Poppy <Boo-Pop@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote (in part):
>I received a new Olevia 37" HDTV as a gift. I hooked it up to my
>powered antenna and get great to pretty good reception on all the OTA
>channels here. I used to subscribe to DirecTV but I don't now, nor do I
>subscribe to cable.
>
>Network HD broadcasts fill the screen. Local programming doesn't.
That's normal.
>
>I've got a 10 year old Panasonic A-310 DVD player which still works
>perfectly, my leftover DirecTV Tivo box with programming still stored
>and an RCA VCR. The DVD and the Tivo box are set to 16:9.
Are you sure? The symptoms you describe below sound like the DVD is
set to 4:3.
>
>The DVD player and the Tivo are connected via Video/Audio out to the
>two Component channels.
>
>When I play a DVD, it doesn't appear I'm getting the full 16:9 output.
>Could it be because it's 10 years old? When I display the channel
>information, it says "Component 1
> 480i 60Hz
> OFF"
I don't know what "OFF" means here, but the rest is normal. Looking
at the User Manual .pdf I see nothing about progressive scan
(preferable when using component connections) so it probably won't do
that.
>
>In the 1:1 Aspect it appears as a very small picture in the middle of
>the screen. About 1/4 size of the screen. In Aspect mode, the ratio
>looks correct, but it's still shrunk to about 2/3 the size of the
>screen. I get black bars all around, about 5" on a side and 3" on top &
>bottom.
>
>Full screen just stretches the image, Panoramic makes me dizzy to
>watch. Zoom 1 looks better, Zoom 2 actually fills the screen but at the
>price of using the Zoom feature.
>
>As for the Tivo, I didn't notice any difference. It still comes up as
>4:3 even though some of the recorded content is 16:9 and 2:35:1.
>
>So, my DVD question is, is it too old to take advantage of the HDTV
>capabilities?
Non-upconverting DVD players output 480i or 480p in a 4:3 window.
When playing a widescreen DVD that is "anamorphic" or "enhanced for
16:9" or similar language, and when the player is told that the
display is 16:9, the output is still 4:3 but uses more lines than a
plain letterboxed display would, so the picture appears squeezed
horizontally. You then set the TV to stretch the image horizontally
only, which restores the original aspect ratio and retains as much
resolution as the format is capable of.
Unfortunately, most DVDs have some parts that are anamorphic (the
movie itself and maybe the title screen) and some that aren't (most
extras) so you'll have to keep switching the TV's zoom settings back
and forth to make it all look right. I've never used an upconverting
DVD player, but my guess is that it fixes that. Might be a reason to
upgrade if you watch a lot of DVDs.
Your A-310 has a TV Aspect setting under Initial Settings; make sure
it's set to 16:9. Under Other there's a setting for TV Mode (4:3)
which can be Pan & Scan or Letterbox. It shouldn't affect the 16:9
setting, but try it anyway. My choice would be Letterbox.
Keep in mind that many widescreen movies are wider than 16:9, so when
everything else is right they will not fill the screen vertically.
Also, some DVDs are sold as "fullscreen" which means 4:3 pan&scan;
they're not intended for widescreen display.
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