Help with Breakdown (Kurt Russel) DVD (1 Viewer)

[Clark Bradley]

I just got this from deepdiscountdvd.com. Unfortunately, it is not anamorphic. My TV is 16:9 aspect ratio and set to Wide Screen. The DVD player is set to show the movie in 16:9. The DVD is a widescreen version. Here is the odd part:

On playing the movie, the menu comes up normally. Takes up the whole TV screen. When I play the movie, it gets squished to the middle (characters are wider than they should appear) of the TV with large (unusually large) black bars at the top and bottom. If you put the TV in 4:3 aspect, it looks normal...like a widescreen movie on a regular TV. Why is the widescreen messed up?

I own several movies, but probably none as old as this. I've never had this problem with any movie I have rented. If I put the TV in 16:9 Zoom, it looks somewhat decent but more of a zoomed in look...lines are not as crisp. Is there some setting I can change to get this to play normally on my TV? Normal meaning widescreen with a less squished effect.

 

[Clark Bradley]

I just dug this up, maybe it will help someone find an answer:

 

[Clark Bradley]

I just brought it upstairs to my computer with DVD. Compute screen is 4:3 and it looks like a normal widescreen movie up here. Its like the TV downstairs is trying to stretch a 4:3 widescreen to 16:9 from left to right but not up and down. Does that make sense?

 

[Clark Bradley]

Anyone? Bueller?

 

[Clark Bradley]

ttt

 

[Clark Bradley]

ttt

 

[Daniel Windsor]

Why is this in the International Forum and why has nobody helped?

The Region 1 disc is not anamorphic. The UK Region 2 is and has a great anamorphic transfer. Review here

You can buy that from www.amazon.co.uk (with your Amazon.com login) or from www.bensonsworld.co.uk

Both of those companies will take the tax off if shipping outside the EU.


I'm not sure if that's of any help. If not you should check out the DVDFAQ at www.dvddemystified.com/dvdfaq.html

 

[DaveRU]

Sorry I couldn't disagree more, the R2 disc suffers from excessive edge enhancement. It was unwatchable on my 40" screen, might be ok on a smaller display. The R1 looks better even when zoomed in.

I'm hoping Paramount re-release this at some point.