when playing a DVD, widescreen or not they both look the same. I figured a widescreen dvd would fill the whole screen but there are still black bars on the top and bottom of the screen. The TV is a 16:9, is that widescreen? I flipped through all the options on the TV and none fill the whole screen. I'm a TV n00b so sorry if these are silly questions.

1. Aspect ratio of some movies is not always 16:9 so there can be some black bars.
2. Are you using component in to the TV from the DVD player?
3. The DVD player also had output fuctions that if you are using S-video - you need to tell the DVD player how to format the sceen.

and it did nothing. I tried all the options 4:3pb, 4:3lb, 16:9 auto and 16:9normal and they all look the same. I am using s-video too. I only have 2 movies to check with, not sure where my dad put the others.

fill a 1.78 ratio screen.

why cant they settle on one?

cinescope...whatever). The real answer is, "just because".

widescreen TV (albeit less than they would on a 4:3 TV).

-Dave Pramanik