I own a 61 inch Samsung 1080p DLP that plays my HD cable and DVD player (hooked with HDMI cable) beautifully! I recently purchased an XBOX 360 and an XBOX HD DVD player with VGA cables (the TV has VGA input), which I was told were the best for quality. After all the settings were put to the max, we found an amazing picture...BUT...
...the actual size of the image sent by the XBOX was slightly smaller than the 61 inch screen. In other words the picture did not FILL the entire HD display, leaving several inches of black space bordering the entire outer rim of the "rectangle".
Huh???
We were told VGA was way better than HD/component cables for the XBOX, and they do look great...but we can't seem to get it to fit the whole screen! Any help or advice would be awesome, guys...as I am a total idiot when it comes to this stuff:-)
You also gotta wonder why XBOX 360 didn't offer an HDMI output...
The only thing I can think of is that your TV which is a 16:9 doesn't match the resolution of the movie you're watching. If it was filmed at a 2:35:1 ratio then you probably will still see black bars around the image.
It's an HD DVD, so there is no 4:3 ratio. Also...the problem is not the letterbox...it's the black box around all 4 edges. In other words, the projected image is smaller than the full 61 inch HD screen...like a rectangle inside a slightly larger rectangle.
I recently bought a Samsung 61" 1080p and yesterday got the xbox 360 for hd dvd and the vga connector. I noticed the same thing, at least during movie watching. I put in Syriana HD DVD I had rented and it appeared letterbox which really confused me as the tv is 16x9 and listed the resolution it was running at as 1920x1080 @ 60hz. Interestingly the start up hd dvd info part of the dvd filled the screen except when it would play clips of movies then it would appear letterbox.
I then Tried King Kong HD DVD on it the menu for the dvd was full screen but the movie itself was letterboxed with a black bar on top and bottom.
I then tried You, Me, and Dupree interestingly this movie filled more of the screen but had black bars all around small on top/bottom/sides.
I tried a regular DVD War of the Worlds and it filled the screen.
Any ideas? FYI XBOX 360 games and menus fill the screen.
Tomorrow if I get a chance I'll try connecting with the component cables as I've read the Samsung is one of the few models that will actually allow 1080p thru component. I'm curious if the hd dvds with component will always fill the screen.
Anybody tried any of the hd dvd videos I mentioned (You, Me, and Dupree, King Kong, or Syriana) in 1080 resolutions and if so did they fill the screen during the movie playback?
I've noticed this as well. Check your TV's zoom button. On Default, it gave me the picture inside a box like you guys. I hit the zoom button and it went full screen. No loss of resolution either. I think you can also do this from the little fast forward, rewind menu the 360 gives you as well.
