Bars "top & bottom" even w/ widescreen???

[teamklr2bar]

I have the LG 30fz4d "30 widescreen HD CRT" tv and the Samsung dvd-hd850 up converting dvd player.

When I watch OTA HDTV broadcast the bars at the top and bottom go away completley. When I am watching a DVD the bars are there. I have tried every setting combination that I can find to change on both the tv and dvd player to no avail. Does anyone have any advice for me?

Also, while watching dvd's I notice that parts, say "people's faces while in low lite" have a distinct "digital" look to them. "digital" is the best way that I can discribe the pattern of pixels that I see. It is almost the look that you get when watching direct tv in a rain storm but the distortion is much much finer pixels. If you are not picky you would not notice it at all. but once my wife asked me about it I decided that it was not just me and I need to address the problem. Please let me know if anyone has any suggestions on how to solve this problem also, thank you!

 

[Audioholics]

You may want to read this article which addresses many of your questions:

http://www.audioholics.com/techtips/specsformats/widescreenletterboxpanscan.php

As for the pixellation - that could be anything from just watching analogue cable channels on HDTV (welcome to being able to finally see low-res for what it really is) to a poor scaler (or odd setting) on your display. Since you have a CRT-based HDTV I would think it was related to the source.

 

[Spiffyfast]

I had the same questions you had when I first got my widescreen tv a year ago, why the heck do I still have those black bars. It turns out there are about 4 or 5 different aspect rations movies are filmed in and our tv's are just one aspect so every once and awhile youll find a movie that is wider than your tv

 

[tbewick]

Try putting the setting of your TV's sharpness and contrast down to see if that has any effect. It is also possible that the brightness setting of your CRT is set too high. You can get everything set up correctly using one of those calibration DVD's. On my computer I've also noticed that not working at the correct gamma level does tend to heighten the visibility of MPEG compression artifacts.

You might be viewing the natural grain of the film on DVD, which is normal. Some reference quality DVD's to try out are Gladiator and the Star Wars Trilogy (NOT episodes I or II, as they only have average video quality). These are about as good as DVD can look.

You might be sitting too close to your screen. For large screens (40 inches +), you should sit at least 10 feet away when viewing standard definition sources, and around half that distance when viewing high definition sources.

 

[warhummer]

Movie AR's

Most DVDs have the aspect ratios printed in small type on the back of the packaging. For example, Saving Private Ryan had a AR of 1.85:1 while Gladiator was the traditional "epic" AR of 2.35:1. The latter would still give you some black bar action for your viewing pleasure.