RP82: My 53wx42 says "The software has 4:3 aspect ratio" WRONG Help (1 Viewer)

[Tod_J]

I have an RP82 feeding a 53wx42. Both are great with one exception: Sometimes (not all the time) I pop in a widescreen DVD and get the message "The software has a 4:3 aspect ratio". Can anyone help?
I tried Beverly Hills Ninja - it's a 2 sided DVD. The widescreen side results in the message. Spiderman (Widescreen) results in the same message. The Matrix among others works fine.
Anyone have a clue? I've searched the forums and found a reference to this but no solution.
Thanks
Ration = ratio...you can't edit the title

 

[Kevin. W]

Same thing happens with my RP62 and 47wx52. Usually only happens during disc start up. Maybe has something to do with the aspect ratio of the film not conforming to 16:9(1.77:1). Widescreen movies still play in widescreen, just some will have the black bars on top and bottom if its not a true 1.77:1 ratio.

Kevin

 

[Steve Schaffer]

Tod,

This is generated by the player (not the tv) when it detects any non-anamorphic material on the disc. Often the FBI warning or the studio video distributor's logo, even the menu screen at the beginning of the movie is nonanamorphic even if the movie is anamorphic so the notice will pop up even though the film itself is mastered in 16/9.

This notice will also pop up if any individual title on the disc (such as an individual special feature) is nonanamorphic so it will often pop up after making a selection in the special features menu.

Some few discs have everything on the disc in 16/9, even the special features.
Both Star Wars I and II are this way as is the 4 disc Fellowship of the Ring disc. On these you never see the "software has 4/3 aspect ratio" notice.

This seems to be a feature only on Panny players and is probably meant to prompt widescreen set owners to change the aspect ratio selection on their tv sets to properly present nonanamorphic stuff.

The fact that it shows up when not really needed (I don't switch my set to "normal" to watch just FBI warnings) indicates that it's a well-intentioned but largely useless feature.

 

[Tod_J]

Thanks Steve - I had noticed that in many cases the previews, etc. were in 4:3 however I'm talking about the movie itself. A movie I am having trouble with will fill the entire screen. The DVD has the note "Enhanced for widescreen TV's". I would normally assume I am doing something dumb but When I pop in Matrix and it's widesceen, then try Spiderman (widescreen) and Beverly Hills Ninja (widescreen side) it says it's 4X3 and takes up the whole 16:9 screen. Everything looks OK and the TV is in NORMAL, not ZOOM. I don't know how many times I've checked this.
These DVD's are 1.85:1, I assume I should still see narrow bars on top and bottom or will overscan normally take care of this? It still does not explain the "software is 4X3" message...

 

[nousername]

There's probably no black bars on your 16:9 display when viewing 1.85:1 DVDs because of the overscan. The difference between 1.85:1 and 1.78:1 is very, very small. Also, although some DVDs might say 1.85:1 on the case, some of them have actually been slightly cropped to completely fill the screen of a 16:9 TV.

As for the annoying "4:3 aspect ratio" message that keeps popping up, you can defeat this by going into your RP82's setup menu and turning the On-screen Messages off. Steve is right--the message pops up when it encounters the FBI warning screen, menu screens, etc.

 

[Steve Schaffer]

The movie itself is not 4/3, but usually before the movie starts there's a short logo saying "New Line Home Video" or
something similar, followed by one or more others for the various production companies that financed the movie followed by the beginning of the movie.

The blurb for the video releasing company is often not anamorphic, while everything else is--but if the player sees any 4/3 stuff at all in the item selected it will flash the "software is 4/3 aspect ratio" icon.

The vast majority of 16/9 sets have enough overscan to eliminat the tiny black bars that theoretically should appear with 1:85 aspect ratio movies.

BTW, I was wrong about LOTR being 100% 16/9. One easter egg, the MTV version of the council of Rivendale is 4/3.

 

[Sanjay Gupta]

What I fail to understand is why the current crop of televisions cannot recognize the difference between an anamorphic and non-anamorphic signal and accordingly adjust the mode. A SONY (4:3 aspect ratio) tv that i have owned since 1992 has the feature so why is it that current models don't? The worst part about this is that even the current Sony televisions don't have this feature, go figure.

Sanjay

 

[Yohan Pamudji]

Sanjay,

My Sony 4:3 32" TV that I bought last year auto-detects anamorphic/non-anamorphic and adjusts the squeeze accordingly.


Tod_J,

I think Allan and Steve have given some good explanations about your "problem", which I guess isn't really a problem at all.

 

[Sanjay Gupta]

My Sony 4:3 32" TV that I bought last year auto-detects anamorphic/non-anamorphic and adjusts the squeeze accordingly.

Sorry I should have clarified that I was reffering more to the situation in Asia, where only one model of Sony has the anamorphic mode and that too has to be manually switched on/off.

Sanjay