So, I got a new Olevia 32" Widescreen TV for my Son's bedroom and figured I'd hook my PS2 system up to it since it's been doing nothing but collecting dust. It's not the slim line model, it's the original model. So, I go into settings and make sure it's set to 16:9 and loaded up several games. For some reason the games don't fill the screen, there are 1-2" black vertical bars on both sides of the screen and about a 1/2" black horizontal bar on the top and bottom of the screen. I tried playing around with the TV's zoom feature but that didn't fix it. I have the system hooked up using component cables. Anyone have any ideas on what's going on? I know several people who have widescreen lcd's with their PS2 connected to them and their games fill the screen.

Is the tv set in a 16:9 or "fill" mode?

Basically the set has the options for Full Screen, 1:1, Zoom 1, Zoom 2 and Aspect. I have it set to Full Screen presently but I've tried all the other options and only Zoom 1 and 2 will fill the screen but it zooms it way too much.

That's normal for PS2 games. I've owned three different widescreen sets and all of them have the small bars on the left and right. Same thing is happening now when I play GoW2 on my PS3 and Sharp LCD.

I've only played RE4, Gow 1 and 2 in widescreen, but all three fill the screen on my TV.

Really? I've never seen a PS2 game fill a 16x9 set. There's always about an inch wide bar on the left and right sides. Like I said in my first post, it even happens to me now when I play a PS2 game on my PS3.

Same with me, bars on the sides for widescreen PS2 games on my LCD.

If you don't have black bars around the edge, your TV has a large amount of overscan (which can cause you to lose a lot of picture information on other sources).

FFXII worked for me in widescreen.

All of the PS2 games are underscanned, a technique used by the developers to combat your TV's overscan/and it's less taxing on the hardware. I even have slight bars on my CRT HDTV.

I see the side bars on all of my Wii games too.