Laptop does not display movie on full screen

[manishc]

Hi Guys,

I have recently bought a Dell Inspiron 15.4"WXGA laptop.

I am always getting black bands on the left and right hand sides of the screen when I play some movie on it.I am not able to see it on full screen.
I have already selected Full Screen option in the software.

Could you please suggest as to what could be the reason for it..

Thanks in anticipation.

Manish

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

The Aspect ratio of the film is different than that of your screen, so in order to lose the black bars (compromising info if it were there) then you need to go into the option of your DVD playing software and select the zoom feature/level that best fits your screen. If you are using PowerDVD you should have about 3-4 options, if you're using regular WMP then you may have a little less. Mess around with those settings first.

 

[GeneticWeapon]

Laptop's suck 8)

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

LOL!

Some do, especially Dell

 

[lakedude]

Ok you have a WXGA display where the W stands for "Wide" if you play a "full screen" movie on a wide screen you will always have black bars on the sides. The exact reverse of this happens when you try to watch a wide screen movie on a standard non-wide display. Since the movie is wider than the display you get black bars on the top and bottom. Only movies that exactly match your screen type/aspect should play without black bars. This is completely normal.

There are 2 ways to lose the black bars. One way is to strech the movie so it takes up the entire screen in both directions. You should try this one time so you can see why that is a bad idea. In your case with stretch enabled the Stargate is gonna be eggshaped. If you like watching EggGate by all means leave your settings on "stretch to fit screen".

The other way is to zoom as has already been suggested. Zooming is going to chop off people's heads and feet so zooming is also a poor option. The best option is to leave it alone and deal with the black bars (IMHO).

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

I agree with the concept that it is best to watch the movie in it's full frame glory, however most people aren't like me and it annoys them (I don't really 'fullscreen' DVDs) but some people like to fill all the real estate rather than watch all the movie. With original TV content of course that's different since you are seeing most of the frame.

Some of the zooming/stretching is getting better, but it will of course still alter the overall look and feel, and you don't want to loose too much information. The question is what options your player has, but no matter what it'll still compromise quality for realestate.

Personally I'm with you, forget stretching and watch like you're supposed to even though the stretch from 16:9 to 16:10 isn't as dramatic.