Questions regarding DVD's on my HDTV!

[Brigadeer]

Well, the glorius day has finally arrived, and I received my bigscreen today (Hitachi 51F500) from Circuit City. The very first thing I did was open my new DVD, Lord of the Ring, The two Towers in Widescreen, and popped that baby in. Note, I do not have a Progressive Scan DVD, just regular.

That said, the picture truly was amazing in my opinion, even with no tweaks or adjustments being made on my part yet (waiting on HVE disk to arrive by mail). I do have several questions though after watching Return of The King, along with a few other Non-Widescreen DVD's.

Return Of The King is in widescreen, yes, but there are black bars above and below the picture, probably 2-3". What is up with that? I thought I bought the special widescreen mode to fit my 16:9 HDTV? I would like to state that I have my TV set on 16:9 standard mode by the way.

Anyhow, after having my wife inquire about the black bars, and me not knowing, I decided to experiment a little more. So, I gathered a few more DVD's, all "widescreen", and they were the same way. Again, I left my set on 16:9 standard.

OK, no problem, now I go to my older "full screen" DVD's, and low and behold, they are exactly like the widescreen versions, no different at all! What gives here?

Can someone please explain to me, keeping in mind that I have a non-progressive scan DVD player, what is the deal between "widescreen" and "fullscreen" DVD's if they look identical, and the screen mode I should have my HDTV in (16:9 standard, 4:3?).

Any and all answers would be most appreciated. Thanks!

[TenShoes]

The moderators will probably respond to this, in fact I think 57U has a FAQ specifically about this topic. He has posted several times (a long thread in the DVD section I think). Anyway, the quick and dirty is that 16:9 correlates to a 1.85:1 screen ratio, however many (I think 57U states about half) DVDs are printed in the original screen format of 2.35:1. Thus the black bars on your screen.

As for your 4:3 movies, are you watching those with the same aspect mode on your TV? Your Hitachi has several modes (standard 4:3, expanded, 4:3 Zoom 1+2,16:9 standard and 16:9 zoom). If you watch a 4:3 movie in the 16:9 modes you will see bars on top/bottom.

Hope this helps.

[57U]

1. Check out the FAQ on "Widescreen Stretch modes".

2. Read the FAQ on "Black Bars".

3. Fullscreen DVDs are DVDs made for 4:3 TVs. These DVDs have taken out anywhere from 30 - 50% of the movie to make it fit on a 4:3 TV. Imagine missing half of Lord of the Rings!!!. If you want to see the movie as the director intended, don't buy or rent any fullscreen DVDs (they're like regular TV).