Playing DVD's on HTPC and 16:9 TV. Aspect ratio problems.

[stounedi]

I have this very annoying problem:

I use my HTPC to play my DVD's, and the TV is 16:9. I use bsplayer to view normal digital videos, with anamorphic setting and they all play well, 16:9 shows as 16:9, 2,85:1 is the corret size and so on...

But playing DVD with PowerDVD or WinDVD changes the output a bit. It "zooms" the image so that parts from the upper and lower parts of the screen drop out. This is very annoying especially when I am viewing a DVD with text. In PowerDVD half of the lower text line is dropped out of the screen, and WinDVD shows only the upper line of subtitles, dropping all of the lower out of screen.

Any ideas how to fix this? I have been playing with the 16:9, pan&scan, 4:3 and all other image sizing settings but it doesnt help. When I enter full-screen, seems like it changes the resolution or aspect ratio so that it drops out parts of the image. Very annoying. As said, bsplayer plays other video fine in fullscreen, so I think it is about those DVD-players... Too bad bsplayer does not play dvd

[edDV]

I have this very annoying problem:

I use my HTPC to play my DVD's, and the TV is 16:9. I use bsplayer to view normal digital videos, with anamorphic setting and they all play well, 16:9 shows as 16:9, 2,85:1 is the corret size and so on...

But playing DVD with PowerDVD or WinDVD changes the output a bit. It "zooms" the image so that parts from the upper and lower parts of the screen drop out. This is very annoying especially when I am viewing a DVD with text. In PowerDVD half of the lower text line is dropped out of the screen, and WinDVD shows only the upper line of subtitles, dropping all of the lower out of screen.

Any ideas how to fix this? I have been playing with the 16:9, pan&scan, 4:3 and all other image sizing settings but it doesnt help. When I enter full-screen, seems like it changes the resolution or aspect ratio so that it drops out parts of the image. Very annoying. As said, bsplayer plays other video fine in fullscreen, so I think it is about those DVD-players... Too bad bsplayer does not play dvd

Strange, do you see this zoom if you play the film in PowerDVD on your desktop? I never do.

The zoom probably is happening in your graphics card or TV.
How are you outputting the DVD to the TV? What card?
What is the TV? Most standard CRT TV sets overscan the image.

[stounedi]

My TV is 32" Sony.

Graphics card is MSI Personal Cinema (graphics adapter & TV-Card combo).

I am currently using S-Video for the video signal.

There is no zoom when playing in windowed mode. Only when I turn to full-screen it plays the image as normal for about 0,5sec and then immediately zooms it a bit. Also it zooms only on the TV image. As said, no other software (like bsplayer) do it, even when switching to fullscreen.

I have tried to set all the aspect ratio and resolution settings from both TV and PowerDVD & WinDVD but neither helps. I am quite lost.

Also what I have noticed is, that the amount of zoom differs by the resolution. If I use 800x600, it is less than with 1024x768. Also 720x576 has noticeably larger "zoom" than 800x600.

[edDV]

The TV will overscan around 10%.

The problem seems to be with your MSI Personal Cinema settings. I am unfamiliar with that card. Consult their forums of an HTPC forum.

[stounedi]

Well I did eventually fix it for once. I used Media Player and changed the television aspect ratio through the slider under the options. But for some reason it worked only for once, it is still in the same setting but video play again at the wrong ratio and / or out of screen :P

EDIT:

Blahblah... I have been fighting with the overscan but seems bad. I can zoom the image so that it is correct size, but every time I start viewing a new dvd I have to adjust it again... It doesnt remember the setting even I save it. Annoying.