Anamorphic no longer working! Help!

[redlester]

My Toshiba SD220 has very strangely decided to stop playing anamorphic widescreen discs correctly. My TV/DVD player setup has not changed, but all of a sudden it will no longer automatically switch to 16:9 when an anamorphic disc is inserted! Have tried various discs - all the same. The player has been working fine for a long time, until very recently.

Has anyone experienced anything like this? Is my DVD player faulty? I know for a fact that my TV is ok because it still switches correctly for widescreen digital TV and for my DVD recorder. This is really bugging me.

[FulciLives]

Did you look in the menu of your Toshiba DVD player to ensure that it is set-up correctly?

For instance if you lost power or unplugged then plugged the power cord back in the default settings would take over and the default setting for the picture might not be 16x9 WS but might instead be 4:3 WS etc.

My guess is that it is something simple like that.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[redlester]

If only it were as simple as that. No, I've checked all the obvious stuff, its set to "16:9 Wide" on the DVD player options. I dont suppose it could be because I'm using the component output instead of scart? But then, it did work but has now stopped - so I guess not.

Funnily enough I noticed a while back that one of my DVDs (Billy Liar R1 Criterion edition) would not play anamorphic on the SD220 but did on my DVD recorder (Tosh D-R1). The problem seems to have now spread to every disc! I can't help but feel that whatever circuitry in the DVD player detects the widescreen has simply gone up the spout..

[FulciLives]

If only it were as simple as that. No, I've checked all the obvious stuff, its set to "16:9 Wide" on the DVD player options. I dont suppose it could be because I'm using the component output instead of scart? But then, it did work but has now stopped - so I guess not.

Funnily enough I noticed a while back that one of my DVDs (Billy Liar R1 Criterion edition) would not play anamorphic on the SD220 but did on my DVD recorder (Tosh D-R1). The problem seems to have now spread to every disc! I can't help but feel that whatever circuitry in the DVD player detects the widescreen has simply gone up the spout..

Could be the TV itself. You said you have it connected via component cables. Does the TV have more than one set of component inputs? If so switch the cables to another input ... inputs can "go bad" you know.

If the TV only has a single set of component inputs then try new component cables.

Last but not least go back to scart and see if it works that way.

Oh wait one more thing ... can't you force 16x9 mode on the TV? If you can (would be stupid design if you can't) then you can confirm if the DVD player is sending 16x9 out or not.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[redlester]

Could be the TV itself. You said you have it connected via component cables. Does the TV have more than one set of component inputs? If so switch the cables to another input ... inputs can "go bad" you know.

It only has one set - but heres an idea. My DVD recorder also has component out, so I could swap the cables over. If the recorder works ok on the component (using the same cables) then that would prove that its my player thats faulty.

If the TV only has a single set of component inputs then try new component cables.

It only has one set so, yes thats another option.

Last but not least go back to scart and see if it works that way.

Yes, I'll double check that too.

Oh wait one more thing ... can't you force 16x9 mode on the TV? If you can (would be stupid design if you can't) then you can confirm if the DVD player is sending 16x9 out or not.

Yes I can manually select 16:9, but thats the whole point - I shouldn't have to! The signal is appearing on screen as a 4:3 picture stretched vertically (i.e. 16:9 compressed to 4:3), as opposed to letterboxed 4:3