Displaying DVD's on 4:3 TV's?

PeterL

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Hi

After reading many good reviews, I have just bought my first DVD player, a Toshiba SD220. I decided to get a multi-region (chipped) version.

Looking at the output on my 4:3 TV (I can't justify upgrading to a 16:9 yet), different DVD's seem to display in different ways. Sometimes the picture is pushed up the top of the screen, sometimes it is squashed, sometimes stretched. Sometimes it displays correctly. I have borrowed some Region 1 discs from a friend, and they seem to be the worse in terms of displaying correctly.

The thing is, should I expect my 4:3 TV to resolve the output from my DVD inconsistently? I've also tried the output on my 4:3 portable and that does different things to my 21" 4:3.

Can I expect the DVD output be OK on a 16:9? Or should I expect something is wrong with the way the player has been made multi-region?

Sorry for lots of questions but I am rather a newbie to all of this, so thanks for your patience and help!

Best regards,
Peter
 
if you haven't already done it, set the aspect ratio in your dvd players setup menu. also dvds are in three or more aspect ratios depending on how the director had the film shot.
 
Originally posted by stranger
if you haven't already done it, set the aspect ratio in your dvd players setup menu. also dvds are in three or more aspect ratios depending on how the director had the film shot.

Hi Stranger(?). Thanks for your reply.

I have tried the 3 settings on the Toshiba: 4:3 Normal, 4:3 letter box and 16:9 widescreen.

Toshiba don't recommend 16:9 for output on a 4:3, and they are right. However, neither of the other two options seem to work correctly as well, but the 4:3 letter box seems to be the best.

Peter
 
PeterL
Set your player to 4:3 letter box and this will display your DVD's in the aspect ratio encoded on the disc and will not be cropped.What you will notice on screen is differing sizes of black bars top and bottom. If you set it to 4:3 normal then the image will be cropped at the sides to reduce the size of these black bars. Never have it set to 16:9 as the image will appear to be horizontally squashed. If you are only using a 21" 4:3 tv then i would say a widescreen purchase is an absolute must because if you are watching a film in 2.35:1 aspect ratio(the most common)then the displayed image will be very small with huge black bars.
 
Thanks for all the help and advice so far.

I have made sure my DVD is set to 4:3 letter box output, but I am still having a problem with the aspect ratio of Region 1 (USA) discs on my 4:3 TV.

Could this be something to do with the number of lines in NTSC and the DVD not being able to sort out modifying the aspect ratio correctly for 4:3 from these discs. Region 2 discs are all fine and Region 1 discs play OK apart from this aspect ratio issue. Is this a fault of the mutli-region chipping on the player?

Thanks, Peter
 
You haven't really explained what the problem is with R1 DVDs.

As for the display options. 16:9 is for widescreen sets (or 4:3 sets with 16:9 option). 4:3 Letterbox is for 4:3 sets and keeps aspect ratio correct. 4:3 Pan & Scan is for showing the widescreen version cropped to fit the 4:3 display. However, hardly any DVDs use this option and if there is no P&S encoding on the dvd it will then default to 4:3 Letterbox.

The size of the black bars on a 4:3 set will vary depending on the aspect ratio of the film.
 
some u.s. discs are not anamorphic so will leave you with even bigger black bars, get a w.s. t.v. as soon as you can, as you are missing a hell of a lot.:)
 
If your problem lies mainly with Region 1 titles it may be that your TV can't display an NTSC or 60Hz signal properly.

Can you describe what actually happens? Does the image appear squashed, stretched etc.

Keir.
 
Thanks for all the replies. OK folks, I'm sorry if I haven't explained things very well, but let me try again.

Having now borrowed 5 or 6 Region 1 discs from a friend, the display problems on my 4:3 TV seem to be exclusive to those. The player is a Toshiba SD220 which I bought from a company (I won't name them here, although I've no reason not to think they are not reputable as they advertise quite a lot in the major hi-fi / tv mags) and they supplied it multi-region. I understand that Toshiba DVD's cannot be remote hacked so this player has been chipped to play multi-region, which it does without any region notices.

