[MChilli]

Just wanted to get some feedback from everyone on what viewing modes they are using for watching DVD movies on the GWII and other Sony sets. I believe all the Sony RPTV's have the same "Full", "Zoom", and "Wide Zoom" modes. I have the 60" GWII.


I use the "Full" mode when watching standard 1.85 movies and this is great and totaly fills the screen. My question is: How are people watching 2.35 aspect ration movies?? Are you watching in "Full" mode or "Wide Zoom"? I had been watching all movies in "Full", but over the weekend started playing with "Wide Zoom" for the 2.35 material. I have been using "Wide Zoom" for watching 4:3 standard TV and have found it to be a very nice filling of the screen.


With "Wide Zoom" and 2.35 movies, it only seems to cut off the top and bottom of the screen, which is black bars anyway. It doesn't seem to distort the right and left sides of the picture. I found that the picture looked good, filling more of the screen than in "Full" mode.


Anyway, just want to see what other people are finding and how they are watching DVD's. Also, I use "Pro" picture mode for movies, I find this to give a great out of the box picture.

 

[eweiss]

I watch 4:3 TV and DVDs (1.33:1) as well as non-anamorphic 1.66:1 DVDs (e.g., The Umbrellas of Cherbourg) in Normal mode.


I watch anamorphic/"Enhanced for 16:9 televisions" DVDs in Full Mode.


I watch widescreen (i.e., 1.77:1 or greater) letterbox/non-anamorphic DVDs in Zoom mode, although for subtitle purposes I may watch some of these in Wide Zoom (e.g., Jules and Jim). Since burn-in isn't an issue, I rarely use Wide Zoom mode -- which is what we often used on our former CRT Sony RPTV.


I do not like distortion, and prefer the black bars and smaller image to squished/fat people.

 

[jsrdlr]

I do whatever it takes to fill up the sreen . Actually I agree with eweiss, I don't like mucking with it to much so I don't mind the black bars if they're necessary.


Little off the main topic, I watched the raiders-chargers game in full mode yesterday and loved it over the regular 4:3 mode. Never noticed the streching, just 50" of football glory .


Jason

 

[dbburns]

I use Full mode for widescreen movies. I've not yet watched a non-anamorphic DVD, but I'll probably use a zoom mode when I do.


I watch 4:3 DVDs in Normal mode. I don't mind the black bars, and after all, one of the main reasons I got this TV was so I could watch stuff as intended without worrying about burn-in. The picture is still around 40" diagonal, which is a lot bigger than the old 31" TV this one replaced.

 

[BTDT]

I watch all DVDs as God intended .


What this means is -- even on my CRT-based RPTV -- I watch with black bars on top and bottom. IMO this gives the truest movie experience. I have not noticed any burn-in after 5 years of doing this. On the GWII it would be even less of a worry....

 

[bsimeral]

Is FULL mode on my GWII 50" utilizing the anamorphic encoding of DVD's (1.85:1 or 2.35:1)?

 

[MChilli]

Full mode is the proper mode for watching DVD's as I understand it. In Full mode with a 1.85 DVD, then the entire screen will be filled, no black bars. A 2.35 DVD in Full mode will give top/bottom black bars.


What I am trying to get at is this....is the picture distorted when watching the 2.35 DVD's in Wide Zoom?? I didn't seem to think that it was. Try it yourself, and see if you notice the picture being distorted. Also, I haven't found a use for the Zoom yet.

 

[eweiss]

Quote:

Originally posted by MChilli Full mode is the proper mode for watching DVD's as I understand it. In Full mode with a 1.85 DVD, then the entire screen will be filled, no black bars. A 2.35 DVD in Full mode will give top/bottom black bars. What I am trying to get at is this....is the picture distorted when watching the 2.35 DVD's in Wide Zoom?? I didn't seem to think that it was. Try it yourself, and see if you notice the picture being distorted. Also, I haven't found a use for the Zoom yet.

Some widescreen movies like TITANIC, THE ABYSS, the first edition of THE CROW, the first edition of THE USUAL SUSPECTS, LADY AND THE TRAMP, etc., are letterboxed and NOT anamorphic/"enhanced for 16:9 tv". They are properly displayed in the NORMAL mode. However, this is often too small for most people, and it leaves black bars at the sides AND the top and bottom. Using the ZOOM mode will correctly and without distortion expand these widescreen non-anamorphic letterbox movies to fill the screen from side to side. If they're 1.85:1 or 1.78:1, they will also fill the screen top-to-bottom (e.g., THE CROW). If they're 2.35:1, they will have the usual black bars at the top and bottom (e.g., THE ABYSS). Of course, using the ZOOM mode expands these images by about 33% in all directions, with a slightly noticeable increase in the ability to see jaggies, etc.


WIDEZOOM will add distortion to any image you're viewing, though it may be too slight to be a distraction. FULL will add stretch (widthwise) distortion to any image other than anamorphic DVDs. NORMAL will, on the other hand, add squished (vertically) distortion to anamorphic DVDs.

 

[Mazdaspeedguy]

I was watching the GWXBR in the store they had Shrek on I don't think it was widescreen format?


Anyway they had it on a few T.V's video split I guess on the GW the picture was terrible! It had dot crawl on fast picture movment or pixel was slow in responding to the fast motion.


It was a lowend Toshiba DVD not sure if it was Progressive or not?



Is this normal?

 

[eweiss]

Quote:

Originally posted by Mazdaspeedguy I was watching the GWXBR in the store they had Shrek on I don't think it was widescreen format? Anyway they had it on a few T.V's video split I guess on the GW the picture was terrible! It had dot crawl on fast picture movment or pixel was slow in responding to the fast motion. It was a lowend Toshiba DVD not sure if it was Progressive or not? Is this normal?

DVD disk 1 of SHREK is Full Screen. DVD disk 2 of SHREK is widescreen.


Lots of stores feed the fullscreen SHREK to their TVs -- I guess so it feeds ALL the TVs in the store. I don't get it, but I don't run these stores.


If it was on a multiple-TV feed, you can sometimes get terrible picture quality. Also, if they had it hooked up via composite rather than component, the picture quality suffers. Many stores don't seem to be careful how they hook up and play feeds to their TVs -- they don't seem to always make the effort to send the best possible picture to the TVs or use the proper/best input.