Help with watching DVD's on older laptop

[Hermann]

Over the past few years I have recorded many TV shows and movies on my DVD recorder. Many are in 16x9 widescreen format. The resolution is 480p. They playback full widescreen just as recorded on any Widescreen TV. But they do not playback properly on my widescreen laptop. It is a Dell Inspiron 6000 about 6 years old. They only playback mode in 4:3 mode. Is this a function of the video board or the video playback software. I am watching a lot of these while at chemotherapy with the GF.

Thanks in advance for advice or information in general

 

[tmorris1]

Probably because your display control panel settings are set to a 4:3 resolution.

 

[eljefino]

DVD is natively 4:3 when full screen so you probably actually smooshed the wide shows, and it's properly getting stretched accidentally on your wide screens.

You might be able to find some fancy playback (like VLC? or "media player classic" (not to be confused with the Windows version)) that lets you unlock the aspect ratio.

 

[Hermann]

eljefino,

My gut feeling is that the original video graphics in the laptop does not support modern widescreen presentations. The computer I believe only has Intel integrated video. I went to control panel and the settings tab in display properties, shows it is set to widescreen. 1280x800 pixels. I normally use Windows Media Player, VLC or PowerDVD players, but have had no luck with any of them presenting the video as recorded.

 

[tmorris1]

Are you sure the DVD is not a full screen DVD. It should say full or wide on the DVD itself. Also there is a setting in the player or video settings to keep original aspect ratio, so it doesn't try to resize it.

 

[Hermann]

These are DVD's that I recorded myself on a DVD recorder hooked up to a DirecTV DVR. The program is being recorded in widescreen format. They play back fine in widescreen on any Widescreen HDTV through any DVD player in the house, but not on my widescreen laptop computer. Last night I updated PowerDVD player on the laptop to a new version. It has a new setting called CLVP in the 4:3 mode. It now fills the screen, but it looks a little weird. It is not the stretch mode, which is listed separatly, and makes everyone look fat. I am just confused and hoped someone on the forum had run into this problem before.

 

[sangyup81]

Which model DirecTV DVR is it?

 

[Hermann]

The latest model HR-721 High Def I believe.

 

[brianl703]

Your widescreen TVs are probably set to "stretch" the picture. You need DVD playback software that can do the same. I'm pretty sure that Media Player Classic can stretch the picture to the 16x9 format.