Is This Overscan, and How Can I Fix It? (1 Viewer)

[Doug_L]

Here's my situation:
I have a 32" Loewe Calida TV (I like it most of the time, so please don't hack on me for buying it) that has an automatic 16: 9 sensor for DVD's. When I watch a 1.85:1 anamorphic disc I get no black bars from the disc; even though I should get minute black bars between the 1.85:1 film and the 1.78:1 "frame", I'm not really getting them.
To be specific, I do get some black (from the disc, assumedly) below the film, but there is nothing above the film. In fact, when I checked it against 4:3 mode with individual frames, I am actually losing a little bit of the top of the film in 16: 9/squeeze mode.
Does this have something to do with overscan? When I run VE and the 16: 9 test patterns I can see the safe areas and up to what seems to be the outside line of the frame.
I know I'm only missing a tiny bit of picture information, and it's not like I'm a dyed-in-the-wool purist who has to see the WHOLE frame, it's just that for any scene where headroom is tight, my set makes it even tighter (lack of headroom is a major pet peeve of mine).
Anyway, hope everyone can shed some light on my dilemma. I don't expect anybody to know how to fix this on the Loewe, but once I understand the issues I can at lease use the right lingo when talking to Loewe's help guys. If people with Wegas or other TV's with the squeeze have had a similar problem their stories would be very helpful.
Thanks.

 

[Allan Jayne]

Be aware that for most CRT based TV sets the entire picture is slightly larger when the overall content is quite light. So if you adjust it for no overscan with a bright scene, you may see ragged edges of the picture with possibly annoying streaks of light during a dark scene.
This is a possible explanation of why you are seeing the edges of a movie cut off while the VE test pattern (overall dark content) shows the extreme edges.
If you see black below but not above a 1.85:1 picture, the overall picture might not be centered on the screen vertically. There should be additional adjustments for this.
Other video hints: http://members.aol.com/ajaynejr/video.htm
[Edited last by Allan Jayne on August 03, 2001 at 12:24 PM]