Does DVD 4:3 P&S setup mode actually work? (1 Viewer)

[Marc Rochkind]

I've believed for a while that of the two 4:3 setup modes on DVD players (called letterbox vs. P&S), the difference is that the former sends the picture as is (after stretching an anamorphic image, if present), whereas the latter takes a 4:3 piece out of the middle.

Today I decided to test this. I used two different DVD players (Samsung M301 and Sony DVP-C600D) and two different discs, one anamorphic and one not.

Well, no difference.

The Sony manual seems to indicate that the 4:3 P&S setting is effective (i.e., different from 4:3 letterbox) only for certain DVDs.

Would these be the ones with the special P&S coding that tells the player where to center the image?

If true, then, contrary to what I have been telling a few people, the 4:3 P&S mode is NOT a way to eliminate the black bars for people who don't care about a cropped image. At least not universally so. And, for all I know, the discs for which it is effective are extremely rare, if they even exist.

Can anyone in the know help out here?

 

[Ken Seeber]

The 4:3 P&S mode only works for discs that have been encoded to allow for pan-and-scan on the fly. For whatever reason, very few DVDs have been released to take advantage of this feature.

 

[Richard Burzynski]

Marc:

Toshiba DVD players have a 4 level zoom feature that do what you want - take out a 4:3 piece from the middle of the widescreen movie.

Rich B.

 

[Jeff Kleist]

Yes, the disc must be encoded with P&S instructions. The HK Shaolin Soccer (coming to US theaters in March) has such a mode, mostly it appears to be a center zoom.

I think the zoom key has pretty much solved many J6P problems, they don't mind talking noses for some reason

 

[Allan Jayne]

The 4:3 P&S mode is not meant to do anything to non-anamorphic disks.
IMHO the 4:3 P&S mode should have done a center view with uniform side cropping of anamorphic disks without the encoded pan and scan instructions but perhaps the DVD system player specifications say otherwise.
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