black bars on widescreen tv

[munkhee]

i currenty view dvds on a new 61in DLP tv.

the funny thing is the everything (the dvd movie, the player, the tv) are all set to 16:9 aspect ratio.
and yet i still see black bars on top and below the move.

a bit disappointing since the movie is only viewable on about 60% of the screen and the rest are black bars.

how can i view the movie such that the whole screen is showing a 16:9 ratio (err i hope i got that right)

[GMaq]

Hi,
Your DVD is probably 2.35:1 so it is wider than your screen can display without cutting off the sides, this is how the movie studio would have filmed it. 16:9 movies are actually 1.85:1 and Fullscreen (4:3) are 1.33:1, so basically any movies that are 2.35:1 are going to display letterboxes even on 16:9 TV's. If you zoom it to fill the screen you will end up losing footage on either side.

[Newbie 332]

Check out the back of the box to see what the movie is shot in.

[Alex_ander]

You can re-encode a 2.35:1 video so that the borders are not black but match the color of your TV design (e.g. grey/silver), then watching it will be less disappointing .