BB4TB is in the right track. I sell consumer grade stuff at work. The difference is the source. Your dvd player is putting the black bars top and bottom of your picutre, whereas it's most likely your television set that is putting the grey bars up on HDTV programming. A quick test would be to tell your dvd player that you have a widescreen TV instead of a 4:3. At this point, the dvd will output in only widescreen and your tv will have to fill in the bars itself. This should make the two look the same.