How to programatically zoom in/out mkmap?

Zoom settings on a widescreen TV

• I recently purchased a Sony WEGA 50" rear projection TV, and a Panasonic combination DVD/VCR player. I have also purchased a variety of DVDs, some with 2.35:1 aspect ratio, some with 1.85:1, some with 4:3, etc. The Sony TV has four viewing modes: Normal, Full, Zoom, and Wide Zoom. I find that whenever I view a DVD, I have to cycle through the various viewing modes several times, trying to figure out which one best displays the maximum viewing area for the given movie without stretching the picture. I even had one DVD where I thought I had the zoom set correctly, but then part way through the movie some sub-titles came on, and they were chopped off at the bottom of the screen. Furthermore, when you switch back to watching regular cable stations, you have to set the zoom back to Normal, but then some cable movies are also broadcast in wide TV mode, so again you have to mess around with the zoom settings. I find this whole process rather annoying and frustrating. Am I missing something? Is there a way to get the TV or the DVD player to default to the best zoom setting (i.e. to the least amount of stretching to display the original aspect ratio) when the DVD is first installed in the player, or when you flip from one cable station to another? Seems like a simple enough thing to program into a TV, but I have read through the user manual thoroughly, and I can't find any way to solve this. Alternatively, if there is no way to get the TV to handle this task, is there a rule of thumb to use in choosing the correct zoom? I know Normal is for 4:3 TV shows, but what really is the difference between Full, Zoom and Wide Zoom? Thank you for your help!

• Answer:

  captainpooky-ga: I hope that the following will help you enjoy your new Grand WEGA and DVD player as the manufacturers intended! First, a brief primer on the video technology used by your Grand WEGA and your DVD player. Standard DVDs are recorded using 480 horizontal scan lines. Your DVD player will play this in either interlaced or progressive mode (interlaced meaning that all of the odd-numbered lines are updated on one cycle, followed by all of the even-numbered lines on the next cycle; progressive meaning that all lines are updated sequentially every cycle). This signal is sent to your TV through either a 'standard' RCA-jack video cable, a S-Video cable, or through analog component video cables (the Y-Pb-Pr connections you should find on the back of your Panasonic DVD-VCR player). By default, your DVD player is set to assume that you are using a TV with the standard 4:3 aspect ratio. This means that, regardless of the actual content on the DVD, the video output will always contain 480 lines. Your TV, in turn, will take these 480 lines (and 4:3 ratio) and display it as best as it can. This means that if your Wide Screen Mode is set to Normal, it will show it in 4:3 ratio leaving black borders on the two sides. If the movie you are watching was filmed in 16:9 ratio, then this will leave you with black borders on the top, bottom, and the two sides. Switching to Full mode will stretch the 4:3 ratio area horizontally so that it fills the complete 16:9 ratio screen, but will not touch the vertical ratio meaning that you will still have a black border on the top and bottom (and a strangely distorted movie in the middle). Going to Zoom mode will then also stretch the vertical ratio, essentially zooming the 'letterbox' area of the 4:3 ratio screen area to fill the complete 16:9 ratio screen. Alternatively, the Wide Zoom mode will stretch the vertical ratio so that the top and bottom parts of the view get stretched less than the middle; the idea here is that if you are watching a movie that is in between a 4:3 and 16:9 ratio, then you can still maximize the screen area used with Wide Zoom; you will lose a little bit of the 'squareness' of the view, though. In any of these Wide Screen Modes other than Normal, though, the act of zooming will cause you to lose parts of the transmitted screen area. If these areas are the unused black areas on the top and bottom of the screen during a widescreen movie, then this isn't really much of a loss. However, if you turn on the subtitles capability of your DVD player, then these areas are no longer 'unused'. This is because subtitles on DVDs are stored as text data synchronized to the movie. The DVD player displays this text as an overlay over top of the movie. In the default 4:3 mode, this text will appear in the lower part of the screen. This is fine if you are watching on a 4:3 screen, since this means the text will obscure less of the actual movie. However, on a zoomed widescreen TV, the text will be in the area that is chopped off by the zoom. Almost all of the Panasonic DVD-VCR players have a mode that can partly help with this. In DVD mode on the player, you can hit the Action button to access the menus. Look for a "TV Mode" menu, and change the setting to "16:9" when watching a widescreen movie (ie. any movie that is not filmed in 4:3 ratio). This should help shift the subtitle text position into the viewable space. The need to cycle through the zoom modes on your Grand WEGA is, unfortunately, unavoidable. As far as the TV is aware, the actual signal coming from the DVD player is 480 scan lines in 4:3 ratio. The fact that parts of the signal are un-used black areas is irrelevant to the TV. So, you have to manually control it. If you know that all of your DVDs are widescreen, then set the Wide Screen Mode to Zoom, and leave it there. In some movies (that are not 16:9, but are still wider than 4:3), you will still have unused black borders on the side; however, the view will still be square and you will eliminate the borders on the top and bottom. For normal everyday use, it is best to use your TV in 4:3 mode so that regular television signals can be displayed square. While this will result in unused areas on the sides, at least you will not lose any part of the signal, or have to put up with everyone on the screen looking like they've gained 100 pounds due to being stretched horizontally! For some reason, though, Sony chose to make the default setting the Wide Zoom. You can change this by accessing the Screen Menu on your Grand WEGA, selecting the "4:3 Default" option, and changing the setting to Normal. This way, when you switch from one source to another, the setting for Wide Screen Mode will automatically switch to the 4:3 ratio. For those odd times when a movie or TV show is broadcast in widescreen "letterbox" mode, you can then toggle the Wide Screen Mode to Zoom to expand the view. A final note: if you upgrade your cable service to a digital service that supports HDTV, then you can use the special DV-I connector on the back of your TV to connect to the digital cable box, and display 720p or 1080i signals that will automatically display as widescreen without you needing to use the Wide Screen Mode feature of your TV (since no zooming will be required; the native 720p or 1080i signal already is formatted for 16:9 screens). Additional information you might find of interest: Wide Screen Video (a hobbyist's site) http://members.aol.com/ajaynejr/vidwide.htm Sony Online Manuals (in case you lose yours) http://www.iq.sony.com/srvs/sosdocs/default.asp?src=sonysupport Panasonic Online Manuals http://service.us.panasonic.com/operman/ Again, I hope that this helps. Please let me know if you would like any part of this Answer clarified, prior to accepting and rating it. Regards, aht-ga Google Answers Researcher