Hi,

I have been wathing my DVDs fine with 3 A/V cables (new pioneer DVD player & new Panasonic HD TV).
I decided to try component cables to replace the video cable.
Picture quality is great but found 2 problems:
1) red & green are too strong / vivid, even if reducing the amount of colour.
2) I cannot now change the aspect ratio. Always 16:9 even if the dvd playing is not.

I even tried using 3 extra A/V cables (red, white, yellow) instead of the component cables, but plugged into the component jacks) but still the same.
I also set the DVD to both interlaced & progressive but still the same problems.
Going back just the standard 3 A/V cables fixes both problems.
Why is chaning to component doing this?

thanks

Your TV probably needs separate calibration for each input type. Buy a disc like Avia or Digital Video Essentials to properly set your color and tint.

Some TVs automatically lock into 16:9 mode when they receive a progressive 480p signal. This is a design flaw in the set. If yours is like that, switching down to interlaced 480i and it should allow you to change the aspect ratio again.

I haven't heard of this before. How do discs like Digital video essentials work?
Regarding progressive, I tried setting the DVD player back to Interlaced (which it did successfully), but I still couldn't change the aspect ratio.
I don't think there is such an option on my TV.
regards

The disc contains a series of test patterns and explanations for how to use them to properly set your color, brightness, contrast, etc. If you're using the out-of-the-box settings, your picture probably looks like crap.

All HDTVs offer this function. It's just that some of them lock it out for 480p or higher signals (if yours is truly a new model, this shouldn't be the case for 480p; that was a design flaw mostly in older models). All HDTVs will let you change aspect ratios on 480i. Look through your owner's manual to find out what the control is called.