Found the solution in another forum- apparently the Sony Wega LCD's like mine and xbox don't pass the proper flags back and forth to set widescreen for 480p 16:9. For 480i and 720/ 1080, however, things work great- and the sony automatically handles the resizing.
QUOTE
Mr Ed Posted Today, 05:51 AM
QUOTE(Otterman @ Jan 19 2005, 05:30 PM)
apparently the Sony Wega LCD's like mine and xbox don't pass the proper flags back and forth to set widescreen for 480p 16:9.
I'm not aware of any TV (not just Sonys) that can detect the difference between 480 widescreen and 480 4:3 automatically over the component
connections.
All TV's rely on the incoming signal for aspect ratio information. If this info
is not included in the signal, or...it is but there is a problem negotiating
the res, then it will fall back to 4:3 or whatever screen size the
user selected in the setup menu.
I have read conflicting info on halo 2 and widescreen. More people seem
to think it does actually support 16x9. However my TV also shows halo 2
in full screen when its set to "natural mode" .
QUOTE
ydgmms Posted Today, 09:41 AM
Hmm. Ok. So I guess I should set it to Full all the time then, when playing Xbox games? Or Natural? I'm so confused... biggrin.gif
For games with 720p/1080i (I only have XMen Legends to test) it switches to Natural, which would be 720p in widescreen (for Xmen), and does not allow me to switch to other modes.
For games with 480p (most of them), it lets me select it. I usually put it on Theater Wide 1. Should I change it to Full?
Set it to full. And set your TV to auto aspect = on. This way the tv will adjust the format
automatically according to the information provided from the signal. If there is no aspect
information, then... if the tv is set to full, and is being fed a SD 4:3 image, it will be stretched to fill the screen. HD content on the other hand is different...A HDTV set will not allow any changes to be made to the aspect ratio when the TV is being fed a high def signal. It will always be shown in widescreen, since that is the standard. Any other
setting other than full or natural will have picture loss on the top or sides, or both.
Since I have a RP CRT its prone to burn in, so I use the Full setting to fill the screen. It
takes some getting used to.
Well, I understand the TV knows that 720p and 1080i are in 16:9, but I'm not aware of any information that would let the TV know when a 480i or 480p signal is in 4:3 or 16:9. Of course, just because I haven't heard of it, doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
When tuning an OTA station, it knows, but there is more information being broadcast over an RF/OTA/COAX connection than over a three connector component connection.
Halo 2 is most definitely not wide screen. It supports 480p which is nice but it output full frame. Sure, you can stretch this using your 'full' mode, but that's not wide screen.
Do not confuse 480p with widescreen. There's no difference in resolution between 480p and 480i (obviously!).
Also, do not confuse anamorphic compression with true widescreen support either (eg. all you those 'enhanced for widescreen' dvds). All anamorphic does is compress the horizontal to let the picture take full advantage of the the vertical resolution when the picture is stretched (at the expense of some horizontal aberations).
If you have widescreen enabled in your XBOX, and play Halo 2 in a 4:3 aspect ratio, everything looks tall and skinny.
Also, you can see here, it's listed as supporting 16:9
http://hdtvarcade.com/xboxlist.htm
Not sure what else to say?
Halo 2 does support widescreen (must be set up in MS dash). As far as the autodetect, it depends on the TV and the signal. I ran the setup on my HD cable box, and 480(i/p) 16:9 automatically filled the screen, where 4:3 gave me bars on the sides. This is with my TV settings to Normal (4:3) = Normal, Widescreen (16:9) = Full.
The only thing that I find annoying about widescreen is that some DVD manufaturers don't know the difference between Widescreen and Letterbox. I think every 1-in-10 DVDs I own that claim Widescreen are really in letterbox. To compensate for this I have to use the Zoom setting to get a better aspect ratio.
Halo2 is widescreen. You may have to manually tell your TV that it's widescreen and not 4:3 though.
QUOTE
The only thing that I find annoying about widescreen is that some DVD manufaturers don't know the difference between Widescreen and Letterbox. I think every 1-in-10 DVDs I own that claim Widescreen are really in letterbox. To compensate for this I have to use the Zoom setting to get a better aspect ratio.
All widescreen formats are letterbox. But not all movies will match your
ws tv's 1.78:1 aspect ratio. Most movies are shot in cinemascope, which
is something like a 21:9 aspect (2.35:1), and will still require "letterboxing".
on 16:9 televisions. The only way to view these movies without letterboxing
is to use a projector.