bunnydojo

I have what to my untrained eyes appears to be a tremendous overscan problem, in which material ranging from 1.66:1 to 1.85:1 fills the screen completely and even 2.35:1 images are accompanied by only very thin black bars. For some reason, I haven't noticed information being cut off while watching TV (even news/stock tickers seem to be fine), but obviously to have such a wide range of aspect ratios both on DVD and HD DVD fill the screen is a problem. I like using the full image area as much as the next guy, but there's just something "wrong" about not seeing an black bars while watching 1.85:1 content.

Anyway, I've put up with it since I'm too frugal for Avia and DVE's high price tags in relation to not knowing what kind of benefit I will receive, but seeing the new DVE HD DVD for $19 @ Buy.com, I'm tempted to give it a shot when it comes out later this month.

If all I really want to do is fix this overscan problem (I'm pretty happy with the picture otherwise and am currently only using the TV's speakers for audio), would there be a tangible benefit to buying/using this product over, say, taking out a 1.78:1 movie, opening the service menu, and adjusting based on that? Similarly, if I would benefit in other ways (color and such?), is this a benefit that is easy to achieve, even with an untrained eye, using a product like this?

Thanks for reading.

Brian Shannon

What kind of TV? What settings, zoom, stretch etc., what kind of source, cable, OTA, Satellite etc.

Need more info to help.

bunnydojo

TV is a Samsung HL-S4666W 46" DLP HDTV
( http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-HL-S46.../dp/B000F2P31E )

Cable broadcasts seem to be alright, but station logos do tend to seem to be in strange places, so maybe I'm just being complacent. (hooked up via dvi to hdmi)

I have noticed no problems with the XBox 360 cutting anything off, but I've only played a few games on it, and none seem "edge-sensitive" so again I might just not notice. (hooked up via component)

The HD DVD player is where I really noticed the problem (originally I thought it was only my DVD player), with the variety of aspect ratios all filling the screen (or, as the ratio gets toward 2.35:1, only having very small black bars). (HD A2 hooked up via hdmi)

The DVD player that I used before getting HD DVD (and hooked up again to re-test) has the same problem. (hooked up via component, or maybe composite at this point)

I haven't touched any settings on any of these devices besides changing the HD DVD player's output to 1080i... even the color settings of the TV are just using one of the factory pre-sets ("movie," "game," and "standard" depending on the input - not "dynamic"). This wouldn't have any affect on overscan, but I figured I would mention it in regard to the question of how much benefit I might receive from buying the disc.

Brian Shannon

Is the tv in some sort of zoom mode?

bunnydojo

In regards to just plain menu settings, the TV is not in any sort of zoom or stretch mode, no. Just set to "widescreen" or "16x9" or whatever the TV chooses to call it.

Spiky

Are you sure? The TV probably saves different zoom settings for different inputs. Make sure you check when actually watching the HDMI connection.

Otherwise, I think you need to give more details about what you see. Because it sounds like cable TV is displaying correctly and other inputs are not.

Drexl

Bear in mind that some "1.85:1" discs are actually mastered at 1.78:1 and will fill a 16x9 display anyway. Warner and Paramount discs are like this, while Universal will use the tiny bars for 1.85:1.

bunnydojo

I took a few pictures to make sure that the problem was indeed universal (I didn't realize how old my camera was until now ).

Based on this image (white line added for easy measuring), if there is a problem, it's across the board...


As I said, all DVDs and HD DVDs marked 1.78:1, 1.85:1 or 1.66:1 fill the screen. This is across at least 30-50 movies, as opposed to isolated incidents where something might have been mislabeled or even all of the DVDs from a certain studio behave one way and other studios are fine. Below is an example of what I'm used to seeing when watching cable. To my eyes, it would make perfect sense if there was information being cut off from the bottom, as that would mean that the TNT logo had equal spacing between the right and the bottom. Then there's a shot from The Bourne Supremacy on HD DVD, advertised as 2.35:1, but the original picture I took leads to a measurement of 2.15:1. I would've taken a shot from a 1.78 or 1.85 or 1.66, but it would just show a full screen anyway.


Thanks for looking so far, guys. Hopefully these pictures can make it a little easier to help.

Spiky

That looks like normal overscan to me, which is usually around 7%, although that figure is for SDTVs, and mfgrs should not be using it for HDTVs. I take it you don't have a way to turn it off?

Every TV is different in how it works. I loved my Tosh projector, I could set it to any percentage I wanted. (2% is perfect for 99% of shows, btw) With my Panny, it's either on (7% or so) or off, so I switch back and forth. If I was watching TNT-HD with no overscan, that logo would twice as far from the bottom of the screen.