Quake1028

Ok, I have a 4:3 HDTV that has a 16:9 squeeze mode. What do I set my dvd player to, so I just leave 4:3 and non-anamorphic programming alone and use the squeeze properly for 16:9 enhanced material? My choices are 4:3 Pan & Scan, 4:3 Regular and 16:9 Letterbox.

chipmac

If you're going to use the 16:9 squeeze on the Tv you need to set the player to 16:9 letterbox and leave it that way. Even if the DVD is not 16:9 you can leave the player set this way and just not activate the 16:9 mode on the TV.

Quake1028

And that would work for 4:3 material as well, correct?

Gil Jawetz

Yeah, you want to "trick" the DVD player into sending the material as if your TV is 16:9. That way, you can hit the ratio (or whatever) button to use 16:9 squeeze on on anamorphic discs and use the TV's 4:3 setting for 4:3 material.

Why, oh why, can't discs have flags that TVs can pick up to autmocatically adjust this?

Josh Z

Discs actually do have these flags, but it is the DVD player that reads them, not the TV.

Gil Jawetz

Good point. Unfortunately it's useless for folks with 16:9 squeeze TVs. So let me rephrase "Lordy, why can't TVs read the signal?"