joliom

I have a 57" Sony XBR widescreen HDTV (XBR KDP-57XBR2). Something that has been nagging me for awhile is that the picture in widescreen mode seems to be zoomed slightly. It's most apparent whenever I play a 1.85:1 DVD - there are no black bars at all, despite my tv being 1.78:1. I have read through the instruction manual and can't seem to find anything that addresses this issue.

The TV has 4 viewing modes which are called "Wide Modes" on the remote and consol. Those are "Normal" which is a 4:3 image with bars on the right and left for viwing standard television programming and 1.33:1 films; "Full" which is a widescreen image (if the source is 4:3 it stretches the picture horizontally allowing it to fill up the entire 1.78:1 screen); "Zoom" which is a widescreen image that is stretched vertically (if the source is 4:3 it also stretches the picture horizontally allowing it to fill up the entire 1.78:1 screen, but the vertical stretch cuts off info at the top and bottom for either WS or 4:3 source material); and "Wide Zoom" which is a widescreen image (if the source is a 4:3 it stretches it horizontally and vertically, but slightly less vertically than "Zoom" does - for a non-anamorphic letterboxed source it widens the image making the black bars at the top and bottom bigger).

Now how come no matter what setting I use, 1.85:1 images fill my screen completely, leaving no black bars at all? Why is it always slightly zoomed? How do I fix this?

X

Due to overscan (which should be about 5% on each side) 1.85:1 images will fill the screen.

AGuyNamedMike

Is there a source for information to enter "service mode" or anything like that to adjust and correct this?

joliom

What is overscan? Is there a way I can fix it?

X

Overscan is just what it sounds like. The picture on your set "scans" over the size of the screen -- it's larger than the actual screen size. If you have a calibration disc you can see what percentage of the picture extends beyond the visible screen. It's generally supposed to be about 5%.

You can use a calibration disc such as Avia and adjust it through your set's service menu.

I'd recommend checking to see how much overscan there is first. I've adjusted my set (actually my computer's video card since I use an HTPC instead of a normal DVD player) to have only about 2% overscan. Less than that and you frequently see some stuff on the edges that wasn't meant to be seen since 5% is considered the standard.

Even with my lower amount of overscan I don't notice bars on 1.85:1 material.

joliom

So should I reset to 2% if I'm at 5% or higher? Will it make a marked improvement?