Widescreen DVD question

Speaker Asylum

General speaker questions for audio and home theater.

12.15.184.18

I do not understand why certain DVD's do not display to fill the screen on my widescreen Panasonic TV. I have a 16x9 Panny set and the Panny RP82 p-scan player. The player is set for 16x9 display. Certain movies (usually the el-cheapos found at the checkout lanes in Best Buy), though labeled WIDESCREEN, stretch when displayed using FULL aspect ratio on the set. The only way to avoid stretch is to set aspect to 4:3 on the set. Three recent examples I can think of - Something About Mary, Spaceballs and What About Bob?. All of these so-called "widescreen" titles display letterboxed within a 4:3 frame. What do they mean by "widescreen"? Is there a difference between "widescreen" vs. "anamorphic"? Flipping the disc over to play the "standard" format gives me the pan & scan version of the flick, still 4:3 aspect, though not letterboxed. Am I missing something here? Is there some combination of settings between the player and the TV to make this work properly?

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Analog Engineering Associates

Topic - Widescreen DVD question - Bootie Day 12:43:22 05/27/03 (3)

Re: Widescreen DVD question - SysInfo 19:44:18 05/27/03 (1)

Well I found a cure for that that will really screw `em up! - bwkendall 10:23:57 05/28/03 (0)

Wrong Forum But.... - Nebakanezzar 12:49:09 05/27/03 (0)

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