Buy:Ernie6
07-21-01, 11:35 AM
Some of the newer progressive scan players, JVC 723 and Panasonic RP91, have a really neat feature when it comes to anamorphic widescreen. If the DVD contains the proper instructions the player can reformat a 4 x 3 letterbox, White Squall, ABYSS, Clear and Present Danger, to 16 x9 aspect ratio.
In the past 16 x 9 was associated with only the anamorphic or enhanced for widescreen process. No longer, now many letterbox DVD's can be viewed in 16 x 9, not a zoom, a true 16 x9 format. Does the picture quality improve? Yes, definitely, much better than pure letterbox but not as sharp as a true anamorphic.
Somewhere inbetween
The importance of the feature is two fold. First, many leterbox DVD's many never be remastered, reformated to 16 x 9. Second many HD TV's lock in "FULL" when accepting a progressive scan signal. These players overcome that limitation.
Unfortunatley, the feature will not work on all letterbox DVD's. For those the feature dose not work on, Titanic, Mission Impossible, Ghost and Darkenss, both players have excellent ZOOM features. Hopefully, in future DVD players like the JVC and Panasonic will provide a manual overide. For now you either use the players ZOOM or if you have a Toshiba or MITS use the TV's theater wide aspect ratios. Both the Toshiba and MITS HD TV's accept a progressive scan signal on all their aspect ratios.
I tested the leterbox DVD's I own and found 39 did not contain the 16 x 9 instructions, while 47 did. For whatever reasons MGM neglests to add the instruction to their letterbox DVD's. That is to bad because "Who'll Stop the Rain" and others will probably never be reformatted. That is why the manual overide would be a great feature.
In the past 16 x 9 was associated with only the anamorphic or enhanced for widescreen process. No longer, now many letterbox DVD's can be viewed in 16 x 9, not a zoom, a true 16 x9 format. Does the picture quality improve? Yes, definitely, much better than pure letterbox but not as sharp as a true anamorphic.
Somewhere inbetween
The importance of the feature is two fold. First, many leterbox DVD's many never be remastered, reformated to 16 x 9. Second many HD TV's lock in "FULL" when accepting a progressive scan signal. These players overcome that limitation.
Unfortunatley, the feature will not work on all letterbox DVD's. For those the feature dose not work on, Titanic, Mission Impossible, Ghost and Darkenss, both players have excellent ZOOM features. Hopefully, in future DVD players like the JVC and Panasonic will provide a manual overide. For now you either use the players ZOOM or if you have a Toshiba or MITS use the TV's theater wide aspect ratios. Both the Toshiba and MITS HD TV's accept a progressive scan signal on all their aspect ratios.
I tested the leterbox DVD's I own and found 39 did not contain the 16 x 9 instructions, while 47 did. For whatever reasons MGM neglests to add the instruction to their letterbox DVD's. That is to bad because "Who'll Stop the Rain" and others will probably never be reformatted. That is why the manual overide would be a great feature.