Tweet Frequent complaint from Silent Era

I've seen this (or something similar) several times in reviews on Silent Era:

"However, we have had problems with the disc displaying properly to a 16:9 high-definition television when played from one of our DVD players. The picture fills the 16:9 monitor in width (already wrong for a 4:3 format picture) and crops the top and bottom of the picture to do so. No amount of manipulation of the picture settings ideally resolves the issue."

I've NEVER had this issue on any of the silent film DVDs I have, some of them the same ones that Silent Era said did. It did happen to me once, on a dvd for Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf. Does anyone else have this issue? Is it a disc issue or player issue?

[Mike Gebert]

I know which buttons to press to fix it but so far as I can recall, it always plays correctly from a disc automatically. I only have to adjust for standard TV broadcasts on non-HD channels. (HD channels default correctly even if the program, as on TCM HD, is non-HD and 4:3.)

Sounds like a player/TV issue. If it was STRETCHING the image, I would say there was something wrong with the flag for the aspect ratio. But DVDs shouldn't crop on a set.

I've seen this (or something similar) several times in reviews on Silent Era:

"However, we have had problems with the disc displaying properly to a 16:9 high-definition television when played from one of our DVD players. The picture fills the 16:9 monitor in width (already wrong for a 4:3 format picture) and crops the top and bottom of the picture to do so. No amount of manipulation of the picture settings ideally resolves the issue."

I've NEVER had this issue on any of the silent film DVDs I have, some of them the same ones that Silent Era said did. It did happen to me once, on a dvd for Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf. Does anyone else have this issue? Is it a disc issue or player issue?

Either the TV or DVD player is configured incorrectly. My Blu-Ray player is set to "16:9 Wide / Auto", my TV to 16:9. When I play a 4:3 film it will always display in the correct aspect ratio.

[silentfilm]

I have a Sony TV, Sound System, and BluRay player. 4:3 BluRays play perfectly on it. However, 4:3 DVDs get stretched, apparently by the sound receiver/amp, and I have not been able to find a setting to fix this.

It's another reason to upgrade my silents to BluRays!

What model Blu-Ray player if I may ask?

[silentfilm]

I have a Sony BDP S360 BluRay player. I think that my problem is my Sony STR-DN1000 receiver, because the picture goes through it (via HDMI) and there is no normal/stretch setting for video on it. It could just be a problem with upconverting DVDs on the player though.

I've seen this problem with the 2004 Warner Home Video "The Chaplin Collection" DVDs. It drove me nuts... nothing I did to my TV (Sony Bravia XBR9) or Blu-Ray player (Sony BDP-s360) made a difference... the image filled the screen instead of displaying as 4:3, and I could never see more than the top edge of the discs' menu bar at the bottom of the TV screen. It was VERY frustrating to try to figure out what I was doing... ruined the movie-watching experience. I wish I'd noted this issue when I read the Silent Era reviews. I got rid of the Warner DVDs, and I'm patiently waiting for Criterion to release Blu-Rays.

I haven't had this issue happen with any other DVD or Blu-Ray... all others have played at the aspect ratio they're supposed to. Whatever Warner's did to their Chaplin DVDs, it's not compatible with my Sony gear.

I have a Sony BDP S360 BluRay player. I think that my problem is my Sony STR-DN1000 receiver, because the picture goes through it (via HDMI) and there is no normal/stretch setting for video on it. It could just be a problem with upconverting DVDs on the player though.

The BDP-360 manual says:

Code: Select all

Video Settings - Screen Format
Original: Select this when connecting to a TV with a wide mode function. Displays a 4:3 screen picture in 16:9 aspect ratio even on a wide-screen TV.

Fixed Aspect Ratio: Changes the picture size to fit the screen size with the original picture aspect ratio.

Have you tried setting the Blu-Ray player to Fixed Aspect Ratio for 4:3 DVDs?

You should also install the latest firmware: http://esupport.sony.com/US/perl/swu-do ... dl=BDPS360

OK...guessing it is a Sony thing because I have the discs you're talking about and they play fine for me. Yay Panasonic.

[silentfilm]

Thanks to ymmv, I was able to update the firmware in my player to the latest revision, however DVD's are still stretched. I have not had time to investigate any further, but I watched a BluRay Sunday night, and the 4:3 ratio was not stretched at all.

Buster, Bogie, and Captain Kirk still look too fat!

Thanks to ymmv, I was able to update the firmware in my player to the latest revision, however DVD's are still stretched. I have not had time to investigate any further, but I watched a BluRay Sunday night, and the 4:3 ratio was not stretched at all.

Buster, Bogie, and Captain Kirk still look too fat!

I'm coming in late on this, but I've had experience with a Toshiba player that would only display 16x9 when the output was set to upconvert (1080P) - try turning the upconversion off (or setting the output to 480P - whichever way your player does it) and see if that helps. (You may then have to set the aspect ratio manually to 4x3 too.)

[silentfilm]

I finally figured out my aspect ratio problem with the Sony BDP-S360 tonight. In the BluRay player's video setup menu was this (without this explanation from the Crutchfield website):

Screen Format: You can select the display configuration for a 4:3 screen picture on a 16:9 wide screen television. You can select from the following.

Original: select this when connect to a TV with a wide mode function; displays a 4:3 screen picture in 16:9 aspect ratio even on a wide-screen TV
Fixed Aspect Ratio: changes the picture size to fit the screen size with the original picture aspect ratio

I had set up the player with "Original" because I wanted the disc to be played in the original aspect ratio, but to Sony "original" means stretched.

Buster, Bogie and Captain Kirk are no longer fat!

Buster, Bogie and Captain Kirk are no longer fat!

Well, Kirk maybe.

I've run into some aspect ration problems when running DVDs on Blu-ray players when using an HDMI output. Basically, the player is supposed to detect the aspect ration, but on some discs it did it incorrectly and we were unable to change the aspect ratio using the normal controls.

Our workaround was to also set up an analog output from the player (component video) and then we were able to manipulate the aspect ratio manually when viewing that input. (i.e. If playing a Blu-ray, you watch it from the HDMI input. If watching a problematic DVD, change your TV to the analog input and select the correct aspect ratio.)