Philips DVP642 DiVx screen size on 16:9 TV problem

[waltz2k]

I have a DVP642 for a month. It plays all my DiVx collections with slight problem with 2. A couple weeks ago, I got myself a Samsung 16X9 DLP TV. DiVx videos display in a box (black bars on 4 sides). I made sure the DVP642 is set to 16:9 (it works fine for DVD movies). I asked another friend who also has a DVP642 to try DiVx on his new LCD WS TV. The result was the same. I tried encoding a short video in different resolutions (640X272, 320XI36, 720X306, 1280X544) - all 1:2.35 ratio. They played in exact same size on the screen with black bars on 4 sides. I suspect the DVP642 output DiVx in 4:3 mode only. I treid to contact Philips about this but got the run around. Does anyone has similar problem play DiVx on a widescreen tV? Are there setup problems on my part? I appricate any advise. Thanks.

[chrisb01]

Maybe your TV is doing it. My TV has a menu to choose different display formats for each source. For example, on my TV, the "480i Narrow" format does exactly what you described. I switch to the "480i Standard" and it looks great... remember, this is on the TV I'm talking about. I also have formats called Expand, Stretch, Stretch Plus... and I few others... very convenient for optimizing how you want things to look... but most people don't realize that the default setting is changeable... and usually specific to each source if your TV has multiple sources. For example, since my TV is 16:9 and most DVD's I watch are also 16:9, I set the source input that my DVD player is connected to be "standard" which performs no zooming or cropping. But, since most TV shows are 4:3, I set the source input that my cable is hooked to to be Stretch or Stretch Plus.

[waltz2k]

My TV has a number of modes Normal (which is 4:3), Wide (16:9) which will stretch to width if signal is 4:3. Non-linear Wide - Stretch 4:3 non-linearly to width, ZOOM1 - zoom 4:3 to fill width but cut off top and bottom, Zoom2 - even bigger zoom. However, this is all meant for making 4:3 signal to fit on to the 16:9 TV. All this modes are avaiable for TV and composive video sources. For component input, the TV only support Normal and Wide mode. I guess the assumption is component mode meant for high quality therefore no zoom/stretch stuff.

The different stretch modes are intended to covert 4:3 to fill the 16:9 screen. But the quality suffers in stretch modes. When the source is 16:9 (the DiVx files), I would expect the player to output them in 16:9 mode like a DVD.

I sent an email to Philips regarding this. But no reply at all.

[chrisb01]

Well, you're right about the modes being a means of adjusting... but I think the adjustment is from the output of the TV (not necessarily 4:3).

For example, my TV is 16:9... and if I use a 16:9 source... then I want no adjustments... which is why I choose the Standard format on my TV.

If my TV is 16:9, and I use a 4:3 source... then an adjustment is required.

The adjustments are relative to your TV screen's aspect ration... not just "4:3"... unless, of course, that is your TV's aspect ratio.

So, it you choose 16:9 on the DVD Player and 16:9 format (no adjustment) on a 16:9 TV... then I'd think you'd get an undistorted view of the video source... assuming that the media is also 16:9... which we didn't talk about. It can get complicated, with 3 possible points of conversion, but you should be able to figure the correct settings for the DVD player and TV to get a perfect output.