Problems with aspect ratio - City of God (R3) (1 Viewer)

[Justin Spike]

I just got this DVD, and when I popped it in there were no black bars on the top and bottom (yes, I'm using a 4:3 TV :frowning. Instead the picture appeared stretched vertically to fill the screen. I played with the output modes on my DVD player: letterbox, widescreen, P&S, and I got the same result with all three.

What could be causing this? Furthermore, the disc is supposed to be anamorphic, and I planned to show it next week at my friend's house on his widescreen set. Has anyone experienced similiar problems on a 16:9 TV?

 

[Roger Mathus]

This sounds strange. I have the Region 3 disc and do not recall any problem. I viewed it with projection setup in anamorphic mode. My disc is from Panarama Distributors and the product number is PANDVD308159. Is your DVD the same source?
The disc I have is Hong Kong release.

 

[Justin Spike]

Yes, that's the same disc I have. I'm thinking this is a problem with my DVD player, not the disc. I'm using the Apex A600 - it's a real shitbox, and this is only the second time I've experimented with the region switching capability of the player - the other time was when I played my R2 Eyes Wide Shut, and I had no problems there. I'm at a loss.

 

[Roger Mathus]

If you have access to a different player give that a try. Eyes Wide Shut might not be a good comparison as it is 4X3 rather than anamorphic wide.

 

[Matt Shiv]

My first thought was because you had a PAL disc, but the Region 3 should be NTSC. I used to have a cheap region free player and it could play PAL discs but it couldn't downconvert the 16X9 transfer at the same time. As a result, everything I tried to watch that was anamorphic and PAL was stretched out on my 4X3 tv. I ended up getting a new player and didn't have that problem anymore.