DVD player for digital widescreen TV - I'm confused! (1 Viewer)

[David I]

I'm set to take delivery of a Sony 51HW40 this weekend. I'm looking for the right DVD player to compliment and maximize the features of the TV. The reason I'm asking for help is because I'm thoroughly flummoxed over all the different features this TV and DVD players offer in comparison to the last time I purchased both these items 4 or 5 years ago.

On a 16:9 TV, I know I need progressive scan but do I need features like scaling and zooming? As I understand it, anamorphic titles will render themselves to fill the entire screen but non-anamorphic titles run into trouble. You have to either zoom in or deal with letterboxing (albeit smaller letterboxing). Am I way off here?

Truthfully, I'm mostly looking for a robust picture but I don't want to switch 15 settings on and off every time I switch movies. Any suggestions / tips / rants are greatly appreciated.

 

[Eric T]

David-
Don't worry about it too much. To be honest, I never knew anything about scaling and zooming until I started reading this forum, and that was AFTER I got most of my equipment.

Basically, you just need a decent progressive-scan player (researching on this forum is a great way to pick one out), and then set the player's output mode to 16:9 progressive. The player should then send the correct signal to your TV.

The only time you'll have to mess with anything is when you play a non-anamorphic disc or 4:3 material. With a non-anamorphic disc, the image will be "squashed". Your TV probably has some sort of "zoom" or "expand" picture mode that is specifically designed to compensate for this. So when you play a non-anamorphic disc, you can just change the picture mode of your TV and you're OK.

Same thing goes for 4:3 material, except in this case, the picture will look "stretched". In this case, you want to put your screen in its 4:3 picture mode, which will add black or grey bars on the sides of the screen. OR, you can do what I and a lot of other people do, and just watch it stretched. It's not too noticable after a few minutes.