Sony UPB-X700 player - problem with DVDs of old TV material in 4:3 ratio (1 Viewer)

[Bruce Morrison]

Hi everyone. I have come across a strange issue with my Sony UPB-X700 player when playing certain DVDs of older TV material in the 4:3 aspect ratio. The main problem is that, if I'm playing such a DVD and I then power down the player, i.e. with the DVD still inside, when I restart the disc, the playback resumes but the image is now filling the entire TV screen, so that everything is horizontally stretched.

Having unexpectedly stumbled across this problem, I've done some more testing with other DVDs of 4:3 TV material. It doesn't happen with all such DVDs - in fact, it seems to be a particular problem with DVDs released by the BBC - for example their classic sitcoms from the '70s and '80s and DVDs of single TV plays from that era. My TV is the Panasonic 65FZ802B. I've checked the relevant settings for the player and the TV and, as far as I can see, they are correct.

Because it doesn't happen with all such DVDs, I think this might just be a disc encoding error, but it might also reveal a shortcoming in the player. Does anyone have any thoughts or suggestions on this?

 

[Todd Erwin]

Older DVDs from Disney have this issue, too, and it is an encoding issue on the disc.

 

[Bruce Morrison]

Thanks Todd. That's reassuring in a way - at least it's not an issue with my player. But it is really bad that major companies like Disney as well as the BBC here in the UK have made this kind of encoding error on their discs.

 

[Todd Erwin]

The Disney issues were on some of their first DVD releases, so we’re looking at over 20 years ago.

 

[Dennis Nicholls]

I found this out the other day with my x700. Before hitting the power on button, I hit the tray eject button and loaded the disk. It started up in "stretch" mode. But I then hit the STOP button on the remote, then the PLAY button on the remote. The film then played in the correct 4x3 format.