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Varying Contrast In Letterbox

sushiboysushiboy Registered User regular
edited November 2008 in Moe's Stupid Technology Tavern
I have a Magnavox LCD TV. I believe it has a 1200:1 contrast ratio. There has always been something that drives me crazy about this TV. When I am watching something that has letterboxes, the contrast of the letterboxes will sometimes quickly start "flashing". The blacks of the actual movie stay black, but the contrast of the black letterboxes sometimes varies like a strobe. It can be distracting at times. The only source that I have right now that I ever see letterboxes with is my DVD player. It is hooked up via composite cables. Do letterboxes come from the DVD player, or are they generated by the TV? Is this something that could be fixed by a better player or different cables? My setup is the only one I have ever seen this issue with. Can anyone shed some light on this?

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Posts

  • GihgehlsGihgehls Registered User regular
    edited November 2008
    The letter box is likely coming from your dvd player. In order to remove them, you would have to tell your dvd player that your tv is widescreen (is it?) It sounds to me that the effect you are seeing is signal bleed, likely due to your cables or the tv's inputs.

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  • sushiboysushiboy Registered User regular
    edited November 2008
    it is widescreen, but i dont think i ever told the dvd player that. wouldnt the lack of a widescreen ratio standard cause some to have letterboxes regardless? i dont know much about home theater stuff.

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  • ElJeffeElJeffe Registered User, ClubPA regular
    edited November 2008
    Magnavox is a pretty low-end brand, so it could just be an issue with the television not having very stable darkness levels, or being confused by the letterboxes. Does it have a dynamic iris? Maybe it has something to do with that. A dynamic iris should uniformly raise or lower the brightness of the entire image, but maybe it's implemented in such a way that it plays holy hell with the letterboxes.

    Does it do the same thing with pillar boxes around a 4:3 image when you're watching broadcast TV? If so, it's a TV issue. If not, it's a DVD issue. Or rather, an issue related to the DVD player or its corresponding input.

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  • grambogrambo Registered User regular
    edited November 2008
    sushiboy wrote: »
    it is widescreen, but i dont think i ever told the dvd player that. wouldnt the lack of a widescreen ratio standard cause some to have letterboxes regardless? i dont know much about home theater stuff.

    On some DVD players you have to set them to progressive scan mode and/or tell them to output 16:9 (widescren). This is especially true on lower end players. You should probably buy component cables at the very least (if your DVD player and TV support component out) or better yet DVI/HDMI. This may fix the problem, composite is not very good.

    Whether or not you have black bars on top/bottom of the picture depends on the aspect ratio of the material. Some movies (and most TV shows) are shot/edited in 16:9 but most are wider (2.35:1 etc) so you will have black bars, but they will be smaller than on an old 4:3 TV.

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