ATI player with Radeon LE displays anamorphic dvds as Full Screen with Black Bars  

Mark,
This may be more complicated that you think. First you should check the registry under HEX_LOCAL_MACHINE\\Software\\ATI Technologies\\Multimedia\\DVD and see what value WidescreenDisplay is set to. If its '0' then set it to '1' and try an anamorphic disc.

The thing that confuses me about your situation is that with my display if I set WidescreenDisplay=0 and play an anamorphic disc it shows up in 4x3 format and looks squeezed. Now your display may be doing something that automatically converts squeezed images to letterbox in 4x3, I don't know. Check out the registry.

If this doesn't take care of the problem then change the keep aspect ratio box in the ATI player and see what that does. Some combination may work. Are you running a 16x9 resolution?

John Moschella

http://www.avsforum.com/ubb/smile.gif
Whazzamattaforyou?
And _ruin_ what the director wants you to see???
Didn't anyone tell you?
You're supposed to see those black bars and _like_ them.
What a neanderthol!http://www.avsforum.com/ubb/wink.gif

(Sorry, just repeating what I was told when asking the same thing.)

Here is how I did it on a 4:3 display, but I don't know if it will work for you:
1. I set the monitor resolution for 848x600
2. Went into the setup part of the DVD program and unchecked keep proportion, then checked Widescreen.

Fiddle around, you just might get it to work, but it is dicey. I don't think all anamorphic is created equally.

Hello all and thanks for the replies. I have the 4:3 screen and the resolutions set are 1024 x 768 @ 72 Hz for both xg135 crt projector memory settings which were for either
1)anamorphic aspect ratio dvd's sized with displaymate utility and
2) Full screen sized with displaymate utility.
As I understand, playing a Letterbox dvd or a 4:3 aspect ratio dvd will synch to the memory setting of "Full screen" on my projector and if I choose an anamorphic dvd, then it should be seen at that memory setting.

I want my 4:3 full screen dvds to stay at that aspect ratio and fill up my 4:3 screen, not become centered into a 16:9
display across my 4:3 screen
I'll have to check the settings described above when I get home tonight. I also was emailed the patch by MikeM, thank you Sir!

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mark

Adding a "WidescreenDisplay" registry value didn't make a difference on my system, whether it was set to 1 or 0. Maybe I had the wrong data type - I assumed it was a DWORD?

RD

The problem is that with an anamorphic disc, The Matrix, the ATI player will downconvert it into a non anamorphic letter box with black bars for synching to my full screen projector setting. Is there a way to tell the software player to display an anamorphic disc as an anamorphic disc? Thanks

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mark

I am experiencing the same thing. Consider this:
I play a non-anamorphic letterbox 1:85 DVD and I adjust the projector settings to fit the image to my 16:9 screen. Then... I insert an anamorphic 1.85 DVD and without adjusting anything, the image is still correct on the screen.

This was not the case using power DVD. I had seperate memory settings for the various aspect ratios but this way only one memory setting is needed. This seems ideal.

My question is, Do I get a better PQ using the vertical control on the PJ to squeeze the anamorphic image or is the ATI player downconversion process effectively doing the same thing with equal results?

I would still like to get the image out of the HTPC anamorphically squeezed. What is a 16:9 desktop? I have the HTPC set to 1024x768x72.

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Bill Kearns

I solved the problem by installing a new version of DVD genie, 4.00 which had the box to lock widescreen! Doing this allowed the anamorphic dvd to look as it should on my projector's anamorphic aspect ratio memory preset!

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mark