I recently bought a 42-inch plasma to complete my HT system.

Now I have a stupid question. I've got the TV & DVD player set at 16:9. Now some movies (i.e., Incredibles, and now it appears King Kong), play with black bars at the top and bottom. Nemo plays with it covering the full screen and several other movies fill the screen.

Am I not setting something right to get it to fill the picture (i.e., Incrdibles/Kong etc.). I know I can set the TV to 16:9 zoom, but I feel it defeats the purpose of having a widescreen TV and losing the edges of the pictureby zooming it (i.e., also, as a plasma owner, I don't want to have to deal with a burn in issue down the road if this will happen more often than not.)

Any thoughts or suggestions..

Thanks in advance!

A lot of movies are not 16 x 9, so you will still have black bars.

Our sony 42 plasma has a lot of hours on it without any burn-in evident.

My most recent tv is a Sony 50 SXRD, do I don't have to worry at all.

I've never had any type of burn in probems either, even with a lot of use and the kids playing games on the plasma.

Ya I'm looking at the box for House of Flying Daggers which is 2.53:1, which I believe is skinnier then 16:9 thus you'd still have some "black bars" on the top and bottom of a HDTV.

Just don't leave those movies paused overnite and I don't think you'd have to worry about any sort of burn in.

As long as you are mixing up the material, it shouldn't be problem for a long time.

I notice the same thing from time to time. You will probably do best if you get DVD movies that are labeled "wide screen." But, even then, we have had movies that have black bars on the top and bottom.

it depend if it is a 2:35 movies(black bar) or 1:85 full widescreen ,check on the back of the dvd that you rent or buy,it tell you the ratio. i have a 42 inch plasma(toshiba) tv and dont be affraid whit the burn-in problem, in the menu you have the negative pattern or the white pattern ,use it to help erase some new shadow (still image)if it happend.

The movies that fit your screen are anamorphic.

There might be an option for pan and scan, that is what you want.

I have a computer widescreen and use pan and scan to stretch to to the 16:10 ratio I have.

Might be completely different for HDTV's. Only thing I know is that letterboxing and zooming will cause the image to be chopped off somewhat.

Many people think that when they buy a 16:9 television that they will no longer see black bars, not true. 16:9 or 1.78 aspect ratio is designed for High Def television. HD broadcasts will be done in a 1.78 aspect ratio.

DVD movies come in a variety of aspect ratio's, with the most common being 1.85 and 2.35. 1.85 is so close to 1.78 that it will be undetectable because of your tv/projectors overscan ability. When watching cinemascope movies of 2.35 or beyond (yes there is movies wider than 2.35) you will get black bars still. Also, when watching standard tv 4:3 or 1.33, you will have black bars on the sides on a widescreen tv.

A huge advantage of having a media center is being able to use software to stretch the image a little bit or crop it to your liking.

I use a free program named Media Player Classic. It's not really the most...shall we say the most "polished" program, but it has a really nice feature I like that you can manually stretch the vertical/horizontal size of the image so you can have a little cut off the sides, stretched, or whatever.

Kinda besides the point.

Anyways, I most TV's I have seen have letterbox settings (which crop the image, no stretching) and fit to screen settings for different ratios. Experiementing for each movie might get you the best results.