Question about displaying a widescreen movie on a 4:3 Television? (1 Viewer)

[William R]

I recently hooked my Panasonic Portable DVD Player (DVD-LS50) to my Sony 20-inch color television, Which is a regular 4:3 ratio tv, After conecting the player to the tv I entered the DVD Player's setup menu and changed the tv aspect ratio from 16:9 to 4:3 standard ratio since I'm connected to a regular tv, I noticed when I played my Star Wars Attack of the Clones widescreen DVD that the top black bar above the picture seems like its leaning toward the right of the screen and the top black bar isn't straight like the bottom black bar is, I switched the DVDs and put the bonus disc in and it also did the same thing, My friend brought over his Star Wars Attack of the Clones Widescreen DVD and it did the same thing with his discs,Also I noticed during some scenes in the movie there were some objects in the background of a scene that look squashed. Is this normal or is there something wrong with the tv, dvd player or the dvd itself?

 

[Rachael B]

Maybe the player doesn't down-convert so well? That's just a wild quess though. I wouldn't suspect the TV particularly...

 

[ChrisWiggles]

I would suspect geometry problems on the TV, this is usually the case. If you suspect otherwise, try using a test disc such as Avia, and view some geometry patterns using both modes, and see if the problems persist regardless of whether you have your DVD player set to 4:3 or 16:9. I'm betting it's your TV, as I am assuming by "standard" TV that you have a CRT, which is very prone to geometry problems that you wouldn't notice unless you had things like straight black bars where small errors would be more noticable across the whole screen.



You'll have to describe this more in detail.

 

[Mark Shannon]

I would say it's most likely the TV. If the DVD player were the one causing this, wouldn't the problem be symmetrical? If the problem is only occuring in certain spots, it's most likely a damaged picture tube.

 

[William R]

Thanks for the replys, I tried a different DVD disc and it does the same thing, so I have ruled out the problem being with the DVDs itself, I also thought that the problem may be with my television but I recently connected a different model Panasonic Portable DVD Player (DVD-LS5) to a different brand 27-inch color television and I'm still getting the same problem! maybe its these Panasonic portable players I'm useing instead of the television, I don't know.

 

[Shane Martin]

William,
I would think based on that it is the dvd player's downconversion that is causing the issue. I would see if you can try another player and see what you get. Otherwise its hard to completely and utterly rule out your TV but that would certainly do that.

 

[ChrisWiggles]

I told you it's almost certainly a geometry issue in the television set.

The background objects being "squashed" doesn't make sense, but if you are referring to geometry problems that you see clearly while following slow pans and such, like linearity problems, again, this is all the TV.

And geometry problems do not mean a damaged tube.

 

[StephenHa]

portable dvd players rarely use the best components

 

[ChrisWiggles]

Your point?

Try another source, this sounds like basic, classic geometry issues. See em all the time. Nature of the CRT.

 

[StephenHa]

I have played portable players on all kinds of tv's and get all kinds of different shapes, switch to even a cheap dvd player and it's fine

 

[Jack Briggs]

What Chris said. This is a geometry issue in your display, not a downconversion artifact. It's correctable in the service menu. Since it's a 20-inch set and thus is portable, I'd recommend that you take it to an authorized Panasonic repair center and ask that they use the pin-cushion grid on their signal generator to correct the geometry. Also ask them to look at your overscan, as well.