Problem with WS DVD's on "squeezed" analog TV (1 Viewer)

[Blaine Skerry]

I am having an unusual problem with two DVD's when watching on my 32" Panasonic when picture is squeezed. The two DVD's are NORTH BY NORTHWEST and BELL, BOOK AND CANDLE. The top quarter to half inch of the letterbox screen is pulled to the left(only noticeable on vertical lines that go to top of picture)when watching these and only these two. All my other wide screen (enhanced for 16:9) DVD's look sharp and the picture geometry is as near perfect as I can get it. Why only these two? I have other 1.85:1 DVD's and they display with no picture skew whatsoever and all the 2.35:1 DVD's are also fine. Anybody else have a problem with either NORTH BY NORTHWEST or BELL, BOOK AND CANDLE?

 

[Blaine Skerry]

Any wild speculation on my above-mentioned problem?

Hello.

Anybody home?

 

[Jack Briggs]

Beats me, Blaine. I have North By Northwest, and it looks superb on both my Sony WEGA and my bedroom Toshiba (on which I have to perform the "squeeze" from the service menu). I was going to say something about geometry issues, but you've already had good results with other 16:9-encoded discs. You might want to try another copy of either disc and see what happens.

Anybody else?

 

[Bill Slack]

What player do you have? I've seen problems with really cheap (e.g., Apex, Omitron etc.) players and really messed up geometry.

 

[Jesse Skeen]

Sounds like Macrovision!

 

[Blaine Skerry]

My DVD player is a Panasonic A-120. Isn't it unusual that I only notice this distortion on those two DVD's? Damn!

 

[Bill Slack]

Is it constant throughout the film? Are you sure it's only those DVDs, and isn't just less apparent on other films? I've certainly never seen such a problem before. Do you have access to a different DVD player you could try it out on?

 

[Blaine Skerry]

Are you sure it's only those DVDs, and isn't just less apparent on other films?

I've even used the widescreen grids(both the 1.85:1 and 2.35:1)from Avia and it displays fine. The two DR. Phibes DVD's, both 1.85:1 look fine and Bava's BLACK SUNDAY, listed as 1.66:1 also looks fine.

Aha! The XBox. I completely forgot about it. I'll try the two jinxed DVD's on it. If the same thing happens with the XBox, that points the finger at the TV, right? The Panny is connected via component and the XBox is connected via S-Video. Will that make a difference?

However, if I see the same thing with the XBox, I'm back to square one. Why only NBN and BB&C?

 

[Jack Briggs]

The A-120 may be a bit long in tooth. How often does the Panny get used? DVD players, except for the built-like-a-tank top-of-the-line models, are not known for their ability to withstand marathon movie-viewing sessions for long periods of time. They are, in fact, a bit flimsy and delicate--but that's a whole other (and controversial) issue!

 

[Bill Slack]

Why? I have no idea, really. I suspect it is the DVD player. Perhaps something weird on the disc that trips up the A-120. Like I said, I have seen similiar problems, but never on specific discs Very strange, indeed.

 

[Chris_Cardona]

The A-120 may be a bit long in tooth. How often does the Panny get used? DVD players...are, in fact, a bit flimsy and delicate--but that's a whole other (and controversial) issue!

Yeah, my A120, which I've had for about two and a half years now, has gotten pretty finicky of late. On 1 out of every 3 discs that I play (just randomly, nothing to do with the discs themselves, although it does seem particularly to dislike Season 2 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer ), it gives me a "No Play" error message and won't load. Sometimes it's just a question of ejecting and re-loading once, sometimes it takes 5 tries, every once in a while it takes 20. I wonder if player fatigue might have anything to do with your problem, Blaine...Good luck!

 

[Allan Jayne]

The skewing of the top of the picture is known as "flag waving" and reveals a defect somewhere, most likely in the TV. Try the same DVD but with the TV in 4:3 mode (not foolproof since the skewed part may be completely off screen due to overscan). When it happens it is more likely at the top of the picture because here the scanning has to get back into sync. when the electron beam has returned to the top left corner of the screen for the next video field or frame.
The only way I can suggest for proving whether Macrovision is inducing the problem is to borrow an RF modulator (the USD 30 kind from Radio shack), connect the composite DVD player output to the modulator and the modulator to the TV antenna input. Again try both 4:3 and 16:9 mode on the TV.
It is possible for the DVD player and the TV to have an incompatibility that only shows up with some DVD's, making the trying of a different player or a different TV not foolproof.
>>> Is the [4:3] TV's "wide mode" just a junky imitation of "V-compression" that doesn't really do the same thing...
Turn the contrast way down, perhaps to 10%. Turn the brightness way up, to say 90%. Dim the room lights. Put the TV in 16:9 mode, V-compression, wide mode or whatever it is called. If the "black bars" are gray and/or have scan lines in them you have the junky imitiation. If the black bars are perfectly black, the TV is doing it right.
Another method, count the scan lines. If there are approximately 480 of them in the squeezed picture, the TV is doing it right.
Turn the brightness down before turning the contrast back up.
>>>My problem is that the picture from DVDs gets stretched in wide mode, varying from half a centimeter (1.85:1 movies) to about an inch (2.35:1 movies).
Does this stretch change if you turn the contrast down?
It is not unusual for the picture width to be different if the overall picture content is brighter or darker. With the 2.35:1 picture there is more dark space so the TV power supply is being tapped less vigorously and this may cause voltages to vary so that the overall picture is bigger. Actually it is usually the other way around, when the picture content is brighter, the picture expands slightly, but differnet power supply characteristics can make the results different.
Video hints:
http://members.aol.com/ajaynejr/video.htm

 

[Blaine Skerry]

The skewing of the top of the picture is known as "flag waving" and reveals a defect somewhere, most likely in the TV.

It looks like this is the case with my situation. I tried using the XBox with the problem DVD's and it was still the same. I also noticed the skew problem with more of my DVD's when I checked them out this past weekend. Some discs still look perfect. I guess I can watch the problem discs with the TV picture uncompressed. The picture will not be as sharp but at least it won't be distorted. Thanks to everyone for the suggestions.