DVD video has black bars on both top, bottom, left and right - what is wrong?

[Fjodor2000]

Hello,

I mostly own Blu-rays and 4K UHD Blu-rays, so I'm not that familiar with what is common for DVDs. But I just got a few DVDs since that's the only format some movies are available in.

Anyway, when watching some DVDs on a 16:9 format TV there are black bars on both top, bottom, left and right (see screenshot in [1] below). Normally you have either black bars on left and right (e.g. when watching 4:3 content on a 16:9 display), or on top and bottom (when watching 16:9 content on 4:3 display). But to have black bars all around the image does not make any sense!

I also tried ripping the problematic DVDs using MakeMKV and watching the MKV in VLC on a PC, and the behavior is the same (i.e. black bars around the video image when watching on a 16:10 monitor).


So now I wonder:

1. Is it normal for some DVDs to be recorded like this, or is there some setting I should change (e.g. in my DVD/Blu-ray player or TV) to fix the problem? I know I manually can use zoom options on the TV, but it feels strange to have to do this manually.

2. What is the "root cause" of the problem? Has the DVD incorrectly been recorded with black bars (that should have been cropped in the production when creating the DVD)? See MediaInfo details about the MKV video file in [2] below, when having ripped the DVD to MKV using MakeMKV.


[1] Screenshot showing roughly what it looks like (screenshot is taken by someone else, but illustrates the problem):


[2] MediaInfo:

Video
ID                                       : 1
ID in the original source medium         : 224 (0xE0)
Format                                   : MPEG Video
Format version                           : Version 2
Format profile                           : Main@Main
Format settings                          : CustomMatrix / BVOP
Format settings, BVOP                    : Yes
Format settings, Matrix                  : Custom
Format settings, GOP                     : M=3, N=12
Format settings, picture structure       : Frame
Codec ID                                 : V_MPEG2
Codec ID/Info                            : MPEG 1 or 2 Video
Duration                                 : 1 h 44 min
Bit rate mode                            : Variable
Bit rate                                 : 4 912 kb/s
Maximum bit rate                         : 8 000 kb/s
Width                                    : 720 pixels
Height                                   : 576 pixels
Display aspect ratio                     : 4:3
Frame rate mode                          : Constant
Frame rate                               : 25.000 FPS
Standard                                 : PAL
Color space                              : YUV
Chroma subsampling                       : 4:2:0
Bit depth                                : 8 bits
Scan type                                : Interlaced
Scan order                               : Top Field First
Compression mode                         : Lossy
Bits/(Pixel*Frame)                       : 0.474
Time code of first frame                 : 09:59:56:00
Time code source                         : Group of pictures header
GOP, Open/Closed                         : Open
Stream size                              : 3.60 GiB (98%)
Language                                 : English
Default                                  : No
Forced                                   : No
Original source medium                   : DVD-Video

[3] Hardware used:
* Sony X800 4K UHD Blu-ray player
* LG OLED C7 TV