Help a newbie out...

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Deep

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Just bought a 47" Samsung widescreen tv. It has the following display options, "Wide", "Panoramic", "Zoom1", "Zoom2", and "Normal". Now when watching dvds, what is the proper setting to use? Some say Zoom1, others say Panoramic, most of my DVDs say "Anamorphic Widescreen 2:35:1" on them. Also when is the proper time to use "Wide", seems kinda useless cause it just stretches the picture out of proper proportions and fills the whole 16:9 screen.
 
I have the Samsung 42" rear projection TV and providing you keep the convergence well adjusted, it is the bees knees!

You should only use 4:3 for conventional TV or 16:9 for widescreen TV or DVDs (or WS videos too).

True widescreen films will still have a black border at the top and bottom, but you will see the whole image which the Director intended.

The other settings are frankly naff and I never use them, unless I am watching something filmed in WS letterbox format - that's the one that puts huge black bits top and bottom.

What however really irritates me about the Samsung is I can't get it to automatically switch between 4:3 and 16:9 without me doing it manually through the remote control!

My previous Hitachi did it completely automatically.

An e mail to Samsung sadly brought no response, but it's still an impressive bit of kit...
 
Your problem is you have not set the settings on your DVD player to 16:9!

I stupidly did the same thing with my 16:9 Samsung 47" TV (SP47W3HF) and was wondering the exact same thing.

You will find once you have changed the settings on your DVD player the image will fit the screen. Some extra wide screen recordings will still have the black bars on top/bottom but they will only be small.

jim.rae: I think all Samsungs have this stupid problem, if only their was an automatic mode.

Zoom 1 and Zoom 2 are totally useless IMHO, they enlarge the picture sure but the degraded picture quality is not worth zooming at all.

Panoramic simply stretches a 4:3 image to fill (The last 3 inches or so of the 4:3 original image is stretched to fit the screen) This bugs me as it distorts the images and actually makes me feel sick especially if you are watching a scene that pans across the screen (It's like looking through one of those funny mirrors)

I was wondering what color settings you guys are using? The reason I ask this is I recently changed mine to the following with outstanding results. I found the factory settings where terrible, mainly being too colourful especially skin tones.

Color Tone: Normal
Contrast: 37
Brightness: 54
Sharpness: 15
Color: 20
 
So are you confirming my worst fears that Samsung - despite all the other great facilities, (which in my case includes three SCART plus component sockets), doesn't have auto widescreen switching?

Seems a shame really - can it be retro fitted in any way?
 
doesn't have auto widescreen switching?

No definetely not :( You may have noticed that when you change a channel the TV changes to 'widescreen' no matter what screen setting you had it on previously.

The only way to overcome this is by using a VCR or Digital Set Box as the tuner, obviously this leaves the TV on the same channel and has the VCR/Set Box doing the channel flipping.

The only problem with this comes back to the TV not being able to 'Auto' change. What I mean by this is that some digital Movies are broadcast in widescreen, meaning you (And me and anyone else with a Samsung Widescreen TV) will have to manualy change the setting, through the remote control.

Can you please let me know what color setting you are using.
Im just curious...

Here's another thing I have noticed, the TV remote is very directional (The buttons also feel crappy ie: You don't know if you have really pressed them) I have replaced mine with a 8 in 1 remote that uses RF to transmit, I can now point it virtually anywhere to change channels etc

If their is anything else I find out I will let you guys know. :)

G'Day from Aus!
 

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