Why is it when I set my dvd player to 4:3 pan and scan mode, for my old t.v., it stills shows me my Daredevil movie 12 inches high. Doesnt the player automatically create a full screen mode from widescreen dics? I buy widescreen discs for the future when I get a new h.d.t.v. thanks

The setting in your DVD player for 4:3 tells it how to handle anamorphic transfers (those in which the entire 4:3 frame is used to store a "distorted" view of a 16:9 movie to maximize the vertical resolution -- which can then be displayed unchanged on a 16:9 display, or have black bars added to the top and bottom for a 4:3 display). A DVD player can not generate a pan and scan view from a widescreen video. Keep in mind that pan and scan is not purely a zoomed in version of the movie. It often only displays the left side or the right side of the video. See this excellent article from The Digital Bits for the full run-down on anamorphic video.

Some DVD players include a zoom feature that could be used to zoom in on the video. It's actually likely to be even worse than pan and scan, but it is an option if you have one of those players. Panasonic does not support it, and I think Sony and Pioneer are generally the same way. Toshiba does, on the other hand.

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