I like to watch films, but I have a square TV screen. Every DVD film I get seems to be in letterbox format so I feel like I'm watching the film through somebody's front door. But I don't know how (or even if) I can change the picture to more resemble a 'watching TV' experience.

That's how stupid I am.

I feel in my water that I am missing something important and obvious. But I don't know what it is. The zoom function only takes it to 4x which is too big.

Any ideas?

Chocolate available...

I think it depends how old / expensive your TV is, Ian. Mine is about 3 years old and a decent model. It automatically resizes itself from widescreen to 'superwide', depending upon which channel I watch or DVD I put in. I can adjust that using the arrow keys on the TV remote.

If you have an older / cheaper TV, then I don't know. Maybe time to upgrade to a 42 inch HD Ready Plasma-screen room dominator?

Don't know about DVD players in your neck of the woods, but here, the DVD player itself has an option of which format to output to your screen.

James - this really is how stupid I am - I went back to the menus and found the TV aspect choice...now I had tried this before, but the 4:3 letterbox or 4:3 something else had never made a difference...now though I tried the 16:9 wide and voila (or whallah as Ben Grimm once said)...thanks for the pointer (that really should not have been needed.... ) Now to watch all those films again.....

You should have just sat closer to the TV Ian!

I have an idea: DON'T DO WHAT YOU'RE TRYING TO DO!!!! Watch your films in their original aspect ratio, letterboxing be damned. You're totally missing out on the director's intended compositions, photography and vision when you zoom, pan & scan and other goof with OAR. You're chopping off part of the image and altering the intended vision behind the film. DON'T CHANGE A THING!

Or am I misunderstanding you? If your set already a 16x9 set?

Nope, it's a 26 inch 4:3. The picture, left to itself, is just too small, although it's just fine for me when I play videos.

The first film I watched letterbox all the way through was Lawrence of Arabia, by the by...

Good choice. Watching Lawrence of Arabia in another other than OAR should be punishable by two years in prison.

I can see a 26" set being a tad smallish for films with a really wide scope; you get the full compositions, but yeah, a wee bit on the tiny side, depending on how far away you sit from the TV.

I agree with Eric as to aspect ratio, but I do sympathize with those who have smaller TV sets, and actually know what they are doing cuts off part of the image. What grates on my nerves is the idiots (let's call them "walmart customers") who think that "those black bars are cuttin' off the pitcher".
By the way, for those interested here's a neat site that shows just how much is snipped off for pan and scan films.
http://www.widescreen.org/examples.shtml

I have to agree with Eric and Jeff on this. Don't watch films with the sides chopped off!

I'd much prefer to watch a film with black strips along the top and bottom of the screen, and without using the entire screen-area of my TV, rather than missing stuff to the left and right. Sure, maybe everything looks a bit smaller, but at least you're seeing the entire film and not just part of it.

Yooouu dumb bastard. :joker:

Exclamation mark, please.

Declaration.

Me too.

TV's been around 60 years. They should be easier to use, but it seems they're only getting more complicated.

This video offers sound reasoning as to why widescreen is the way to go, while also offering an AWESOME look at the future of movies: Letterbox 2000.

<embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Arfr280dNK8" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="425" height="350"></embed>

I kinda liked watching some movies on 'squishyvision' - where, instead of pan&scan, they had simply squished the frame so it fit squarely onto a TV - suddenly everyone was eight feet tall.

Especially European flicks - it just added to the unreality

(oh, and I totally agree with the consensus - letterbox all the way, baby!)

The Judges support letterbox format only. All others will be banned from IMWAN.