Hi. I know a lot of you have this DVD player. I have a question that when I want to play a wide screen movie, and I go into setup to change the format to play this, the options will never let me choose anything. It gives me some sort of symbol not allowing me. If I watch the movie, I can see the picture is stretched, and I see no bars on the bottom or top.

I have tried different cd's that are wide screen. Why wont it allow me to change the settings?

Thanks for your help.

-- jeff (jlampo@ravensoft.com), October 24, 2000

Answers

First of all, are you sure that's Panasonic?? Maybe that's Pioneer. Second, this is a VCD forum but okay you get reply. Did you read the manual carefully?? If you did you will find out that you are NOT allowed to change aspect ratio WHILE the movie is playing. NOT even while the movie menu is showing. You have to stop the disc completely, which means the initial menu can be viewed when you press "menu". This is the player initialization menu, NOT the movie menu. You only see this when a DVD is inserted, but at STOP, NOT with its movie menu. You choose initial, then 6, then you can choose between pan&scan, letterbox, and widescreen. Most DVDs are anamorphic widescreen, but when that setting is chosen you need a 16:9 widscreen TV to show it properly. I suppose you're using an ordinary 4:3 TV that's why the picture is vertically stretched. You should then choose letterbox setting. There are instances when you watch (pirated?) VCDs ripped from DVDs using the widescreen setting; whatever you choose the player will always be at letterboxed/pan&scan mode, so the only correct way to view such is with a 16:9 widescreen TV.

-- Mehmet Tekdemir (turk690@yahoo.com), October 24, 2000.

Some Widescreen DVD's are double sided. One side for pan and scan, and the other side for widescreen. I have quite a few DVD's like this. If this is the case, play the DVD on the Widescreen side of the disc. You can tell if it is widescreen or pan and scan by looking at the ring on the inner portion of the DVD next to the hole.

By the way, don't ask DVD-only related questions in a VCD forum.

-- MrVCD (mrvcd@juno.com), October 25, 2000.

i have one!!! make sure your dvd has stopped playing b4 u change tha settings and that you goto the advaned option on the last menu

-- (sagds@yahoo.com), December 15, 2000.