Anamorphic & 51HW40. Please Help! (1 Viewer)

[David I]

OK, I just got a Sony 51HW40 and a Sony 755 DVD progressive scan DVD player. I set the DVD player to progressive and hooked it up via component to the set.

The problem is, whenever I play anamorphic discs, I still get letterboxing on the top & bottom. I was under the impression that anamorphic filled the screen. When I turn the "Zoom" feature on, the picture fills the screen but I though it was supposed to fill the screen in "full" mode. I may be totally off on the anamorphic feature, i.e. 2.35:1 movies still get slight letterboxing.

Additionally, the TV won't let me set the DRC, i.e. Cinemotion, Progressive or Interlaced. When I enter setup, it is set to Interlaced but the option is greyed out. Any ideas? I want to make sure I'm actually displaying a progressive signal. I'm thinking this feature is for interlaced signals only but I want to make sure.

By the way, the picture looks absolutely fantastic and I haven't even tweaked my system with Avia yet.

 

[Jim Lenneman]

David,

As I understand it, DRC is out of the loop when you feed the TV a progressive signal. Do you have the DVD player set to 16x9 mode? TV should be set to "full". This works for me.

Jim L

 

[David I]

I do have the DVD player set to 16x9. Do you get any sort of letterboxing in Full mode? I even get letterboxing in anamorphic 1.85:1 films.

 

[Chris PC]

Films in 1.78:1 and 1.85:1 should essentially have no letterboxing at all (well, maybe a pixel or two for 1.85:1). Anything wider ratio than 1.85:1 such as 2.00:1 2.35 and 2.40 and 2.50:1 all will be letterboxed on your screen no matter what. 16:9 or 1.77-1.85:1 should have no significant letterboxing.

 

[Warner]

16/9=1.78
Your 51" screen is 44.5" wide. A 1.85 dvd with no overscan should be 44.5"/1.85=24" tall, but your screen is 25" tall, so that means 1/2" bars on top and bottom. If you see no bars with a 1.85 dvd, that means your overscan is at least 4%. You do see bars, so your overscan is less than 4% out of the box, which sounds strange to me.

 

[Jim Lenneman]

David,

Sorry, Chris is right. Kinda had my head up today. Essentially your 16x9 TV is a 1.78 aspect ratio (16 divided by 9). Anything different than this will have minimal (1.85:1) to a greater amount (2.5:1) of letterboxing.

Jim L