DVD Viewing Area

[ToddT]

I just purchased an Infocus 4805. I'm new to this technology and have a few questions...

( My setup: ceiling mount; component video cabling; DVD player - 480i set to 16x9 )

I have found that different 1.85:1 DVD's produce different viewing areas ( vertically scaled down slightly - approx 1 inch on the top and bottom ) when the movie actually begins playing ( as opposed to when the DVD menu is running ).

The scaling factor ( vertical; height only ) is not consistent between DVDs.

Is this normal? I would expect the 1.85:1 image to always fill my 16X9 screen!?!

Cheers, Todd

[Shane Martin]

Todd,
It should unless the dvd is non-anamorphic.

[aud19]

16:9 actually yields a 1.78:1 image ratio not 1.85:1

[Dean McManis]

16:9 actually yields a 1.78:1 image ratio not 1.85:1

That's true, so seeing a tiny bit of letterboxing on 1.85:1 movies actually means that you have everything setup right. :T

On widescreen tube TVs, CRT RPTVs and FPTVs the tiny letterboxing is sometimes lost in overscanning. But on digital displays, and properly setup CRT displays you will see the small black letterbox bars on 1.85:1 material, just like you will see small sidebars on 1.66:1 movies (mostly European films).

Some animated movies (like Pixar films) are digitally rendered to DVD in 1.78:1 format, so those will fit a 16:9 screen exactly. 8)

[JonMarsh]

Dean's the man on this one.

Most folks don't realize how much "conventional" TV's, even HiDef models, actually are setup for overscan. Some scaling digitals (which have a non "conventional" resolution (like the Sony's 1368X768) also do this to a degree- in somecases it's sort of beneficial, as some players or disks have slight artifacts at the edge of the picture, sometimes to side, usually to top (the Zenith DVB318, for example).

But it's a little annoying, too, to see a 1280X720P desktop overscanned and have some parts not visible....

Sill, I'll second that what you're seeing is quite normal and to be expected. BTW, note that some DVD players do crop a few pixels at one end or the other of the total image... there's still more variables going on with gear than we'd expect in this day and age.

~Jon