[Vogon]

Hi, I have a query regarding my Oppo 981 player.

I put my Die Hard dvd in and the aspect ratio isn't right, on my TV almost half the screen was black bars, I know I should have some as its a 2.35:1 aspect film, but the amount is what you expect on a 4:3 display, not a 16:9 display.
I tried DH2 and Vengance in the player too, same results.
I put the films in my dvd recorder and it shows as it should, just small black bars.
Thinking it might be a Fox thing, I tried Alien, and that displayed correctly, as did a couple of others from sony. But Entrapment showed the same symptoms as Die Hard.

Is there a known issue with The Oppo and some DVD's, or have I something weird and unique going on ? !

[Bolander]

Check the TV Display setting in the General Setup page. If this is 16:9 Wide/Auto try changing it to 16:9 Wide and see if this helps (you will have to change it back to view 4:3 DVDs in the correct aspect ratio).

[Vogon]

The tv is set correct, the only way I can get the aspect correct it to set the TV to one of the zoom modes, which I shouldn't have to do ... like I mentioned my dvd recorder displays it correctly

[fruitfly]

My Pioneer does the same thing with some discs. I can only think it's something to do with the HDMI upscaling feature, as previous SD players hooked up via Scart, have never had this issue. Actually, this Pioneer never had the issue when hooked up with Scart either. (before I got a HDMI cable)
I don't know what the long term cure is, but what works for me, after I insert a disc , and if it displays a 4:3 ratio instead of 16:9, I change the channel of the TV to Digital TV and then back to the HDMI DVD feed and the aspect ratio is back to 16:9. Only on some discs this happens, and since the player doesn't flip out on me during play back, I'm not too fussed.
Try it, see what happens.