Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: 1:85 Widescreen on two different DVD Players?

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Posted by Bradley J Sime (Member # 9423) on 04-30-2016, 01:50 PM:

We're showing the doc American Dream here tonight from a DVD source, and it has a 1:85 Widescreen aspect ratio.

I've set up the channel on my Christie 2210 for it, but the issue I'm having is that I receive two vastly different pictures from my two DVD decks. One is letter-boxed, and fills the screen nicely (a sixty dollar Sony Blu-ray DVD), like a 1:85 widescreen should, but the other one, an OPPO BDP93, just puts out a little image, close to a 1:33 picture. I'm kind of pulling my hair out as to why this occurring. Thoughts?

Posted by Jim Cassedy (Member # 4115) on 04-30-2016, 02:25 PM:

At the risk of asking the obvious- - have you checked your OPPO
video output format settings? (Pages 23-24-25 in the manual.)

Does this happen on ALL 1:85 DVD's or only on one particular disk?

The reason I ask is that I had one foreign NTSC DVD last year that
did exactly the same thing on the OPPO player I was using at the
time. (I don't remember the model since it was a rented machine
for a special event)

I went through every friggin' setting multiple times, and, like you, I could
only get a 4x3'ish picture. But it played in the correct aspect ratio fine on
a much more less expensive & less technically sophisticated player.

The only compromise was that the 'cheap' player only had analog audio
outputs, but I decided it was much better to sacrifice some audio quality,
which 99% of the audience wouldn't probably notice, than to play it in a
strange aspect ratio that would be obvious to everybody.

Posted by Bradley J Sime (Member # 9423) on 04-30-2016, 02:49 PM:

Hey Jim,
Yeah, I'm sure it's something in the settings too. The thing is, it only does this on some discs. 99% of the time it's the same picture, both decks. I'm sure it's just a matter of isolating the specific disc aspect ratio that is outta whack or, and then adjusting the settings accordingly.

Posted by Ron Lacheur (Member # 1126) on 04-30-2016, 08:45 PM:

Have you tried changing the picture setting from " Wide/Auto"?

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 04-30-2016, 09:47 PM:

How is the DVD authored? If it has a 16:9 flag it will output a 4:3 picture that needs to be unsqueezed to 16:9. No DVD player outputs an actual 16:9 picture because there exists no 16:9 resolution in NTSC. The Sony Blu-ray player is likely upscaling the image. It unsqueezes internally and outputs a 1080p picture.

If the DVD is not authored for 16:9 then the Sony is just scaling the letterboxed image up. Ew. There's nothing you can do in this situation except get a real 16:9 disc. Post a picture of the box, mainly the back.

Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 05-01-2016, 08:40 AM:

No other solution than to go though the aspect ratio/scaling options of both players.
These menu options are not always named in a way that you can easily deduct what it's doing. On the Sonys, I always found a setting combination that allows me to play typical disc formats properly into a 16:9 output signal (e.g. a disc switching between 4:3 to 16:9 between chapters). I never had to touch these settings again after.

All Sony players back from 2008 or 2009 use more or less the same menu functions, so it is easy to transfer proper settings from one unit to the other. The Oppo no doubt will have all the necessary settings as well.

That said - Widescreen or 1.85:1 is not necessarily enough information on a disc to really judge what the real signal format/aspect ratio is. On a DVD, it could both be letterboxed in a square pixel 4:3 'container', or letterboxed in an anamorphic non-square-pixel signal (the letter being the more common format, as that would be the way main stream flat cinema movies would be distributed on DVD within a 16:9 signal).

- Carsten

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 05-02-2016, 04:59 PM:

It's always non-square pixel. Effective DVD resolution is always 720x480.

Posted by Carsten Kurz (Member # 5396) on 05-02-2016, 08:56 PM:

That IS square-pixel 4:3, or, D-1/CCIR601

DVD non-square pixel/16:9 anamorphic will be rendered to 960/480 square pixel in NTSC and 1024/576 square pixel in PAL.

You are right that these numbers don't compute exactly to 1:1 PAR, but a non-4:3 movie like a flat/1.85 can still be put into either a 4:3 or 16:9 signal and needs different scaling options set on the player and possibly display.

I do own a DVD with Star Wars - A new hope. I carries the original movie version in CS letterboxed in a 4:3 signal, and the digital remastered version on the same disc as CS letterboxed in an anamorphic 16:9 signal.

- Carsten

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 05-03-2016, 03:04 AM:

640x480 is square pixel. It's just a matter if the DVD is anamorphic or not. If not, you lose quite a bit of vertical resolution.