Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with widescreen

Which PS Template for 16x9 DVD Menu

anonaccount — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 14:03:29 -0800

Ive created a series of 16x9 videos that I want to make into a DVD using Adobe Encore. My version has no templates for some odd reason. Which Photoshop Template do I use? PAL D1/DV
PAL D1/DV Widescreen
PAL D1/DV Square Pixel
PAL D1/DV Widescreen Square Pixel

?? and what's the difference between them?

What kind of TV should I buy?

grouse — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 09:50:03 -0800

Help me buy an HDTV. I am looking to purchase a TV for my living room. I have about 5 ft of horizontal space for the TV (plus anything that goes alongside like speakers I may want to buy in the future) and will be viewing from 9 ft–10 ft away. I plan to use this TV almost exclusively to watch recorded media. This will be DVDs at first, maybe a Roxio or a Blu-Ray player someday, but there's no hurry.

Based on this I figured a 42" 720p TV would be my best bet.

The question is now what? I tried to look up some reviews on Consumer Reports and CNet, but the models turn over in this market so quickly that they all seem outdated, even the reviews from four months ago. When I try to search for the previously recommended models they seem to be out of stock. I'm not sure how much sense it makes to pick the new TV based on previously well-performing brands.

Once I pick the TV, then there's the question of how I get it to my second floor apartment with no elevator. I live in Seattle. I don't have a car but I could always rent one or a pickup truck through Zipcar if necessary, but of course this adds to the cost. Front door shipping will be inconvenient, since I don't think I can lift any of these things on my own and will have to convince a friend to help at the random time when the package arrives.

I started looking just based on cost using deal web sites and Google Product search and found a couple of options. First is this Panasonic Viera X1 TC-P42X1 for $510 including standard shipping from the dodgy-seeming BuyinShopping (Googling the merchant yields a stream of caveat emptor "it's too good to be true" warnings on other fora). The other cheap option is this LG 42PQ30 at BuyDig for $738 including $50 for "white glove" shipping (a big plus for me). I would probably buy this but I thought it was worth asking for other suggestions given that this is my first TV purchase.

All thoughts welcome.

Wide Screen, Narrow Resolution

Xoder — Sat, 30 May 2009 17:20:37 -0800

I have a computer running Windows XP and I just connected it to my TV via VGA cables. The TV reports its maximum resolution as 1024x768, which Windows will happily provide, however my TV is 16:9. This results in an over-wide picture. I would like to have Windows use this 1024x768 resolution, but tell it to use non-square pixels, or something similar to bring everything back to the correct shapes.

How big of a widescreen do I need to match the height of my current 36" 4:3 TV?

DandyRandy — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 14:21:45 -0800

I have a 36" standard 4:3 aspect ratio tube-type TV. I'm very happy with the vertical size of the tube and when I buy a new HDTV with a 16:9 ratio, I'd like to end up at that same vertical size. Of course, TVs aren't marketed by the width and height of their screens, but by measuring across the diagonal, to make them seem so much bigger than they really are. I don't know the height of my current screen offhand, but I'm certain that, knowing the diagonal measurement of my current TV, one more skilled in geometry would be able to arrive at the proper diagonal screen size of the new widescreen model to retain that same vertical height.

Wouldn't one?

Want to play Dead Space widescreen on a normal monitor.

querty — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 20:12:49 -0800

Want to play Dead Space widescreen on a normal monitor. I'm currently playing Dead Space on a regular standard LCD monitor at 1280x1024. Because of the tight FOV, I get a bit dizzy after a while so I would like to play this on a widescreen setting to get more views in (ex: 1280x720).

I've tried the "Manage Custom Resolutions" in the Nvidia Control Panel with no luck, using the latest drivers — all it does is it stretches the views. What I'd like is to have top and bottom black bars so that it is a true widescreen view without the stretching on my standard monitor.

Are there any software or registry hacks out there to enable this?

Help me choose a monitor

rhymer — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 03:48:00 -0800

Help me a choose a widescreen monitor. The more I look, the more confused I get. Tell me what to do. Please. OK, so I know there have been threads on this before, but new monitors appear almost as quickly as banks disappear.

