Weird squished DVD images?

[The Guardian]

I have a Sony Bravia LCD KDL40V2500

I use a Sony DVPNS75H upconverting DVD player, through an HDMI cable.

When I watch DVDs it oddly squishes the image vertically... as in, makes the black bars even bigger than normal (this is on the really widescreen formats of course). I've played with all the settings I can find, if I use Zoom on the TV it fixes it but then I lose the left and right edges of the picture...

Anyone else have this problem?

[Ender]

Check your DVD player's settings, make sure you have "Widescreen" or "16:9" selected as your TV type.

[CptGreedle]

This is either due to the settings on the TV, the settings on the DVD/Blu-ray player, or the settings of both don't match.
Make sure everything is on full widescreen.

[The Guardian]

yup did that, tried every combination of those settings I could think of too.

[CptGreedle]

The only thing I can think of is the DVD itself. Some DVDs do not support "anamorphic" screens. These are always going to be square SD images and might be stretched by the player or TV to fill the screen. It will always have the bars on the top and bottom and they can not be removed. I recommend you try another movie and make sure the back of the box says Anamorphic on it. (or enhanced for 16:9)
If this is not the case, then i am not sure how to help you and you might want to ask one of the companies.

[clyon]

you have the dvd player set for widescreen?

what are the aspect ratio of the dvd's?

movies use diffrent aspect ratio's, so that you have a bigger black bars on some movies, some will be less & some none.

& if your lossing stuff on the sides that would be horizontal under/over scan.

make sure the tv is set to "FULL" when watching a widescreen movies, & "Normal" for 4:3 stuff.

[jadafa]

Most likely you have bought an old non-anamorphic DVD (do they still make those?) that was letterboxed in a 4:3 ratio movie.

Best to place the TV in a 4:3 ratio to get the perfect ratio size. It's unfortunate but that's how the studios **used to** think widescreen should be offered as until we pushed them to go anamorphic.

[EricJ]

As I've been learning this weekend, some upDVD players automatically convert for screen aspect, and some...don't.

If you've got a Don't player, make it an intentional ritual before every disk to
A) change the Setup from "4:3" to "16.9", for every WS movie,
AND, if necessary,
B) change Resolution on the player from standard-only 480 to (720i/1080p, whichever resolution your TV uses)

...One week of practice, and you won't even be aware you're doing it.

[clyon]

Originally Posted by jadafa

Most likely you have bought an old non-anamorphic DVD (do they still make those?) that was letterboxed in a 4:3 ratio movie.

Best to place the TV in a 4:3 ratio to get the perfect ratio size. It's unfortunate but that's how the studios **used to** think widescreen should be offered as until we pushed them to go anamorphic.

I think that could be it, because my Sony dvpns70h is the same as the 75h but sony fixed a small under scan issues on the 70h model, other then that there the same.
No troubles for me. The only time I had a "problem" was when I watched a old copy of Goodfellas, Blacks bars all round (top, bottem & sides) the movie.

[The Guardian]

Originally Posted by jadafa

Most likely you have bought an old non-anamorphic DVD (do they still make those?) that was letterboxed in a 4:3 ratio movie.

Best to place the TV in a 4:3 ratio to get the perfect ratio size. It's unfortunate but that's how the studios **used to** think widescreen should be offered as until we pushed them to go anamorphic.

So in other words, some of the DVDs which are widescreen have "blank" information filling in a 4:3 space rather than just having a 16:9 space and the TV leaves the rest blank?

I have a TON of DVDs, although specifically I can remember the 1st Harry Potter having this problem (widescreen format). It's not always very noticeable but when Harry looks fat you know there's a problem right hehe. Anyone know of a good disc that actually has some kind of circle display so it would be painfully obvious?

[clyon]

Harry Potter should be fine, as long as it says widesceen NOT FULL SCREEN.

They stopped producing those Fo widesceens dvd sometime ago, way back when they used cardboard dvd cases.

[Deciazulado]

Originally Posted by The Guardian

So in other words, some of the DVDs which are widescreen have "blank" information filling in a 4:3 space rather than just having a 16:9 space and the TV leaves the rest blank?

I have a TON of DVDs, although specifically I can remember the 1st Harry Potter having this problem (widescreen format). It's not always very noticeable but when Harry looks fat you know there's a problem right hehe. Anyone know of a good disc that actually has some kind of circle display so it would be painfully obvious?

Guardian, some DVDs are coded for 4:3 screens and some are coded for 16:9 screens. There's also 3 basic shapes of movie formats: A) "squarish" 1.33/1.375, B) standard widescreen 1.66-1.85, and C) "Scope" widescreen 2.00-2.75. So you could actually have 6 variations of formats on DVD

4:3 coded DVDs of movie format "A" have no black scan lines
4:3 coded DVDs of movie formats "B" have black scan lines,
and of format "C" have even thicker black bars.

16:9 coded DVDs of format "A" (Sorcerer Apprentice segment on Fantasia2000 DVD for example) have black scan lines at the sides.
16:9 coded DVDs of movie formats "B" don't have black scan lines.
16:9 coded DVDs of format "C" have black scan lines.

As people have mentioned you have to tell your DVD Player that you have a 16:9 ("Wide") display. That will work with 16:9 coded DVDs fine.

But with 4:3 coded DVDs that won't work at all, the images in them are still coded as 4:3 framed images.

What happens when you put a 4:3 coded DVDs of movie formats "B" format "C" on a 16:9 TV is that the 16:9 TV can stretch the 4:3 frame to fill the 16:9 shape of the display ands that's when you'll get people horizontally stretched (vertically squished) and the black bars will look even thicker.

So for those 4:3 coded DVDs of widescreen movies to look correct, first the 16:9 TV has to show the 4:3 frame NOT stretched (so you'd also have black bars on the sides, a movie image surrounded by black on all four sides but with proper proportions, and then you have to make the 16:9 display ZOOM up the image 33% (1.33x) so the sides fill the 16:9 screen without stretching the 4:3 DVD picture.