you don't see small black borders at the edge of the frame. Also, in my experience DVD and Blu-ray players upscale the entire 720x480/576 frame to the HDMI port. So if there are black borders in the source you will see black borders on the TV (if the TV doesn't overscan).
Yes, that's a common problem -- the player renders the subtitles before zooming. Of course the TV will cut off the subs too -- it doesn't know there are subtitles in the picture. -
-
-
If I have a letterboxed DVD and the subtitles are in the bars, then when I zoom in on the BD player, the bars are removed but the subtitles stay in the same place on screen (and in the same size) as they were before I zoomed. How is that a bad thing? If anything, the TV zoom distorts them as it zooms in on everything.
-
-
Oh, right, I totally misread what you said initially. I apologize!
For me, the BD player seems preferable but is there any technical difference between that and a TV doing it, aside from the subtitles issue? -
-
It boils down to what works and looks the best. Period.
Google is your Friend -
Yeah, to me, the one that looks best is the BD player's built-in one. As for which works the best, on a technical level, I'd be interested in knowing about.
-
-
Technical specs don't matter either. Will you really use the option that looks worse, simply because "on a technical level" it's "better"? I'd hope not.
Google is your Friend