I'm currently using a cheapo, old Dell R172FPt, 4:3 TN panel monitor. Nothing wrong with it, but advertising tells me that my display should make a more positive and aspirational lifestyle statement. And besides, I like the shiny.

I currently use my monitor mainly for office / internet with an occasional bit of photography (just playing around, nothing professional). I would like to be able to read two docs side by side. It's pretty unlikely that I will ever watch movies on it or play games. Generally I'm a fairly undemanding user, although I'd rather buy something that's reasonably good quality. But what?

I guess I want at least 20 inches, probably 22 or perhaps even 24. I thought the HP w2207h looked pretty nice as did a few Dells and some Samsungs. So, I started looking in earnest and this is why I got really, really confused. Here are the details of my confusion.

Resolution: Do I want 1680 x 1050 or 1900 x 1200? Remember, I don't watch movies.

Panel type: Do I want the cheaper TN or the more expensive other types - and if so, which one? Will I notice the difference? Will it rock my world? I currently have a geriatric TN and it seems OK.

Size: I've looked in PC World and, frankly 22 inches seems plenty big enough. I don't particularly want a TV on my desk and besides monster screens always seem a bit vulgar to me. Is there a compelling 24" argument, given my needs?

Style: I would prefer my monitor be relatively understated and not to look like something out of an 80s apartment or some bizarre geek-fetish object. It will be sitting with a brushed aluminium PC case, but black would probably look better than mismatched silver.

Various: It must have a digital input and I quite like the idea of one that can swivel through 90 degrees although, frankly, I'll probably use this feature twice. The graphics card I have is a GeForce 7900 GT/GTO and I am using Ubuntu. The PC is pretty new and well specced. I'm in the UK, so no esoteric US brands like Westinghouse, pls; also some monitors are somewhat pricier here than a direct exchange rate comparison.

Price: This is why I'm so confused. It would seem that I could spend anything from about £130 (ASUS VW222S) to about £400 (Dell 2408). Ideally I'd prefer not to pay more than £200. Is that enough? As I say, I'm not that demanding a user...

All in all I don't have a clue. About five months ago, I built a new PC and asked for advice here. People were terribly helpful and offered good, practical advice. Once again, lease cast the bread of your wisdom upon the waters of my ignorance. Hopefully we'll wind up with more than soggy bread.

How do I make full screen applications stop stretching on wide screen LCD?

PowerCat — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 18:27:08 -0800

How do I make it so that full screen applications won't stretch on my new wide screen LCD? I got an EEE PC 900 and put windows xp on it.
I installed a couple of games, but I find it extremely annoying that they stretch to fit the whole screen.
Is there a way to make it so that it won't anymore?

I need my Rare Visions fix...in HD?

piedmont — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 11:46:06 -0800

Keep me entertained on my new 20" widescreen. How small can I encode my DVDs and what's the most cost-effective way to get broadcast TV on it? I bit the bullet and purchased a new widescreen monitor to replace my TV. How can I keep DVDs encoded at a relatively small filesize without sacrificing too much quality? I know it's always a tradeoff, but I figure that at 20" I can get a little leeway. And are the cheaper DTV tuners a total rip? Will the cheapo converter box I got with my voucher look OK with an analog TV tuner, or will the difference in quality be noticable enough to warrant buying a new tuner? Any suggestions or cautions on Digital USB tuners? Are there converter boxes with DVI out since the monitor doesn't have RGB? Just over the air, and no PVR function necessary. I'm running XP pro with a Pentium 2.0ghz Dual Core and 2gb of RAM if that helps.

What's good about widescreen besides movies?

steadystate — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 09:53:20 -0800

After many happy years using standard aspect monitors, I will soon break down and buy a widescreen (14" or 15") laptop. Please give me your tips for improving my widescreen experience. Sadly, it seems that even Lenovo no longer makes laptops with standard aspect screens. My primary use for a laptop is document-centric (plus web and light coding) so I would probably prefer a "tallscreen" laptop if such a clumsy beast existed.

