powerbook widescreen and DVDs

[greatm31]

Are you supposed to be able to play widescreen DVDs on a powerbook such that it takes up the entire screen? It seems extremely dumb that I should have a widescreen display and still have black bars at the top and bottom of the screen. Am I doing something wrong? (15" Aluminum, by the way).

 

[michaelrjohnson]

No, you're not doing anything wrong.

While, yes, the 15in PB screen is a widescreen display, it is not the 16:9 aspect ratio that widescreen DVDs require. It's far closer than the 4:3 of a traditional monitor, but not quite there.

 

[rainman::|:|]

DVD wide-screen is 16:9 format (so if the screen was 16 inches wide, it would be 9 inches tall). Your PowerBook, while wider than 4:3 (the standard TV and monitor aspect ratio) isn't quite as wide as a 16:9. So you'll see black bars, but they're smaller than they would be on another display.

While it may be annoying, if the screen was 16:9, the PowerBook would have very odd dimensions...

 

[dejo]

Most movies on DVD though are either 1.85:1 or 2.35:1. 16:9 is equivalent to 1.78:1. So, it's hard to avoid the letterboxing. Get used to it.

 

[michaelrjohnson]

At the native resolution of 1280x854 on a 15in PB, the aspect ratio is (almost) 3:2.

 

[beige matchbox]

If using tiger, pull down the Window menu in DVD Player and click Video Zoom and have a play

Most movies look fine if you zoom in enough to fill the screen,
there are a few that have something going on way off to one side, but in most all the action is centered

 

[andysmith]

Also try VLC - you can get it for 'force' the aspect ratio, so it'll fill the screen... it'll just look squished. (although some people don't mind that - try it out 🙂)