Philips DVP-642 16:9 Display

[wulf109]

I'm confused. I hooked up my old DVP-642 to my Toshiba Regza LCD via a component cable and I;m getting a squashed 4:3 image on screen from 16:9 content. I thought component supported 16:9? I went into the players setup menu and set it to 16:9 progressive. The TV has a full screen option in it's Theater Screen menu so it can be correctly viewed.

[jagabo]

Your TV has no way of telling of the SD component signal from the DVD player is 4:3 or 16:9, they both look the same to it. So manually set your TV to 16:9.

[wulf109]

Seems to be player dependent. I hooked up my Bravo D1 via component and it displays a normal 16:9 image. The Bravo D1 was one of the first hi-def players which maybe why. It has a DVI output also.

[jagabo]

The Bravo D1 was probably set to upscale to HD. The TV would know that's 16:9.

[jman98]

Your TV has no way of telling of the SD component signal from the DVD player is 4:3 or 16:9, they both look the same to it. So manually set your TV to 16:9.

I have the DVP-642 hooked up to a Samsung 1080p HDTV via component and jagabo is 100% correct. Just use the TV remote control to switch between 4:3 and 16:9 as necessary. Note that this player has a bug in the way it displays Divx/Xvid and it cannot display them correctly in 16:9. You need to watch all Dvix/Xvid in 4:3 regardless of the resolution of the file or it won't be quite correct. Some people do watch widescreen Divx/Xvid in 16:9 on the player and don't notice the flaws as it's not obvious to most people, but some people do pick up on it being off and it drives them nuts. The DVP-642 is old and even in its time it was cheap and hardly a top line model.