Sony DVP-NS775 DVD player 16:9 widescreen output to Panasonic TH-42PD25U Plasma (1 Viewer)

[Phil Iott]

I am having a bit of a conniption fit over the compatibility of the widescreen modes between these 2 components. In the Sony's menu I have it set to 16:9 output. I have been playing the Avia test disc's 1.78:1 test signal to see how the Panasonic formats the image on each of it's aspect ratio settings. The Panny has a 4:3 setting which obviously keeps the image in the center with gray bars on the sides. OK. There is a setting called "Full" which seems to stretch the 1.78 image to the sides of the screen but there is still space above and below the edges of the 1.78 area, which is not what I expect. I expect the 1.78 image to exactly fill the screen on this setting, since it matches exactly the aspect ratio of my display. The last setting available (on the component inputs at least) is called "Zoom" which does just that, but it cuts off the top, bottom and sides of the 1.78 image area just a bit, and there is a very perceptible loss of resolution. Am I missing something here? Shouldn't there be a setting where the image is neither stretched or cropped and just fills the screen? Obviously I would expect slight bars on top and bottom for 1.85 movies and larger ones for 2.35. It seems like when I change the setting from 16:9 to 4:3 on the DVD player that nothing changes on screen. I would guess this probably would be applicable to anyone with a 16:9 display. Any insights would be appreciated.

 

[MikeEckman]

I am having a bit of a tough time trying to visualize what you are trying to describe. Maybe a screenshot of your TV would help explain things better.

What I am imagining is that you are seeing black bars above and below the 1.78:1 frame even in 16x9 Full setting.

On most 16x9 TVs, FULL mode means you are seeing 100% of the 16x9 anamorphic image. If you are seeing a stretched or cropped image, I would guess your DVD player is still not outputting a 16x9 signal, or the DVD was not authored in anamorphic widescreen.

But then again, I could just be misunderstanding what you are saying.

 

[Phil Iott]

"What I am imagining is that you are seeing black bars above and below the 1.78:1 frame even in 16x9 Full setting."

That is exactly what I'm seeing. I'm disconcerted because I would expect there to be some combination of settings between the 2 components where I would simply see a full width image on screen from the DVD with no stretching or cropping and obviously some black bars on top and bottom for 1.85 or 2.35 material, and none for 1.78 material. At this point I haven't been able to find such a combination. This is my first widescreen display so perhaps I was making a foolish assumption. It bothers me that I will be watching an image from a DVD that will be stretched or cropped in any way.

 

[MikeEckman]

The only thing I can think of, is perhaps the image on the DVD you are seeing is not anamorphically enhanced. It is possible that the source information itself is hardcoded to be letterboxed. Which means that those black bars you are seeing are part of the original 480i signal coming off the DVD. Your DVD player sees is outputting this as a 4x3 picture, and your 16x9 TV is stretching it to fill the sides of your screen.

You need to make sure the source material you are looking at is anamorphically enhanced.

Get a DVD that you know is anamorphically enhanced and is either 1.78:1 or 1.85:1 and stick it in your player, set your TV to 16:9 Full and you should be seeing the whole picture.