Am I having a playback problem? (widescreen)

[klewi]

Hi,

I may have a spcific problem with a new DVD player but first a little background that may be useful.

I just hooked up a new Sony DVP-NS575PB DVD player. I have to run it through my VCR as I don't have RCA inputs on my TV. The owners manual says this may cause a picture quality problem but I haven't noticed a 'quality' issue. The manual also says that I can select between wide screen mode (black bands on top and bottom of my tv) and full screen (cropping the wide screen image to fit full on my tv) but some DVD's will overide your selection and play wide screen only. I experienced this last night while watching two movies, Collateral and Man On Fire.

My problem is that when I started watching Man On Fire it 'appears' that the wide screen mode, with the black bands, was cutting off the tops of heads in the scenes. Having never seen the movie before I can't be sure but has anyone ever encountered this problem before?

I'll do some more investigating while watching movies but I would appreciate any input.

Thanks.

[jbenj01]

First thing is whether you properly set up your Sony DVD player initially. There s/b a "Quick Set Up" menu (or something like that). Make sure DVD player is properly set to match the aspect ratio of your TV--either 4:3 or 16:9. If it's not that, then i'm not sure what it could be..

On another note, just curious, is macrovision somehow disabled on your Sony? If you've got it hooked up to a VCR, I thought you s/b getting a distorted video.. ??

[klewi]

Thanks for the reply.

First the aspect ratio is what I was refering to as full and wide. The player actually has 3 settings '4:3 letter' (wide screen), '4:3 pan' (full screen tv, or cropped wide screen) and 16:9 specifically for wide screen tv's. I have the player set for full screen (my personal choice) but like I said the owners manual says some DVD's will overide this and that is what I experienced I think.

As for the macrovision, no the player is right out of the box, as far as I'm aware nothing disabled. From the manual I wouldn't have been surprised by a snowy or garbled picture but it's not. Actually I would have been ticked off at it but that's another story. I had a question in my head if the 'extra cropping' with the black bands may have been a form of macrovision but I didn't want to say it in my post. I wanted someone else's experience and not someone just saying 'yup must be macrovision'.

So if anyone else has any thoughts let me know.

[jbenj01]

mmm.. not sure. did you get it corrected?

From my understanding, you should opt for 4:3 if you indeed have a 4:3 TV, which I'm guessing you do. But question is whether to opt for letter or pan. It seems you opted for pan, yes? if so, i think that's part of the problem since the DVD's in question or widescreen/enhanced(?).. 4:3 letter would fix the prob but it sounds like you do not want that.

As for the MV question, the only other thing is that the DVD's aren't copy-protected.. but i doubt if that's the case.. sorry i really can't shed any more light on the issue..

[bazooka]

Unless you have a widescreen tv, then you need to select the 4:3 letterbox option.

[funkguy4]

Unless you have a widescreen tv, then you need to select the 4:3 letterbox option.

No...then he needs to select the 16:9 specially for widescreen TV's option

4:3 letterbox will take the widescreen video fromt he DVD and scale it down to fit into a 4:3 frame w/ black bars on the top and bottom. This would basially give yuo a small picture w/ bars on all sides on a Widescreen TV

[bazooka]

Unless you have a widescreen tv, then you need to select the 4:3 letterbox option.

No...then he needs to select the 16:9 specially for widescreen TV's option

4:3 letterbox will take the widescreen video fromt he DVD and scale it down to fit into a 4:3 frame w/ black bars on the top and bottom. This would basially give yuo a small picture w/ bars on all sides on a Widescreen TV

No because if you do the other, then the video is stretched. That is the reason he is in this predicament.

[bazooka]

Edit

[manono]

Hi-

Yeah, bazooka, I think that maybe funkguy4 didn't read klewi's problem correctly, since he obviously has a 4:3 TV set. Use the 4:3 option. The Pan and Scan setting is for DVD's that have the option to do a Pan and Scan on a widescreen movie "on-the-fly" so to speak. But no DVDs ever utilized this option, and it's pretty much useless. There's more information about it here (scroll down a bit):

http://www.dvddemystified.com/dvdfaq.html#3.5

However, the 4:3 Pan option should produce the same result as 4:3 Letter, if I'm understanding it correctly. So, my guess is that any cropping of heads that klewi is noticing is intentional.