Should 16:9 video fill the entire screen on a new HD Plasma TV?

[Rkevin]

Here is my question: should 16:9 video fill the entire screen on the new(er) HD plasma and LCD TVs? My video projects always display centered on the screen with rougly 3" black bands on top/bottom/left and right. The video looks good and seems to be proportioned correctly, but it seems a shame to lose so much screen real estate.

My project displays the same way on my daughter's 19" LCD flat panel TV through a brand new Sony DVD player. I get the same result when displayed on an analog 52" 4:3 TV through a brand new Sony DVD player. I would have expected it to be letterboxed top and bottom, but not left and right. It is a good thing that I'm getting consistency in output, but I have a nagging feeling that I'm doing something wrong????

I shot footage using my Sony PDX10 which I believe gives me true 16:9 video. I edited the footage 16:9 in Avid Liquid 7.2, fused the timeline, and then encoded the mpeg using TMPGEnc (I've had a hard time getting the Liquid DVD writing to work for me, so I just went back to what has always worked). When I tried encoding using the Liquid "export to file" mpeg I got the same result.

I have no idea what most of the data means in the attached screen shot captured from GSpot, but maybe some of you will see something interesting?

Thanks!

[guns1inger]

Short answer : Yes, it should fill the screen, and yes, your video is 16:9.

The most likely cause is incorrectly set up equipment. A DVD player set to output a 4:3 letterboxed signal to a 16:9 TV will result in black bands around the entire image.

Given the number of poorly configured widescreen setups I see daily at homes, in stores, and in the background of US made TV shows and movies, I suspect this to be the most likely cause.

[Rkevin]

Yamaha Neutral Sound DVD Player S796
Settings: TV Aspect 16:9 (it was 4:3), and in "other settings" I can choose TV mode to be "4:3 Pan and Scan" or "4:3 Letterbox"

I changed the Aspect to 16:9 in the DVD player and now my video is fills the vertical, but striped on the sides and it seems to be stretched vertically. It doesn't seem to make a difference whether I choose "pan and scan" or "letterbox". I have 4 settings I can select for Aspect on the TV and none look right. However, the DVD menu I created used to look stretched (while the clips were correct) and now it looks correct.

UPDATE: So I decided to re-encode an ISO using the Avid Liquid built-in encoder and voila! the video works as expected on three different DVD player/TV combos. I don't understand all that is different, but here is the revised GSpot output that shows a different PAR or .9 instead of 1.2 and the DAR is 4:3 rather than 16:9. But it works

Can you help me understand what is going on with the two? Thanks!

[guns1inger]

If is was to take a wild guess, the content of the ISO will be an authored DVD, whereas your original file was just an mpeg-2 file. If this is the case, you should be able to just author your video without re-encoding and get correct playback.