Non-anamorphic 1.66:1 DVD on LCD TVs ?

[kweldood]

As we know, most (?) widescreen CRT TVs can't zoom a non-anamorphic 1.66:1 DVD without cropping the top and bottom of the image.

Meaning, you either have to leave it at the default (non-zoomed) letterboxed frame surrounded by black bars on all four sides, or watch it with the cropping (I suppose you could also watch it with a squashed, distorted picture by forcing it to 16:9, but for the present topic I'm assuming intelligent and informed people).

My question, since I don't own nor do I have access to LCD TVs so that I could verify for myself, is if they suffer from the same limitation as above, or if they can zoom a non-anamorphic 1.66:1 DVD by filling the left and right sides with black bars as it should be.

Thank you very much!

[Ghitulescu]

1.66 looks almost the same as pure 4:3 on 4:3 TVs (due to overscan).
So, if you're unhappy with the cropping and/or sidebars buy yourself an old CRT or any other 4:3 TV set. If you're unhappy with 2.40:1 buy yourself a Philips Cinema Line TV set, and so on ;)
One cannot have all these formats unless s/he sees the movie in a real cinema theater.

[IanD]

Probably best to handle this in the player and output something standard that doesn't depend on the TV's presentation abilities.

However, I'm not sure whether all players can handle obscure aspect ratios on DVD, especially as DVD is being phased out in preference to Bluray. The Oppo players tend to have flexible zooming ability.

[Asmodian]

Zoom Player also handles these situations well, if using a HTPC.

[TheSkiller]

Many widescreen TVs (newer and older) have a "14:9" zoom in addition to the more commonly used 16:9 zoom (which I think every widescreen TV has). 14:9 is a common format used in the UK to convert 16:9 to a letterboxed 4:3 frame, it's basically a mix of letterboxing and zooming (aka PanScan). It has smaller letterbox bars than 16:9 letterboxed with a bit of the sides cut off.

Anyway, 14:9 is 1.55:1, it is pretty close to your 1.66:1.
Using this mode (if available) will zoom/enlarge the picture so that almost all (if not all) of the top and bottom bars are gone.