DVD-ROM & Widescreen

[luv2kruz]

Not sure if this is the correct forum for this question, but since this relates to a non-standalone piece of PC hardware, I'll ask here first.

I recently purchased a widescreen LCD and put in a widescreen movie only to be dismayed that I still have the black bars on top. After a bit of research on the internet, I learned that I actually have to change the setting on the standalone DVD player to widescreen so that it fills the screen properly. Obvisouly, the way it is supposed to work.

My question relates to my media center PC which is hooked up to a projector downstairs in a home theatre set up. When I play wide screen DVDs down there, I simply enlarge the image so that the black bars shine off the screen and it is hardly noticeable. Do internal DVD-ROM drives have a similar ability to change the format of what it sends to the projector and how do I do this? Or is this something that video card does?

My projector is switchable from 4:3 to 16:9 just like the TV. I have a DVD ROM (AOpen COM5232/AAH PRO) and a DVD-Burner (Matshita SW-9585). My video card is a Nvidia 6800GT.

Thanks for your help!

[guns1inger]

There are two formats involved here, and they are not the same.

Television comes in 4:3 and 16:9. Simple - full and wide screen.

Film comes in a wide range of formats 1.33 (4:3), 1.66, 1.778 (16:9), 1.85, 2.0, 2.35, 2.40.

1.33 will show fullscreen on a fullscreen TV.
1.66 will have small black bars top and bottom of a full screen TV.

1.778 is the same as 16:9, and will fill a widescreen display.

1.85 and wider will all have black bars top and bottom, as they are wider than a widescreen television display. Even changing the display to widescreen will not change this. You can either stretch the image vertically to fit, distorting the image, or use the zoom function that some TVs and DVD players have to zoom in. This will get rid of the bars, but also will crop off the ends of the display. Depending on the original format, this could be up to 25% of the image.

Which begs the question, why get a widescreen display if you don't want to watch widescreen material in it's original aspect ratio ?

[luv2kruz]

I DO want to watch widescreen material in it's original aspect ratio! That is why I want to figure out how to get my DVDROM in my computer to do the same thing that the standalone DVD player does, which is send the projector the true widescreen signal and eliminate the bars instead of compensating by 'overprojecting', so to speak, the image on the screen.

I'm not sure if you somehow are confused by my mention of a projector since you mention 'film'. This is not a film projector, it's a home theatre projector that uses the DVDROM in my computer as its source. I'm just trying to figure out whether computer DVD-ROM's have the same thing like standalone DVD players have which can alter the aspect ratio of the signal or is this done through the video card somehow?

Thanks.

[guns1inger]

DVD material is sourced from film. Film has many aspect ratios. If the film aspect ratio is wider than 16:9 ( as much of it is) then the DVD will have black bars embedded in it, and these will project. You can't just get rid of them. They appear on a widescreen TV, even if the DVD player is set to widescreen.

The DVD-Rom drive doesn't control this, the video card doesn't control this. The playback software might have a zoom function to allow you to zoom in enough to push the bars off the display area, but then you aren't watching in the original aspect ratio. So look to your software, not the computer hardware.

You should also have a good read through this site -> http://widescreen.org/index.shtml

Some of it's material and purpose has aged, but the information is still sound.