why DVD plays full screen on one TV and wide screen on other?

[eugchen]

why sometimes a widescreen movie will show up as widescreen on my 32 inch sony, and full screen on my cheap 25 inch sanyo? i do not understand this. on the sony (the nice TV), i have a panasonic DVD player, and the cheap sanyo TV has an apex 1201 DVD player.

i assume it is because the sanyo is cheap, but just wanted to confirm this.

thanks.

[|minister]

in the setup menu of the dvd player there is an option to choose wether the image should be displayed letterboxed or not. this could be your problem...

[jggimi]

Setup problems are most likely.
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Just to level set, there are two standard television shapes: 4:3 (the typical shape) and 16:9 (newfangled). Some modern 4:3 TVs can do a "Vertical Squeeze" to behave like a 16:9 TV.

Every DVD has the same pixel resolution, but every program chain has a Display Aspect Ratio (DAR) of either 4:3 or 16:9. And your DVD player needs to know the shape of your TV, and whether you want additional letterboxing added on 4:3 TVs for 16:9 DARs. You do this during player setup.

[eugchen]

thanks guys--fixed it with a change in the setup on my dvd player. i feel so stupid...

[xmenxmen]

Originally posted by eugchen
thanks guys--fixed it with a change in the setup on my dvd player. i feel so stupid...

Why, stupid is not knowing how to ask.