I would like to optimize use of the widescreen, but so far my only idea is to move the Windows taskbar to the side instead of the bottom. I've tended to keep all of my windows maximized in the past. I can see how having two windows visible could be useful, but would appreciate some examples of how that improves your workflow (on a laptop-size screen).

I also have some old fullscreen games which don't have options for widescreen resolutions - is there any way to run these without stretching the game's XGA (or VGA!) display across my WXGA screen?

Any suggestions are appreciated. Thanks.

Is there a program that will allow me to carve up my desktop and maximize applications to certain regions.

Mesach — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 06:55:51 -0800

Is there a program that will allow me to carve up my desktop and maximize applications to certain regions. Having a large monitor these days it is possible to have several applications open and showing at one time... is there a program that will let me specify regions that programs can expand/maximize into, thus carving up my desktop space?

Get me my resolution!

omnipotentq — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 13:28:07 -0800

GameResolutionFilter: Age of Mythology used to play on my computer at my native 1920x1200 resolution (17" widescreen laptop). But now it won't. Why not? My XPS Gen 2 played AOM gorgeously at 1920x1200 the last time I had windows installed. I reinstalled windows as part of the process of retiring the old girl, and decided to put AOM on it as well as on my new XPS M1730.

However, 1920x1200 no longer comes up as an option for a screen resolution on either my old laptop or even my new one. For my old one, every driver is exactly the same as it was before; I know because I used the same files that I had the last time I installed windows. New drivers won't work, either on it or on my new computer.

Why in the world won't the game even show me any options for selecting widescreen resolutions? Everything I've found online says that it supports them, and I know that I used to play it at that resolution. The maximum one available on either computer is 1600x1200, which doesn't look very pretty due to the stretching that's done to it.

This makes no sense to me, and I'm stuck. I've tried reinstalling the game without patches and it's still happening.

How can I get my resolution back?

Can Omega Drivers push an old video card to widescreen resolutions?

sevenyearlurk — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 09:24:57 -0800

Will "Omega Drivers" allow my ATI Radeon Mobility M6 card to drive a widescreen display? I use an external monitor plugged into a notebook (Compaq Evo N410C) as my home computer. Lately I've been watching a lot of videos on it, and I'm starting to crave a widescreen LCD to replace my antiquated and space-hogging 17" CRT. But I don't think the video card I've got will drive a widescreen display natively. I have read that the "Omega Drivers" can extend the capabilities of ATI cards. Does anyone have experience using these drivers to push an older video card to widescreen resolutions?

Monitor madness!

zackola — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 19:08:19 -0800

What widescreen monitor will work well for me? Here's the situation.
Home setup: 17" NEC 1770NX 4:3
Work setup: 2 17" Dell 4:3 monitors.

I really like having the dual monitor setup, so I'm going to upgrade my home rig with another monitor. I think I want to go widescreen for the main monitor, then have my 4:3 NEC set up vertically on one side. What's the largest widescreen monitor I'll be comfortable using with a viewing distance of 18" and taking the second monitor off to the side into consideration?

It is not possible to increase my viewing distance to the monitors as my desk depth is only 20". FYI, I am thinking about one of the Dell WFP models. Thanks!

How to make non-anamorphic DVDs 16x9 enhanced?

codger — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 09:39:52 -0800

An easy way to turn widescreen DVDs anamorphic? I have a widescreen portable DVD player that doesn't have a good zoom function. I'd like to be able to play my so-called widescreen DVDs on it but without the black bars on all four sides, since it just centers the 4:3 image.

I realize this may cause some loss of quality, but since the alternative is seeing the picture on only 40% of the available screen, that's a risk I'm willing to take.

Is there an easy (and preferably free) way to fix the video so it is 16:9 enhanced - and preserve (reposition) the subtitles? I'm using Ubuntu (Feisty) and can also drop into WinXP if need be.

I've ripped and 1:1 copied discs before, but I've never edited a video file. The DVD player is region 1, not unlockable, and all of my DVDs are NTSC.

Ideally I'd rip the DVD, crop the video inside the VOB, set the 16x9 flag, and re-burn. It's not that easy, is it?

How wide is too wide?

