newecho

Okay, I have a quick question here to settle my worry about my tv...hopefully, someone can help.

I've had my tv for 2 years and 3 months now, almost exactly. I have the Sony Wega XBR 250. I would say that the majority of the viewing time on the tv is spent watching cable. If I had to put a number on it, I would say that my wife and I spend about 75% of our time watching cable and 25% watching dvd's.

My worry is this, can the anamorphic squeeze feature of the tv be over used? I haven't noticed any problems with my set now, after 2 years and change, but the worry is there.

I've always had my trusty Sony 530D dvd player that I bought in 1999 (even before I got my tv) and it's served me well. I've always kept the setting for video to 16:9 and the tv just detects whether or not the source material is anamorphic or non-anamorphic.

However, just recently I purchased the Malata 996 and it has become my main dvd player. I got it so I could have access to non R1 titles that I've been dying to see for years...and now see in the dvd format (My Neighbor Totoro, La Dolce Vita and Le Samoura).

Again, I haven't noticed any change in the performance of the set, I just worry that continuing usage of setting the dvd player to 16:9 will harm the tv when it switches between the v-compression back to 4:3.

Should I be worried?
newecho

newecho

Also, a question about progressive scanning.

How does doubling the lines (via: progressive scan dvd & hi-scan 1080i tv) compare to the lines being doubled with the v-compression on my non-Hi Def tv.

newecho

mdX

nope. there is no evidence to suggest that using your TVs 16x9 mode will result in any damage down the road.


the 16x9/v-compression doesn't "double" lines. you are still seeing 480 lines of resolution, each half being refreshed every 1/60th of a second. the only difference between the 16x9 mode and the regular viewing mode is the amount of space vertically that those 480 lines occupy. with progressive scan (480p - in either regular or 16x9 mode), every line is redrawn every 1/60th of a second. you don't gain any resolution anywhere though. I suppose you could argue that you gain resolution since the TV is displaying a new image with 480 lines every 1/60th of a sec as opposed to 240 lines with interlaced scan, but that's a real stretch. If you had a set that converted a 480i signal to 1080i, you wouldn't be gaining any resolution there either - you'd just have a 480i signal scaled to 1080i. This could look better depending on the size of the screen (more noticable on a large set) and the quality of the scaling done.

newecho

Thanks, I'll go ahead using the 16:9 squeeze then.

One more thing, I've noticed that with the Malata, when I play some titles that are NOT anamorphic the tv still does the v-compression. It's when I have the 16:9 selected on the Malata and sometimes even if the title isn't anamorphic it'll display in 16:9.

For instance, the other day I was watching my dvd of The Wild Bunch and with the picture squeezed, I do the zoom (via x-y scaling) and the it's suddenly squeezed and the resolution looks MUCH, MUCH better than if it were in regular widescreen.

Are my eyes deceiving me or am I getting better resolution, squeezing a non-anamophic disc and then zooming it to it's OAR?

newecho