DVD playback issue with 360 and HDMI

[Nembot]

Hi all!

I`m sure I`ve seen a similar thread somewhere on here but I`ve done a search and I couldn`t find it.

I`ve got a 360 premium and I bought a M$ HDMI kit a couple of days back. Since then I`m well impressed with the difference over componant, but when I play DVD`s they are in 4:3 ratio rather than 16:9.

Cheers in advance for any help you guys can give me.

Nem

[Nembot]

*shameless bump*

This is really starting to piss me off now as I watch a lot of DVD`s.

Are any of you guys getting 16:9 when watching DVD`s through HDMI withought having to select "letterbox" from the players options?

[EvilBoris]

Are the DVDs you are trying definately 16:9 ratio?

What resolution have you got the 360 set to? Does it give you the 'optimal' option?

[Nembot]

When I was playing DVDs via the componant cable they were all in 16:9 so, I thought that when I plugged the HDMI cable in that would continue to be the case.

The only DVDs I`ve watched since changing the cable are infact 4:3, something I hadn`t checked until now, but I as I said I thought that the machine would automatically make the view "letterbox" to fit my screen.

It seems you are forced to view DVDs in native ratio through HDMI unless you stretch the image using the 360`s player options.

Cheers for taking the time and the trouble to reply Boris, it seems that I`m a moron for assuming that all DVDs would be 16:9.

[EvilBoris]

Yeah that certainly is the case with VGA, so it must be the case with HDMI too.

[sofasurfer]

VGA and HDMI will only output the DVDs in the correct resolution. So no chance of stretching the image.

I don't think any displays can do this as I have seen it on three different manufacturers.

[Nembot]

Well, you can`t have the image reshaped on start up of a DVD, but if you you press "display" on the media remote you can make the image "letterbox". This isn`t great however as the quality of the picture clearly deteriates.

Anyway, I feel better for knowing why I was only getting 4:3.