Playing Regular Screen DVDs on Wide Screen TVs

You can choose how to display the picture on the widescreen TVs. Mine has an "Auto" feature that tries to detect the DVD format and adjusts the screen automatically but I can over-ride that and manually choose which screen format I want. If I choose the standard 4:3 mode than I get the black bars on both sides and the picture fills the screen from top to bottom.

fishin- Aha! Thanks. But would that work on VHS tapes?

Also, from what I gather from what you said, a DVD, say on a 50"widescreen, which was projected at the normal ratio, would have a smaller picture than if it were played on a regular 50" screen, because of the black bars on the sides. Am I right?

Your VCR tapes will work just like the DVDs and broadcast TV does.

And yeah, since the TV's screen size is measured diagonally a 4:3 format image on my 34" widescreen is about the same size as a 30" 4:3 screen would be - some of the screen real estate is wasted. You can stretch the 4:3 formated video to fill the Widescreen but it looks horrible.

fishin- Soooo........ If I wanted to get the same size picture vertically that I get from my 50" set, I would have to get a larger widescreen TV.

Yeah. But if you are at 50" already...

On the wide screen TV's you are given choices as to how the picture is presented. You can watch the 4x3 standard TV picture with bars on the side, in "Standard" which expands the picture but loses some of the top and bottom and "Stretch" which subtley expands the left and right hand edges but looses little of the image. The problem with stretch is that when people appear near the edges, their arms will expand making them look slightly overweight on that edge! One gets used to it as most pan-and-scan centers the images of figures. On an extreme close-up it can look a bit disconcerting especially if the shoulders are visable -- it can make a svelt woman look like a wrestler! Doesn't happen very often.

What you are experiencing on your standard 4x3 big screen is letter boxing -- the original wide screen image is being presented (although many film are cropped to fit the 16x9 ration). Some DVD present the Panavision aspect ratio of 2.35 to 1 which will still leave letterbox bars at the top and bottom of the screen although less pronounced than on a convention TV. There is an expand setting on wide screen TV's that will fill the screen with the image but loose some of the left and righthand side.

Good luck.

But I am terribly spoiled when it comes to TV. Funny thing, when I watch my old set in the den, which is about 18 years old, it doesn't bother me that the picture is 19". Go figure!

LW- Thanks for the info!

Once you upgrade to wide screen HDTV (the rear projector models around 46" are the best as any larger and you beging loosing the advantage of the hi-def) you will be spoiled. Plasma is still too expensive and not any better in pic quality. TNT has come on with all of it's programming in HD and 5.0 Dolby Digital sound. I'm rewatching all the sold X Files as I can finally see what's going on in all those dark images. I'm even watching the old "Law and Order" which I mostly missed. The Mitsubishi we purchased is down down to around $1600. (we couldn't wait once we saw it and paid around $2,000.00 but with no interest for two years!) I shopped around, of course, and for the money the picture was superb. I can give you the model # if you want.

LW- I LOVE the new LCD sets, but they still don't come in anything but smaller sizes. I have a Samsung LCD computer monitor, and I think that it is wonderful! Right now, I am not quite in the market to buy a new TV.

I read somewhere that the plasma sets lose definition after awhile. Do you know anything about this?

LCD's are still pricey and the screens have been become larger and larger. It is as good if not better than a flat screen computer screen in resolution and better than plasma. Plasma creates heat and uses a lot of power while LCD does not. I can't see them coming down in price for another three to five years and the rear projection Diamond Vision Mitsubishi looked better to me than the equal sized plasma so the only advantage was the flat screen. All TV's lose contrast over the years but they give you way over the top in contrast to begin with and the only way it would be really noticable is in very bright daylight rooms. I saw a front projection 100 in. display that also tripled the available hi-def pixelization lines (!) and was spectacular but cost not just an arm and a leg but both arms and both legs. The digital projects are in some theaters in L.A. and the last Star Wars movie was shown in this format. I'm watching the okay "Chorus Line" on HD right now and it looks better than a theater presentation in resolution. It's an old movie so I must say a newer movie in hi-def is more than satisfying on this set. Unfortunatley, it only has one hi-def input which would mean the new hi-def DVD players could cause me to replace it. However, the Super Bit regular DVD picture is unbelievable and you can hardly tell the difference. Bear in mind that the resolution of ordinary movie film is reproduced quite satisfactorily with only 525 lines of resolution on a 60" screen. The programs that have been photographed with hi-def film like the IMAX are breathtaking. They just had a documentary phtographing the sunrises at Everest and K2 overhead from a plane with hi-def film. I almost gasped.

It was featuring the one Japanese photographer who gave his opinions about Gods and nature. Imagine that, a documentary with opinions.

One warning Phoenix. Once you go to a HDTV setup regular channels look like POOP!

That's very true even if the picture is digital. Broadcast TV is still only 350 lines per in. What really looks bad is the 240 lines of a videotape (unless you have S-VHS which is comparable to DVD). I record the Leno show on a DMR (Digital Media Recorder with a harddrive and DVD burner) and it is digital and in HDTV, even though I can't, of course, record HD it's a better picture than the ordinary major network broadcasts.

(Regular TV, even some all digital, now look soft and fuzzy).