I know this is covered in the FAQ but i just bought a Panasonic 34WX54(34 inch widescreen hdtv) and i picked up a new Panny prog scan dvd player to go with it along with some good quality cables and i put in some dvds(anamorphic) and i still get about 1/4 black bar top screen and 1/4 on the bottom which is the same as i had on my old 27 inch tv.Is this normal? theres 4 modes,4:3,full,just and zoom but it reccomends full for anamorphic dvds.Just kinda disspointed although the picture is amazing i thought with a 16 by 9 tv it wouldnt be this bad alteast it wasnt in the store.

I have a widescreen TV and I still have black bars, why is this?

There could be 2 reasons for this.

First, the DVD you are watching could be letterboxed(non-anamorphic). Even movies that are 1.85:1 will have black bars if it is non-anamorphic, because the scan lines that make up the black bars are hard coded into the image to create the widescreen picture. Also keep in mind that to properly display a 1.85:1 non-anamorphic movie on a widescreen TV you will have "bars" on the top, bottom and sides.

Second, any movie, both anamorphic and non-anamorphic, that has an aspect ratio greater than 1.85:1 will have the black bars. Again you can reduce the black bars by using the zoom feature found on most DVD players

Also if this is your first 16:9 TV make sure your set the DVD player to output to a 16:9 display. The player will be set to output to a 4:3 TV screen by default and will give you a distorted image with player added black bars. You'd be surprised at how many people don't even realize this and that the image is distorted.

Thanks chipmac! I didnt have the dvd set to 16:9,perhaps i was a tad too anxious to get it up and running lol.Looks amazing and now it fills most of the screen.Im very happy

Depending on the DVD you're watching, you will still get black bars on some movies though. I have to admit I didn't know about this back when I got my RPTV either.

If you've never noticed (and I hadn't before I got my RPTV), when you go to movies in a theater, they are presented [normally] in one of two aspect ratios. The same goes for DVDs - there are more, but there are two common aspect ratios.

1:85 - will basically fill your screen. It technically leaves small black lines, but due to overscan on most TVs, you won't even see them.

2:35 - you will still get black lines on movies using this aspect ratio.

Most will argue that you should always use a 'full' mode on anamorphic DVDs, and leave the bars as is. This will ensure you're seeing the image exactly as it was intended. If you stretch the image to get rid of the black bars, you're either going to chop off the sides or distort the image. I stretched DVDs at first, but it didn't take long for me to change my opinion, and leave them as-is.

Here are a couple sites with good examples of aspect ratios:
http://home1.gte.net/res0mrb7/widescreen/aspect.html
(also has some good examples of the image you lose if you buy fullscreen movies)

http://www.thedigitalbits.com/articl...hic/index.html

I was aware of the different aspect ratios but i just had that one setting wrong on the dvd player.Thanks again for the help,im enjoying all my dvds in visual glory

I edited the FAQ...

In fact the whole FAQ needs an overhaul...but I just don't have the time any more...anyone want to take it over?

This should take care of this once and for all

Astrochimp is well aware of different aspect ratios. He just didn't have his DVD player set up correctly.

Sadly I watch a lot of stuff on zoom as I only have a 22" widescreen (much better than my old 14" standard though) and watching things letterboxed on it is a tad on the small size.

Wozza have you tried sitting closer?