Is this normal?

[element]

Im new to widescreen tv's so have no previous experience, but I have recently bought one and have noticed when I play dvd's, I still get the black bands at the top and bottom of the screen. The dvd player is setup to output in widescreen, and the screen selection mode on my tv is also set to widescreen, so is this normal or have i missed something?

[slackbladder]

Hi element!

It can be a little confusing! Firstly some older DVD's play films in letterbox format, so although they look widescreen there are borders top and bottom and sides too. Then you have DVD's that are anamorphic and fit the width of your TV. However they may still have borders top and bottom depending on the "aspect ratio" of the film. This is so the film remains the same as its theatrical release and as the director intended. Look on the back of the DVD box and it'll say something like "enhanced for 16:9 televisions" "anamorphic widescreen aspect ratio 2.35:1" etc. They vary, and some will have borders top and bottom. But there are DVD's that are fullscreen too. It all depends on the original aspect ratio of the film.


Hope that helps. I've only had widescreen for a couple of months myself!

[element]

Hey BigPig thanks for the reply, that helps. Just been through a few of my dvd's, and some do play without the borders, and some play with borders top and bottom, but never all around. I tried waynes world which under aspect ratio says anamorphic widescreen, with a ratio of 1.78:1, this plays fullscreen with no borders. I then tried the matrix which has a ratio of 2.35:1, and this plays with the top and bottom borders. (I never noticed these on the back of dvd cases before...)

[slackbladder]

Glad I could help!

[element]

Help you did Thanks again