Posted by xeaglecrest on 10/17/07 19:00

Daniel Norton wrote:
>
> On Oct 16, 8:48 am, xeaglecr...@att.net wrote:
> > I have an EZ27, and the owners manual is incorrectly worded. It will
> > record 16:9 on any disc, but it will only set the 16:9 flag on a DVD-RAM
> > disc.
>
> Hmmm, thanks, but I didn't know about the restriction until after I
> recorded a program on a DVD-R disk and playing it back it was 4:3. It
> seemed pretty clear from the manual that that's to be expected:
>
> http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=rm8zgl&s=2
>
> I have to put the TV in "Zoom" mode to restore the aspect ratio when
> playing that recording. It was from a 1080i broadcast, which
> displayed correctly in 16:9 while recording. I looked for and found
> that restriction described in the manual. When I used the DVD-RAM
> disk (on another program) it played back as expected. One really nice
> feature is that it played back *while* recording. I have a hard time
> imagining that working as easily on a spiral medium.
>
> Manual: http://service.us.panasonic.com/OPERMANPDF/DMREZ27-MUL.pdf
>
> Okay, I guess the DVD-RAM disks aren't so scarce via mail order,
> anyway. Pretty wild price variance, though.
>
> --
> Daniel

You must have some quirk in your setup as I did another test recording
on a DVD-R and my EZ27 did record and playback in the Anamorphic 16:9
Widescreen mode.

My Samsung HDTV has five picture modes (Wide-16:9 , Panoramic, Zoom1,
Zoom2 and 4:3). When I viewed that disc with the "4:3" setting,
everything
is stretched vertically (that is what I expected) . When I switch to
"Wide-16:9" (the normal setting for watching WS DVD's), the picture
fills the screen and looks identical to the live broadcast.

Remember, unless you record on a DVD-RAM disc, the 16:9 flag does not
get set
on the disc. All that means is that your TV will not automatically
recognize
the disc as 16:9. You have to manually set the A/R to the WIDE (or
16:9)
mode on your TV. But, because the 16:9 flag is not set, the disc will
never play back correctly on an older 4:3 TV.

-Bill

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