However, as I have said, no matter what setting I use in the player (the 4:3 letter box setting being the best) all the Region 1 discs I have tried so far do not display in the correct aspect ratio on my 4:3 21" TV or my 14" 4:3. It's not that they are out by a long way, but they resolve differently (and incorrectly) on both 4:3 TV's. Sometimes they are streched making people slightly short and dumpy, other times they are squashed making them slightly tall and thin (oh how some would wish to be transformed so easily ;) ), but none are right.

All the Region 2 discs I have tried display correctly, producing blank bands top and bottom and with the correct aspect ratio. I'm going to take the player along to a friend to try it on his 16:9 widescreen TV. At the moment, whilst I appreciate the thoughts about buying a 16:9 myself, as much as I would like to, the pennies aren't available right now.

I do wonder whether Keir's observation about NTSC are something to do with it. Doesn't that format have a different number of lines etc, so could this be the reason the chipping on the player cannot resolve correctly with Region 1 discs in 4:3 letter box? I'm not sure about the capabilities of my TV's, but the although the 21" is 10 years old, the 14" is only 18 months, so I would think it would be OK. However, I will check out the manual to see what it says.

At the end of the day, if I can't get it sorted, I'll be contacting the company to get them to take it back. (I left a message on their CS answerphone yesterday, but didn't get a call back :mad: )

I hope that explains things. Any other questions, please ask.

Thanks again for all the help you guys are giving.

Regards,
Peter
 
If your tv didn't support NTSC you would either have a black & white picture or a rolling picture.

It sounds more as if the dvd player is stuck in 16:9 mode when you view R1 titles.

Apart from that i can't think of anything else which would cause that.
 
If you see the attached JPEG, this shows a comparison between the aspect ratio of PAL and NTSC. The effect I am getting is a 4:3 screen with a black bar at the bottom, just as shown in the picture by comparing the depth of the NTSC ratio to the deeper PAL ratio.

As has been said, the Region 1 discs play in full colour with no glitches apart from this. So could the above explain the effect I am getting?

Thanks,
Peter
 

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  • pal-ntsc comparison.jpg
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IIRC, and i hope someone with a bit more knowledge on this part jumps in soon, the NTSC & PAL lines issue will not impact "that" much on the display.

I find that there is a slight difference in the height/position with R1 titles but that is because my tv (toshiba) has different settings in the service menu for postioning/geometry for PAL and NTSC.

The tvs will vary how they deal with it (some with line doubling or some with scan lines). Perhaps yours is not doing either.
 
Originally posted by Doubledoom
The tvs will vary how they deal with it (some with line doubling or some with scan lines). Perhaps yours is not doing either.

That may well be as my TV is about 10 years old and there is no setup menu.

Anyway, I have more info which confirms it is not the DVD player but the TV. This evening I borrowed a friend's multi-region player (a Proline) and it displayed the same on my TV as my Toshiba multi-region player.

Very strange! :confused:

However, if anyone can throw any light on the reason I why I would be interested to know if only from an academic point of view. If you know a fix, then even better. :)

Thanks again,
Peter
 
OK, Im no expert on these things, but all I can give you is what I know from my experience.

My "really" old Sanyo 4:3 TV, when displaying an NTCS (region 1) picture, would leave black bars at the top and bottom (no matter what the original was like), which made the aspect ratio look wrong from what I remember, all short and fat!!!!!

Then my next TV, a 4:3 Hitatchi would stretch the NTCS pic to fill the screen, and I think it looked right.

This is what I remember anyway, so it looks like different older TV's handle NTCS differently.

I've got a 16:9 now and everything looks normal!!!! :)
 
Hi PeterL

I think that the problem you're experiencing is simply due to the fact that both your TV's are incompatible with the 60HZ frame sync that region 1 discs output. Region 2 discs output a 50Hz frame sync signal.

You mention that you're getting colour on both sets. This means one of 2 things:

1: You've connected to both TV's by a scart socket, and the TV's are accepting RGB signals from yout Toshiba player.

2:You might be using a video/svhs or scart connector and the Toshiba is outputting a 60HZ PAL signal. This is where the colour signal is converted from the NTSC colour frequency of 3.58 Mhz, to a PAL, (UK SETS) colour frequency. The frame rate though, is still 60Hz.

I'm not really surprised that a 10 year old set can't handle 60Hz signals, but I am slightly puzzled as to the portable - unless it's an entry level model like a matsui, bush or proline? These are generally regarded as no-frill sets, due to their cost.

I don't think the Toshiba is faulty, but you say you borrowed a friend's player to check your TV's and got a similar result to the Toshiba? Perhaps you could take your Toshiba over to his house to check it on his TV.

hope that helps.

TBXP
 
Originally posted by Trailblazer XP
I think that the problem you're experiencing is simply due to the fact that both your TV's are incompatible with the 60HZ frame sync that region 1 discs output. Region 2 discs output a 50Hz frame sync signal.
Thanks TBXP for your reply.

I'm not sure if the details you have given above explain it or not - they may well do.

Since my last post, I've been thinking a bit more about the output I get on my 10yo 21" 4:3. On every Region 1 disc, and using the other multi-region player from my friend, the overall picture is compressed into about 5/6, displaying this proportion from the top of the screen down, so the bottom 1/6 is totally black with no picture output on at all.

Earlier in the thread I posted a picture which I found on the net which illustrated the problem I was getting and was my explanation at the time for the reason why: i.e. a difference between NTSC and PAL. The picture I attached is a little confusing though in that it is dealing in pixels as it is to do with converting PAL & NTSC video output on a computer.

However, I think the principles I was trying to understand are the same, so the following is where I am at now in my understanding of the problem. This is a semi-laymen speaking so I would value some feedback either rejecting or confirming my conclusion ...

As I understand it, PAL format uses 625 lines whereas NTSC uses 525 lines. To get the NTSC 525 lines to fit into the same depth of screen therefore means that each of the lines is slightly thicker than would be for PAL lines. The output I am getting seems like my TV is not doing this, but is displaying the NTSC 525 lines with the same thickness as it is for PAL. Hence, the picture looks squashed top to bottom and the bottom 1/6 (or 100/625) is not used.

Whether this is the same as what you have said for the difference in refresh rates I'm not sure, as I said it may well be, but my technical understanding hasn't sorted that one out yet.

Regarding my portable 4:3, I will have to check it out again as I know that wasn't displaying correctly either, but it did not compress the picture as my 10yo 21" 4:3 does.

Again, thanks for your help. Is my theory about the number and thickness of lines correct? :confused:

Best regards,
PeterL

PS. By the way, you asked about trying it on my friend's TV and this I have done. It displays fine although my friend's TV is a 16:9. It would be good to try it on a 21" or bigger and newer 4:3,
 
Originally posted by PeterL

Again, thanks for your help. Is my theory about the number and thickness of lines correct? :confused:

PS. By the way, you asked about trying it on my friend's TV and this I have done. It displays fine although my friend's TV is a 16:9. It would be good to try it on a 21" or bigger and newer 4:3, [/B]

Hi PeterL,

Yes, your theory's close enough.

I also know that it would be possible using your TV's height and frame positioning controls to get the picture looking as it should do - but of course, this would knock out normal PAL reproduction. Not what you're looking for.

The fact that you tried the Toshiba on your friend's set, and it worked, (even though 16:9), proves the point that most, if not all, modern TV's can cope with auto switching and sizing between 525/60Hz and 625/25Hz signals.

Time to treat yourself to a new TV maybe?

Regards,

TBXP
 
I have a widescreen TV and the mode switches to full screen automatically whenever I play a region 2 disc.

When I play a region 1 disc it doesn't sense that it is full screen and I have to manually set the TV to full screen.

This sounds similar to this problem which I thought peculiar to the Pioneer 555
 
Thanks to TBXP, Ian and all the others, I think I am a lot clearer now. I appreciate all your help! :cool:
 
Originally posted by Trailblazer XP
I also know that it would be possible using your TV's height and frame positioning controls to get the picture looking as it should do - but of course, this would knock out normal PAL reproduction.

Unless the TV has separate settings for PAL and NTSC geometry .... Unlikely seeing as it's quite old??
 

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