problems with widescreen

[kazz0817]

i just got a new tv and am confused as to whether its widescreen or not, the screen is flat screen, and wide looking, and the tv has all kinds of zoom features, but when i play ANY dvd on the tv, it wont get rid of the black lines, also when viewing on the sattelite channels, its still cropping the sides off the broadcast like a 4:3 standard tv does, im starting to think my new tv isnt widescreen even tho i was told it was when i bought it, im new to widescreen but i always thought that when playing a widescreen dvd it eliminates the black borders that show on a standard tv is this right?


ps i already messed with all settings on both tv and dvd player

[guns1inger]

OK. People who sell widescreen TVs are invariably lying bastards who don'y know squat about their product. I hate walking into large stores with all these widescreen plasma, and all the images are stupidly stretched to hide the fact that most movies made in the last 50 years will have black bars at the top and bottom. Why ?

TV comes in two flavours 1.33 (4:3) or 1.77ish (16:9). Anything shot in 16:9 (note - not 16:9 enhanced) will fill a widescreen TV. Anything shot in 4:3 will either be cropped top and bottom, or have black bars up the sides.

Film, on the other hand, comes in many flavour. These include 1.33 and 1.66, both of which are taller than widescreen and will therefore have vertical bars, as well as 1.85, 2.20, 2.35 and even 2.40. This last batch are all wider than widescreen TVs. You will therefore either have black bars top and bottom (Note - this is a A GOOD THING) or you can zoom in and cop the ends off (bastard!!!!)

So - only footage shot in the aspect ratio of 16:9 or 1.77 will fill your new screen to the top, bottom and sides. Anything else will have some black somewhere.

[edDV]

Is it a progressive scan TV? (i.e. EDTV or HDTV ready?)

The TV scan modes you are seeing apply to normal analog TV broadcasts. Unless your sattelite tuner is HDTV, you are also just receiving normal NTSC there.

On normal NTSC TV, widescreen is shown as letterbox. The zoom modes are intended to expand letterbox to fit your screen. Many films have a wider aspect than 16x9 so you will still see black at the top or bottom unless you crop the sides.

If your TV is EDTV or HDTV ready and progressive, then the first thing you want to test is progressive mode from a DVD player. You need to use the component analog connectors (RGB plugs) and both the DVD player and TV need to be in 480P progressive mode. You will now see your widescreen DVDs in high quality 16x9 progressive mode.

To get similar performance from the Sat tuner you will need the HDTV model. To get 480p over the air you will need a DTV over the air tuner and an antenna. DTV is typically broadcast as 480i, 480p, 720p or 1080i and can be either 4x3 or 16x9 aspect ratio. These formats can change program to program and during commercial breaks.

Check www.antennaweb.org for digital television channels available at your address. They will also recommend antennas.

Cheapest good DTV tuner is this one
http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.gsp?product_id=2598451&cat=115061&type=19&dept=...A3996%3A179886

[Rivers]

Here's my thing........ Some channels broadcast on Sky are still in square screen such as Living tv, some are widescreen such as Sky1 or BBC. Perhaps you need to look at your Skybox setup menu. This needs to be changed to widescreen output for your widescreen tv.
Your tv (depending on its setup) will stretch square pics to fill the screen or you can set it to zoom in so that you end up missing some of the top and bottom.
As for dvds....... a lot of films are made in very widescreen, you will still see some black bars top and bottom. Tvs are not made in that shape. Alien being one example. Other films are made in the same shape as a widescreen tv and will fill the screen 'properly' Aliens being an example. Older films will be square screen.
Hope that helps, widescreen tvs give you more options.

Edit...PS you have to make sure that your dvd player setup menu is set to output in 16:9 too otherwise there may be problems

[Richard_G]

So now you have it. edDV has given you all the information you need if you are in the US and have an NTSC TV, Rivers has given you the information if you are in the UK and have a PAL TV. Wouldn't it have been so much easier if you'd told us where in the world you are? It would have saved at least one of them having to reply.