HT Video Troubles

[soundNERD]

I've set up a Home Theater with a BenQ PE7800 DLP Projector and I'm feeding it with Samsung DVD-HD841 at 1080i resolution through a DVI-D cable.

Picture is amazing and the projector does an excellent job converting 4:3 to 16:9 without distorting the people. But, there are a couple of problems with the entire setup. First, a lot of widescreen DVDs play perfectly. In widescreen mode on the player and amorphic on the projector, they take up the whole screen and aren't distorted in any way.

But, others are widescreen discs, but even on the 16:9 screen, when set in widescreen mode on the player and amorphic on the projector, they are still cropped, but the picture looks right. If I set the player to stretch fit, it takes up the entire screen, but then everything in the movie looks skinny and tall. If I set the player to zoom fit, it takes up the entire screen, but it cuts off a little bit of the image on the left and right side, and the picture becomes a little blurred because it's zoomed in. Why do these discs have cropped video even though I've got a widescreen projector?

The next problem is more of a technical problem with the inner workings of the DVD player. For some reason, no matter what brand of media, DVD-R discs burned with my old Lite-On burner constantly skip and pause. Discs burned with my new TDK burner (even if using the same media) play perfectly fine. And our two other DVD-R compatable players and all of my computers with DVD-ROM drives have no trouble at all with them. Samsung wasn't able to provide any suggestions as to what to do, and I was wondering if anybody had any ideas short of either buying a new player or making copies of those discs on the TDK burner. BTW, I tried that with one disc that wouldn't play, and after it played perfectly fine.

My idea for solving that problem was to replace the DVD drive with a different one, assuming it's a plain computer DVD-ROM drive like many DVD Players are. Does anybody know if that particular player has a computer DVD Drive? If so, could I just go out and buy a better one that will play those discs no problem and stick it in there in place of the current drive?

edit: here's a link to the DVD player I have: http://product.samsung.com/cgi-bin/n...VD-HD841%2fXAA and here is the projector: http://www.benq.us/Products/Projecto...fm?product=235

Thanks!

[soundNERD]

Doesn't anybody have a clue about this?

Even about the video cropping, not so much the DVD player being unable to play certain discs?

[Schaef]

Can't help on the DVDR issue, but I do have some thoughts on the video issue.

Depending on what DVDs your having the problem with, double check to make sure that they're anamorphic widescreen DVDs and not just widescreen DVDs. Disney did this for a while, and several early DVDs also did this. Look on the back of the jacket for the specs and make sure it states that its anamorphic widescreen and not just widescreen.

Hopefully this at least points you in the right direction!