What type of dvd player would work best for a tv that is already a widescreen?

[Voyager]

I am looking to buy a dvd player for my parents and they purchase d a wide screen tv from dvdcollects.com.so when you play dvds or watch tv it tends to stretch out the picture. Is there a dvd player that takes this into account or does it matter?

[headless]

Most DVD players if you go into the setup menu, it asks what sort of aspect TV you have, 4:3 is a normal squarish TV and 16:9 is a widescreen tv, so you tell the DVD player you have a 16:9 tv and it will set itself to the TV.
I am a fan of Panasonic products, my DVD player is a Panasonic, my Digital surround sound processor is Panasonic and my Projector is Panasonic, I have my own cinema with an 8 foot screen, so I know a bit about Audio/visual matters.
Hope this helps.
El

[smartHHO]

They bought a wide screen so you are not going to get around this at all. You have two choices like mentioned above. 4:3 or 16:9. If you tell it to play ALL at 4:3, you then get black bars on the sides, but the picture is not stretched. But, when you get get a movie that is WS version, it will look funning and be much smaller. I am not sure if there is a dvd player out there that can be told to play WS as WS and Standard as Standard. I think they all pretty much stretch them out fully when playing the movies.

The 4:3 topic I mentioned above mainly works on Cable boxes and what not, I have never tried it on my DVD player solo. But, being the way electronics seem to work. Most likely it would work that way too.

[HGB]

As much as I love SONY products I have had two SONY DVD players hooked up to our SONY 60" Wide screen and had to crank up the volume considerably to get decent volume. This is very annoying when switching to another input setting. It wakes one up! This has not happened with other brands of DVD players though. Considering that both products were SONY does not make sense.
Minor issue, but it might make a difference on your decision. SONY DVD players apparently have low output! This is my experience.
You can pick up a good deal on black friday if you can wait that long.
All DVD players will be adjustable for 16:9 ratio
I picked up a PHILLIPS for $20 at Office Depot last year for the bedroom TV. It actually worked...

[grwhitaker]

DVD players
Panasonic, Sony, Phillips all good

Equally important is that the DVD's themselves are in wide screen format rather than full screen-they will make better use of the widscreen monitor.

If you want to go all out, get them a surround sound setup to route the DVD sound through. The monitor's stereo sound is usually good, but a great surround sound set-up [Bose or higher end Sony's imho] will really make the theatre experience for your folks.

[saronian]

Originally Posted by Voyager

I am looking to buy a dvd player for my parents and they purchase d a wide screen tv from dvdcollects.com.so when you play dvds or watch tv it tends to stretch out the picture. Is there a dvd player that takes this into account or does it matter?

The DVD disc format can display two aspect ratios 16:9 Widescreen, or 4:3 Standard NTSC. Most displays have the option of stretching standard video to fill a widscreen TV, however the image is distorted. Most DVD movie titles are authored in widescreen format and look best on a widescreen TV. As mentioned DVD players have a setting for 16:9 TV's

Depending on the quality of the display 720P or 1080P you may want to purchase an up-converting DVD player. These players use sophisticated resizing electronics to increase the playback resolution of a DVD to match the new higher resolution displays.

One of my favorite up-converting DVD players is the Oppo. One of the best bargains in video.

[Dunerunner]

It is my understanding that the Blue-ray players will play the current DVD format and Blue-ray. Anybody know? Do they up-convert too?

[Smart Enuf]

The Sony Playstation 3 is reportedly better than most standalone Blue-ray players, upscales standard DVDs, and is a 3rd gen video game console to boot. And because it has a hard drive and internet connectivity, the PS3 is upgradable via software downloads, regardless of how the Blue-ray standard changes in the future (the Blue-ray standard was released as 1.0, then upgraded to 1.1, and is now the 2.0 release). Try that with a standalone DVD player.

See http://arstechnica.com/reviews/hardw...-3-blu-ray.ars

[Neonspinnazz]

I use My X-Box 360's drive (hitachi drive I believe) It reads any DVD and makes non-HD DVD's look like HD.

-And as for original X-Box games, The system automatically upscales it from 480p to 729p without changing anything on the disc.

I'm also using the 360's new NXE (let Sony try that! )

It's best to get Widescreen DVDs or ones that have that option in their menu.
Most modern DVD players have aspect ratios (and some resolution)

I use 1080i and it looks great until I watch non-HD TV channels, so I usually stay with Discovery Networks HD (yes I love Discovery Channel, Science Channel, ETC.)

Sony's Blu-Ray is horrible, it uses the same technology as a Playstation One & Playstation 3. It reads blue colored discs using a blue ray.

-It's like trying to get traction in the snow by using white tires!