Imitation Anamorphic pretty neat (1 Viewer)

[Ernest]

Some of the newer DVD progressive scan players, JVC 723 and Panasonic PR91, have a very neat feature that enables the player to reformat a 4 x 3 letterbox to 16 x 9. The picture quality definitley improves somewhat better than letterbox but not as good as a true anamorphic transfer. Nevertheless this is a great feature whether or not your HD TV accepts progressive scan on all formats.
Unfortunatley the players can only reformt 4 x 3 to 16 x 9 when the DVD contains those particular instructions. I checked out all my letterbox DVD's and my JVC 723 could reformat approximatley 65%.

 

[Vince Maskeeper]

Is there anyway to manually force the player to do it? How about the panny 91?
-Vince
------------------
http://www.musicianassist.com
AIM: VinceMaskeeper
"If you want everything to be cheap then you're in the wrong hobby." -Rob Gillespie
Got Remo?

 

[Scott Merryfield]

The Panasonic RP-91 can be manually zoomed for non-anamorphic discs that are not flagged properly. I had to do this when watching High Plains Drifter on my new RP-91.
BTW, I do agree that this zoom/scaling is a great feature for folks with 16x9 HD-ready TV's. The picture quality of good non-anamorphic transfers now comes very close to anamorphic transfers. This player will add a whole new life to my collection (I still have approximately 85 non-anamorphic widescreen transfers).
------------------
My DVD Collection
AFI 100 Films to watch: 40 -> 7

 

[james e m]

That does sound like a pretty cool feature and I hope it catches on with other companies. I'd like to see that feature in the next Sony dvd player I buy.
james