[expletive deleted] — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 12:59:47 -0800

Will I be disappointed with a 19" widescreen LCD? My monitor just died. It was nothing special, just a high end 17" CRT. I dislike running at resolutions below 1280x1024, and I prefer 1600x1200+ for photoshop--my eyes don't seem to be bothered by how tiny things are at that resolution on a 17" CRT. I would like to replace it with a widescreen LCD, preferably one that will be a decent upgrade for watching movies.

The monitors I am considering are this Acer 22", this Samsung 22" and this Samsung 19"

My concerns are primarily if the contrast ratio and refresh rates are significant here, and if being constrained to 900 pixels in the vertical will frustrate me on the 19", especially in Photoshop. This is especially important because I am likely going to be using it for work in the near future. I am also somewhat obessive about image quality. I'm the type of person that will make a photo lab redo a print three times.

Thanks.

Old PC compatible with widescreen LCD?

AstroGuy — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 10:01:25 -0800

Will one of the newer widescreen LCD monitors work with my 2 year old PC? I have a 2 year old eMachines T6522 with an integrated ATI Radeon Xpress 200 video card. My 2 year old 19" LCD (non-widescreen 4:3 ratio) monitor is crapping out on me and I need to replace it.

Looking at monitors at CC/Bestbuy, etc., I see the widescreen ones are most common and it's hard to find the older ones anymore. The widescreens I'm looking at run at a native resolution of 1680x1050 which is not an option in the display properties control panel. Will this combo work? Do the monitors come with special drivers for this resolution? I will be connecting the monitor via the VGA connector (don't have DVI out) if that matters.

Any info you can provide before I plunk down cash for a 22" widescreen that won't work with my PC will be greatly appreciated.

As a side note, this PC has a TV tuner card and Windows XP Media Center edition so I use it as a TV/DVR occasionally, so the widescreen would be nice.

Why are there so many Full Screen copies of Full Metal Jacket?

The Deej — Sat, 12 May 2007 15:37:01 -0800

IdleCuriosityFilter. I know that Full Metal Jacket is available on DVD in Widescreen. But how come every copy I see at my local retailers' is Full Screen? It's a great movie, and yes, I know I can order it from Amazon, eBay, and countless other places. But often I see it on the shelf and try to impulse-buy it. But it's always Full Screen. I have seen it this way at Best Buy, Borders, Hastings, Wal-Mart, and others, and searching for a Widescreen copy on the shelf is futile. I don't recall seeing any other movie so prevalently available in Full Screen, and so hard to find in Widescreen. Any ideas, speculation, guesses, or inside info from anyone involved in the retail DVD biz?

I hope I don't have to name my cat in the next week, since I am using my question on this trivia!

Small LCD widecreens?

krisjohn — Sat, 26 Aug 2006 23:30:38 -0800

I'm looking for a small (less than 15") 1280x768 LCD monitor in Australia. DVI or VGA, either will do. Anyone know a model or a shop? I have a need for a small, as in short, as in not very tall, LCD monitor to compliment a "new" Shuttle (or Shuttle-esq) PC. I was thinking I'd head for a widescreen LCD panel around 12"-15" diagonal. Something 1280x768 or 1280x720. Only I'm having no luck finding any. Anyone got any tips?

Is there a Windows program available that'll allow you to expand/maximize a window into just half the screen?

PWA_BadBoy — Fri, 04 Aug 2006 10:55:15 -0800

Is there a Windows program available that'll allow you to expand/maximize a window into just half the screen? [more inside] I've got a 23" LCD widescreen monitor at home and two 17" monitors at work set up with a dual monitor setup.

I really like the ability at work to click the maximize button on a window and it just automatically maximizes to whichever screen the currently unminimized window is primarily residing on. However the best I can do on my 23" widescreen is right click along the task bar and then go "Tile vertically" to achieve a similar effect.

Basically, is there a program that allows me to "maximize" and treat two left and right halves of my 23" monitor like it's a dual screen so when I maximize a window, it only maximizes into half the screen?

panorama-rama

bartleby — Wed, 03 May 2006 13:09:19 -0800

How do I scope out the possibility of adding dual monitors to all my office's PC's? Boss is on a paperless/less-paper kick, which means either everyone's getting a big widescreen display or dual monitors soon. It's which one of those we go with that prompts my question.

