DVD players with 4:3 TV zoom feature?

[Nighthawk]

Friend's 32" Samsung plays widescreen DVDs that are formatted as 4:3
as a 20" picture in the middle of the 32" screen. There is no way to
zoom it to full width as I can with my Panasonic Plasma. Are there
any modern DVD players with the 4:3 TV zoom feature that zooms the
picture up to full width?

[Netmask]

Post by Nighthawk
Friend's 32" Samsung plays widescreen DVDs that are formatted as 4:3
as a 20" picture in the middle of the 32" screen. There is no way to
zoom it to full width as I can with my Panasonic Plasma. Are there
any modern DVD players with the 4:3 TV zoom feature that zooms the
picture up to full width?

The DVD standard is a 4:3 frame so widescreen material has to be either
letterboxed within the 4:3 frame or for newer releases of DVD widescreen
material put through an anamorphic process which compresses in image
horizontally and on playback expands back to the correct aspect ratio.
It's important when buying DVD's to look for the word anamorphic release
on the back of the box. From memory Samsung DVD players do have a button
on the remote for expanding the image? Also look in the setup menu for
the display setting (ie what sort of TV you have), it may be set as 4:3
(normally the factory default on many players) instead of 16:9

[Nighthawk]

Post by Netmask

Post by Nighthawk
Friend's 32" Samsung plays widescreen DVDs that are formatted as 4:3
as a 20" picture in the middle of the 32" screen. There is no way to
zoom it to full width as I can with my Panasonic Plasma. Are there
any modern DVD players with the 4:3 TV zoom feature that zooms the
picture up to full width?

The DVD standard is a 4:3 frame so widescreen material has to be either
letterboxed within the 4:3 frame or for newer releases of DVD widescreen
material put through an anamorphic process which compresses in image
horizontally and on playback expands back to the correct aspect ratio.
It's important when buying DVD's to look for the word anamorphic release
on the back of the box. From memory Samsung DVD players do have a button
on the remote for expanding the image? Also look in the setup menu for
the display setting (ie what sort of TV you have), it may be set as 4:3
(normally the factory default on many players) instead of 16:9

I have a Samsung combo player and it does have the 'Ezy View' button,
which does zoom it in, though, not having HDMI, the quality is well
down on what my own Panasonic HDD DVD recorder can do playing into my
Plasma TV on which I use the Zoom 2 position on the remote's Aspect
button. In shops I have tried a Panasonic and a Philips player, both
with zoom functions, through HDMI, into a Samsung TV, though, for some
reason, the picture quality it terrible. Perhaps the Samsung player
will prove better with a Samsung TV. I have yet to try that
combination.

[globular]

Post by Nighthawk
Friend's 32" Samsung plays widescreen DVDs that are formatted as 4:3
as a 20" picture in the middle of the 32" screen. There is no way to
zoom it to full width as I can with my Panasonic Plasma. Are there
any modern DVD players with the 4:3 TV zoom feature that zooms the
picture up to full width?

A little hard to follow what is happening.
If framing seems a bit small, one good idea is to reauthor the DVD
with 'pan and scan' set, using something like Ifoedit. And have that
option on in the DVD player set up.
Anyway, 'full width' includes pillarboxing on a 16:9 TV, unless you're a
fan of distorted or cropped pictures over black bars.

[Nighthawk]

On Thu, 06 Oct 2011 14:30:18 +1100, globular

Post by globular

Post by Nighthawk
Friend's 32" Samsung plays widescreen DVDs that are formatted as 4:3
as a 20" picture in the middle of the 32" screen. There is no way to
zoom it to full width as I can with my Panasonic Plasma. Are there
any modern DVD players with the 4:3 TV zoom feature that zooms the
picture up to full width?

A little hard to follow what is happening.
If framing seems a bit small, one good idea is to reauthor the DVD
with 'pan and scan' set, using something like Ifoedit. And have that
option on in the DVD player set up.
Anyway, 'full width' includes pillarboxing on a 16:9 TV, unless you're a
fan of distorted or cropped pictures over black bars.

I have fiddled with Ifoedit in the past, but on the few DVDs that I
have that I can't get to play at the proper aspect ratio on my *own*
setup (most are fine using the Zoom 2 setting on the TV's Aspect
button) I usually resort to converting to a good quality DivX and
running it off a USB key. They always play to the maximum size, which
ever edge hits the screen edge first.