Ray H said
Quote:
The DTC100 does have the capability to effectively "expand" the 4:3 picture to full screen on a 4:3 display by toggling "16:9 Crop" with the "FORWARD" button on the DTC100's remote. |
However, the DTC-100 always outputs a 540p or 1080i signal on the RGB output. Given a 540p or 1080i signal the XBR400 will lock into 16:9 mode on its component inputs. Thus with a 4:3 picture you'll still have the black bars on the top and bottom. The toggling that will occur will simply put it in normal mode (black bars on all sides), stretch mode (black bars on top and bottom - picture widened) or zoom which will simply zoom in on the 4:3 picture thus chopping off chunks of the top, bottom and sides of the original picture.
The solution for 4:3 material to be viewed full screen (4:3) is to use the S-Video. This is where a Pronto remote comes in handy
http://www.avsforum.com/ubb/smile.gif What you don't have in APG (advanced program guide) you can pretty much simulate with the Pronto remote if you're willing to take the time to program it using Pronto Edit.
As for the handling of a 540p signal the XBR400 displays it in 1080i.
So in a nutshell you can dodge the black bars on 4:3 material by using S-Video. And, OTA digitals look spectacular even on S-Video. They make Directv's overcompressed signals look awful.
Also, if the set is tuned with Avia or Video Essentials, HD looks extremely good even though the set is only capable of 720 lines of horizontal resolution. The colors are nothing short of spectacular.
[This message has been edited by AtlPaul (edited 04-18-2001).]