It's an accounting office. The need would be to view two applications side by side onscreen - say, the client's Quickbooks info or whatever and our tax prep software. Not much of a problem to go with a 20" or so widescreen LCD and just have both windows open & sized appropriately. But they may want to go with two separate monitors.

Problem is, we've got several different PC models in the office, most of them laptops. (Thinkpad R51s)

I'm guessing that there'd need to be a video card upgrade to run dual monitors, but I doubt that's possible on the laptops. But this is new to me, so I dunno. True/false/tips?

Photoshop refresh issues

caution live frogs — Fri, 09 Sep 2005 07:10:20 -0800

Photoshop CS refresh issues with a widescreen monitor in WinXP. Am I the only one who sees this, and is there a fix (besides CS2)? Upgraded from an older HP laptop to a new AMD64 with a widescreen running at 1600 x 1050 native resolution. Suddenly my copy of Photoshop CS refuses to work correctly - changes to the image on screen either don't show up or don't appear until after a very noticable lag (20 to 30 seconds at times). For example when I add text I see no change on screen, and dragging a layer often makes it disappear. Selection tools are useless as I can't see the area that I have selected. Occasionally zooming in or out on the image will force it to refresh, but often with text that doesn't help. This is driving me nuts.

I never saw this problem with my old laptop (smaller screen size, same brand video card, same copy of Photoshop.) I've looked around for a fix but so far have come up empty. Most search results are issues with screen refresh in OSX, not Windows. There is a photoshop extension that is supposed to help with refresh rate lags, I've tried it, it doesn't help me. I really do not want to upgrade to CS2 unless I know it's my only option (monetary issues aside, if I have to do it, I'd like to be sure that upgrading will actually help!)

As far as I know I have no issues with any other programs, just Photoshop (for example, ImageReady gives me no problems at all!). Video drivers are the latest available from my laptop manufacturer. Any help here at all would be appreciated.

Which Incredibles DVD, fullscreen or widescreen?

soyjoy — Thu, 10 Mar 2005 10:21:12 -0800

The Incredibles comes out on DVD on Tuesday, and there's nothing that will stop me from rushing out to acquire this jam-packed roller-coaster of a movie. But which version? I'm not much of a DVD connoiseur: Most of the DVD movies I have were gifts, and the rest were impulse buys just to have something to watch on a given night. So this will be the first time I'm making a well-considered choice of a DVD that I want to squeeze every possible amount of enjoyment out of.

My question is this: Given the content of the movie, the way visual jokes are tossed off here and there, but also the delightful overwhelming quality of bigness it had in the theater, would you recommend (and on what basis) I go for the "widescreen" or "fullscreen" format? I do understand the diff. between them; my TV screen is the standard square-ish ratio. A knee-jerk answer would be "widescreen" so I'm sure not to miss anything. But I've heard panning-&-scanning has gotten a lot more sophisticated lately and I'm wondering if, with an animated movie like this, the contingency would have been built into it, so that the nice big fullscreen image would give me the best bang for the buck. Any experts?

Low-end widescreen TV?

fairmettle — Wed, 05 Jan 2005 15:49:15 -0800

Any suggestions for a low-end widescreen TV?

We are looking to upgrade the aspect ratio on our media-skewed window to the world...

Evil Dead

punishinglemur — Thu, 18 Nov 2004 08:31:32 -0800

Which Evil Dead DVD should I get? Over at Amazon, I can find four different versions. The biggest difference seems to be that some have a 1.33:1 aspect ratio and others have 1.85:1. And according to a review under this copy, the movie was in fact shot in 1.33:1 and Anchor Bay slapped bars over the top and bottom to make a "widescreen" version. Is that true? If so, I want a 1.33:1 copy. But which one should I get?

How are widescreen TVs measured?

mkn — Tue, 09 Nov 2004 07:04:17 -0800

If I get a 27 inch TV, the measurement is corner to corner, right? How are widescreen tvs measured? What's the difference between a 30 inch regular tv and a 30 inch widescreen?