OT: HDTV aspect ratio w/HV20/DVD Player

[Nathan Shane]

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.

[Colin Gould]

Originally Posted by Nathan Shane

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.

[Nathan Shane]

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!!!