Problem with wide screen using Windows Media Player

[dman777]

Out of all the software dvd players, I like Windows Media Player the best for my set up(playing movies off of the hard drive and viewing thru TV out). I have a problem though, with some movies it will play my movies only in full screen rather than wide view with the black bars on top and bottom(for the TV out only...not a prob. on the computer monitor). One good example would be The Sopranos...on Zoom Player Professional it plays in Widescreen format, but in Windows Media Player it doesn't. I have 3 diff. Mpeg2 decoders on my computer so it is hard to figure out which one Windows Media Player is using. I really like Windows Media Player the best for movie viewing, so can anyone tell me how to fix this problem?

[Baldrick]

Maybe try another mpeg2 decoder. What do you have now? You can check what you use with Windows XP Video Decoder Checkup Utility http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=de1491ac-0ab6-4990-943d-627e6ade9fcb

You can use WinDVD, PowerDVD, ffdshow, etc for mpeg2 decoding in wmp.