Hi, I have a home cinema projector the Infocus IN 76. Although the native resolution of the projector is 16:9 and the dvd player, that I need to upgrade, is also set 16:9 when I watch dvds I will have black bars at the top and the bottom.
I don't understand why nearly all the dvd's I have in my library look this way and don't fill the whole screen. Most of the dvd's nowdays are widescreen with different aspect ratios written at the back. What should I look for when buying dvd's so that they will fill the whole screen that is also 16:9?
Just for the information the dvd is a Harman Kardon dvd 21 and it is connected via Svideo (very cheap at the moment) but I am waiting for the new Cambridge Audio Blu Ray player!!!
Are you watching mainly films or TV stuff? TV shows will in general fill the 16:9, however most decent movies will have a greater aspect ratio, so you will still get letterboxing, although not to the same degree as we used to on the old 4:3 sets.
The doom9 link is nice in indepth if you take the time
Try setting DVD player to 4.3 it may fill screen, although cut some of the side portions of picture, if you have a Hi def DVD player this problem with pic size gets worse, especialy the extra content, as it shows these as 4.3 with black bars top and botom pluse both sides, to correct this enter 4.3 in DVD menu, and picture fills the screen ?
...the native resolution of the projector is 16:9 and the dvd player, that I need to upgrade, is also set 16:9 when I watch dvds I will have black bars at the top and the bottom.
This is simply because most modern DVD releases are at an aspect ratio of 21:9, presumably to match the thatrical release of the film. The raster (i.e. the video "framework" in which the picture sits) is 16:9, so the outcome is that there are black bars top and bottom. If you have a desire to fill the entire screen there are some options. My approach (and the cheapest) is to copy 21:9 films via a software preprocessor, Avisynth, in which I zoom in by an amount designed to reduce the black bars top and bottom sufficiently to place them within typical cutoff but the inevitable quid pro quo is the loss of a small amount of the image at either side. I say inevitable because any and all aspect ratio conversion must treat the horizontals and verticals identically. The consequence of not doing so is picture distortion - people's faces looking like eggs for example.
To summarise - if you show 21:9 pictures on a 16:9 screen you either accept the black bars OR compromise the artistic intentions of the film-maker. The saving grace is that most films are shot in the knowledge that they will, eventually, be subject to a 16:9 restriction so no director will put anything of importance within the outer 10% of the available picture area.
This was summed up some years ago by the UK's top TV sports' producer who, on being told that he had to change to wide screen (from the usual 4:3 of that time), commented "What's the point? All you see is more grass".
I've always been a bit snobby on this subject as have happily lived with the bars from as soon as I could, which was sometimes hard back in the days of VHS. I have to say that the zoom to 16:9 is FAR prefrable to teh old 4:3 Pan/Scan solution, however I do find it anoying me when watching films on TV sometimes, particually when it's side on filmed conversations over a table or something like that. But it all comes down to personal preferance. The important thing is it's not 'wrong' for those bars to show, but if you prefer not to have them the advice above is all good.
Just make sure you have the projector set correctly for the screen size. It sounds lik it is already but an AUTO setting might be better (it says FULL on my Pioneer, every viewer is different).
Widescreen pics will either fill the whole screen (usually dont though) or black bars top and bottom
4:3 will have bars left and right and just fill top to bottom
To double check its set right, you could use a THX disc if you have one. It checks both widescreen and 4:3 by placing a circle on the screen. If its warped, then somethings not right.
