Can't get Philips 5990 to fill the screen on HDMI

[ahhaa]

I have a Philips DPV 5990 F7 player attached to a Polaroid TX02311B LCD HD TV via HDMI. Both are on a UPS. OK, yeah, lowend... Many commercial movies, such as The Abyss, are exactly the shape of the LCD screen, but only fill the center portion, about half the size it could be. The remote's size controls - neither player or LCD - don't seem to fix this problem and seem out of whack with the choices given (work OK for broadcast HD). The machine is not heavily used- one disc per day average, and it has good air circulation and power, etc. What could cause this? I don't know even whether this is a fixable TV or a Player issue, and would welcome any advice...

[wulf109]

In the 5990's setup menu did you set it to display 16:9? In addition to using an HDMI cable did you set the resolution to 1920 x 1080 in the HDMI sub-menu?

[jagabo]

The Abyss has an AR of 2.35:1 (like many other movies), not 1.78:1. It's not supposed to fill the height of a 16:9 screen. There are very few movies that are shot 1.78:1, basically only HD video (TV series). The closest common film aspect ratios are 1.66:1 and 1.85:1.

[ahhaa]

OK! I was faked out by the Abyss menu filling the screen correctly edge to edge & top to bottom. The film itself was surrounded by black on edges and above/below. The 5990 seems to have 2 sub menus for setup; confusing for HDMI... one gives 4:3, Auto, Pillar Box etc, the other within HDMI has one called Superwide, which I thought was a zoom setting, but has at least gotten me full width. Am interested to see what happens with other discs... Thanks guys! one other thing- is there any upconvert'n player that you'd especially recommend for 'future-use' purchase? (Am starting to see the dread red-screen intermittent prob.) (Would want region freeable too.)