Okay, I bought a 27" HDTV from Circuit City last night and I'm going through every single input connection to make certain they all work as expected. But I'm somewhat confused...sorta.

When I hook the:

HV20 HDMI to the TV HDMI = HDTV screen completely filled
HV20 Component (RGB) to HDTV Component = HDTV letterboxed all sides
DVD Player Component to HDTV Component = HDTV letterboxed all sides

So I'm a HDTV noobie here...is the ONLY way to get an HDTV's screen to be completely filled - you have to send it a 1080i signal?
I'm I correct in assuming that the Component RGB of both the camera and DVD player are sending a smaller image size, like 480i?
I was under the impression that I was going to be able to playback widescreen DVDs and also those I create with Sony Vegas/DVD Architect and they would fill the entire HDTV screen and not be letterboxed on all sides. And I was already thinking that I will need to eventually get an upconverting DVD player...but will an upconverting DVD player fill the entire screen?

Is it just the HDMI connection that provides a completely filled screen?

UPDATE: I just read some articles about upconverting DVD players and apparently this is exactly what I need to get to take care of the playback ratio issue of widescreen DVD's I may create (or already own)...unless I was rich and could afford a HD DVD or Blu-Ray player...NOT!!! After seeing how awesome the HV20 camera image looks full widescreen via HDMI, I'm all for wanting to create HD DVD's.

Okay, I bought a 27" HDTV from Circuit City last night and I'm going through every single input connection to make certain they all work as expected. But I'm somewhat confused...sorta.

When I hook the:

HV20 HDMI to the TV HDMI = HDTV screen completely filled
HV20 Component (RGB) to HDTV Component = HDTV letterboxed all sides
DVD Player Component to HDTV Component = HDTV letterboxed all sides

So I'm a HDTV noobie here...is the ONLY way to get an HDTV's screen to be completely filled - you have to send it a 1080i signal?
I'm I correct in assuming that the Component RGB of both the camera and DVD player are sending a smaller image size, like 480i?
I was under the impression that I was going to be able to playback widescreen DVDs and also those I create with Sony Vegas/DVD Architect and they would fill the entire HDTV screen and not be letterboxed on all sides. And I was already thinking that I will need to eventually get an upconverting DVD player...but will an upconverting DVD player fill the entire screen?

Is it just the HDMI connection that provides a completely filled screen?

UPDATE: I just read some articles about upconverting DVD players and apparently this is exactly what I need to get to take care of the playback ratio issue of widescreen DVD's I may create (or already own)...unless I was rich and could afford a HD DVD or Blu-Ray player...NOT!!! After seeing how awesome the HV20 camera image looks full widescreen via HDMI, I'm all for wanting to create HD DVD's.


Sounds like you need to tweak/check the video settings for the TV component input. You can check the settings on the DVD player and HV20 video out- you can set 1080i & TV aspect etc, as well as 480i- but for both to appear shrunk, sounds like the TV is set wrong not both components. 480i out from both can still be 4:3 or 16:9 depending on your source material, actually. You can make 16:9 ws standard-res DVD-Rs in Vegas etc from 16:9 source (DV or HDV) and yes it should fill the screen.
Check for a "zoom/aspect" button on the TV remote, as well as menus for setting default aspect on those inputs.

Note, upconverting DVD players normally don't upconvert over component (at least for copy-protected commercial DVDs), only HDMI- don't ask me why, stupid crap copy protection paranoia (like anyone is going to have a $$$ encoder capable of digitizing component HD in realtime who is too cheap to pay $20 for a dvd).

Also note that there are likely two component inputs, one 480p for DVDs, and one HD 1080i/whatever for HD- you should probably connect them separately unless you have HD DVD etc.

Thanks for your reply Colin...you were right that the video aspect ratio on the DVD player was set for my older 4:3 set. I've never had to mess with any of the settings on the DVD player, but once I changed it to 16:9 I'm able to get full widescreen now. Excellent!!!