I was checking out Tod's new projector this evening. Nifty piece of gear, very impressive.

Currently, his source for playing DVDs is his Playstation 2. Tonight we couldn't make it play in anamorphic widescreen mode. He went into the Playstation's options menu and set the screen size to "16:9", but the images it was presenting were the lower-rez letterboxed 4:3 images. We needed to use the "zoom" mode of his projector instead of the "full" mode in order to watch them at the correct aspect ratio. This, of course, resulted in a lower-rez image than he could have gotten if it had behaved as expected.

A quick check of some PS2 product reviews on the internet showed that it was, in fact, supposed to do anamorphic widescreen for DVDs which contained that feature. And, also, that the on-screen option we selected was the correct one for producing that result. However, the actual output was not being shown anamorphic.

Does anyone know of any bugs in the PS2's DVD playback that would produce this output? Is it something silly like... We were using the s-video cables and you're not allowed to do the anamorphic mode with the s-video connector? (If that's what it is, I'll be pretty pissed off. ) Any other insights?

Tod's planning on eventually buying a real DVD player (I'm suggesting he get the Panasonic player, the one at the top of the list in the latest shootout at Secrets). But in the meantime, I'd like to see him get the most out of the equipment he's already got. Sure, the PS2 isn't the greatest DVD player in the world, but it's adequate, and it produces a perfectly good picture for this projector (provided we can get it to play anamorphically).

Now, before most of the obvious questions come up, let me head a few of them off:

- Yes, I'm sure.

- Yes, I checked in the projector's manual to make sure that I knew which modes were which. But even without the manual, I can tell which modes are doing what. I've got plenty of experience with this stuff and I know what various combinations of disc and projector modes look like.

- Yes, I'm certain the DVDs we tried were capable of anamorphic widescreen. For example, the DVD of The Matrix was one we used to test with.

- Yes, I know the difference between a 16:9 anamorphic widescreen DVD, and a 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen DVD. The matting of the movie is irrelevant, I'm certain that this PS2 was not playing things anamorphic.

- Yes, I'm sure that this projector can take an anamorphic image. For instance, we were playing Super Monkey Ball 2 on the Gamecube on the same projector, and it's got an anamorphic widescreen mode that worked fine and looked correct when we set the projector to "full" mode (monkey balls were round instead of oblong).

Anyone with a PS2 ever tried to do anamporphic with it?

Anyone with a PS2 ever tried to do anamporphic with it?

I haven't -- my PS2 is plugged into a lowly 14" Sony. However, I will say this: is this with the stock DVD player software on the PS2?

Shortly after I got my PS2, I bought the DVD remote, which came with upgraded DVD playback software. The quality (particularly with picture/audio sync) was much improved. Maybe you need this to get anamorphic working properly?

Even if you don't, I can highly recommend the PS2 remote anyway.

I believe he was using the PS2 remote, yes. I assume that this also means he installed new software to go with it.

Anyone with a PS2 ever tried to do anamporphic with it?
When I moved to the US from the UK I bought a PS2 as my make use DVD player until my stuff from the UK arrived, the first thing I did was to set the PS2 to 16:9 as I had with all my UK equipment. What I found was my TV didn't switch and I had very tall, thin looking people, and I didn't have a manual control to compress it on the TV.

So I guess the answer is, yes the PS2 does do anamorphic, and that was with the standard SW and connected using the composite that was in the sales box.

What I found was my TV didn't switch and I had very tall, thin looking people, and I didn't have a manual control to compress it on the TV.

Interesting. That's exactly what Tod's PS2 did not do. The people never, on any screen, got "tall and thin". When we'd put the projector into anamorphic widescreen mode (called "Full" on the projector's menus), everyone got wide and fat, which was of course the tip-off that the PS2 wasn't showing widescreen.

So I wonder what the problem is?

Maybe I'll ask the folks at hometheaterspot.

I can have a play with my PS2 tonight to make sure that still happens, just to make sure I did see exactly what I remember.

For the record, Tod's problem has been solved. The answer came from a helpful person on the forums at www.hometheaterspot.com .

It turns out that the Playstation has two separate settings for 16:9. Tod was setting the one for video games, not the one for DVD playback.

In order to get the options for DVD playback on the screen, you must play a DVD and then press "Stop". Then go into the DVD playback options (different from the general options) and set the feature.

I didn't actually witness this, so I might be getting the menu names wrong. Those were the approximate instructions given at the Spot, and Tod said it worked for him when he tried it.

Question: does this setting get saved and carried over to future DVDs that you play?

My PS2 switches automatically, I have never had to fool with it

Question: does this setting get saved and carried over to future DVDs that you play?

Not sure. The guy at Hometheaterspot said it would, but only if you made sure to eject the DVD before turning off the power or pressing Reset.

This isn't quite what was going on in this thread, but I was reminded of it when I saw this: