BRAWN

Hello all you experts!

I need some help here. Okay here is my situation. Right now I have a TOSHIBA SD-3950 DVD player. The machine plays alright but it tends to freeze some times on burned discs or sometimes even on new discs. On this player it has a Power picture zoom which I can't find on any other players. This feature is very important to me. It allows me to shrink the picture just a little bit in order to get all details in the WS movie. When I use this feature on my 16 x 9 tv it puts two black bars vertically about a half an inch on each side of the screen. It also has picture control which allows me to adjust the enhancement of dark scenes. The choices for this feature are as follows,

• NORMAL
• ENHANCED BLACK LEVEL
• MOVIE 1
• MOVIE 2
• ANIMATION

The button on the remote for this is marked EPM. This is an important feature for me. I also need a player that plays DVD+R DL discs. I don't want to buy the same dvd player, I want to buy a new better version with all the features I stated above. Doesn't have to be Toshiba. I've already returned 3 DVD players back to the store because they didn't have the features I'm looking for. PLEASE HELP ME!!

THANKS A LOT!

chipmac

There are a few brands that include controls for color, tint, contrast and black level but finding a player with built in size scaling could be harder. For that type of feature you might be looking at high end players. Wouldn't just be easier to adjust your TV's overscan to the minimum level and leave it that way for all DVDs and programming?

mrhan

I think this is the only available player with X/Y scaling now.

http://aznfilms.com/product_info.php...31d9eeae9e06d1

I'm sure it can be found for cheaper somewhere else if you shop around.

Spiky

I agree with Chip. Start with the TV. If you hate overscan, see if you can get rid of it. This will benefit all your watching, not just DVDs. I'd recommend setting it to 98-99%, not a full 100%, though. Most TVs are set at 93-94% for NTSC input.

Just be careful since you'd probably have to get into a service menu to do it.

BRAWN

I have a Sony KV-30XBR910 16x9 HDTV. It does not allow me to adjust the overscan on the set. I'm not sure if we are talking about the same thing here. okay I tested this out. Most of the consumer dvd players don't show the full picture on wide screen dvd movies, unless you have the power pic zoom shrink feature that my current Toshiba SD-3950 player has. I tested this out on many movies. The movie that you can tell the difference the most on is STAR WARS : A NEW HOPE. The scene where R2 and 3PO are waiting outside of the cantina bar. They see Stormtroopers asking around. One of the Troopers on the far left of the screen is getting off the dew back.

Okay so......

When I don't use the shrink feature the Trooper on the left is half cut off. When I do use the shrink feature you see the whole trooper plus the backpack he is wearing. I checked this scene on all of my friends dvd players and the picture is always cut off, and none of them have the shrink feature, only zoom x2 or 3. Does this help? I will post pics of the differences if need be.

chipmac

All of your friend's displays are the same as yours and all suffer from overscan hiding the image. This is not a problem with all DVD players but overscan is something that all displays except for flat panel displays like Plasma and LCD have. Your overscan amount can be reduced but this is not a user adjustment. Like Spiky said you'll need to go into the service menu to reduce overscan to a level that allows you to see this extra image info. You're going to need some overscan to avoid seeing anomalies but you should be able to get it to about 4% all around. Have you checked the amount you currently have with Avia? Do this before bothering to hunt down the service menu codes and the adjustments needed.

BRAWN

How do I get to the service menu on my tv? What is Avia, and what am I looking for with it? My tv is a flat screen tube tv.

Spiky

Avia is a setup disc. Another option is Digital Video Essentials. Any disc like this will have some test screens for resolution and overscan. The screen essentially has numbered lines all the way to the possible edge of the picture. You can look at what number shows on your TV, and you know how many lines/pixels are missing.

Avia or DVE is a good idea to purchase, anyway. For setting up your TV to have proper color, contrast, etc. And to set up your 5.1 audio properly.

Service menu help, or google it yourself:
http://myweb.accessus.net/~090/sonyadj.html
But don't screw around, mistakes are NOT an option. Note the weird commands to navigate through the menu. It is always important to write down all the settings you see when you first enter a service menu. In any part of the service menu that you enter. That way you should be able to go back to them if necessary. If you break something in there, you are out one TV. Sony won't warrant that.



Also of note is that your DVDp is probably cropping a few pixels when you don't have it in zoom mode, too. Nasty combination if you want to see the whole pic.