Help: Running DVDs with a PS2 on a Widescreen HDTV

[Mr Durand Pierre]

Greetings all, I just bought my first ever HDTV and it's a 30" widescreen CRT. It looks great for my 360 games (I can finally read Dead Rising's text), but on the PS2 everything looks stretched. I realize some games like God of War 2 have an option for widescreen, but when playing DVDs everything looks stretched. I've never owned a widescreen TV before, so I just naturally assumed there'd be an option to "letterbox" the sides (instead of the top or bottom), but perhaps I was naive in thinking that.

I know I can go into the system settings and change it to either full screen or 16:9 which confuses me because my set is 16:9, but when I set it that way it just adds the black bars on the top and bottom. I sort of thought the idea behind the widescreen TVs was so that movies could be watched without having to chop off the sides or add black bars, so I figured full screen was the correct setting. I've tried it both ways though and it didn't seem to make any actual difference when watching stuff, so I'm not even sure what the settings are doing. Any advice?

 

[jarvis307]

I think that the PS2 should be in 16:9 mode. I believe that if the PS2 is left in 4:3 mode, DVDs will be played in letterbox mode resulting in black bars on all four sides of the television. If the PS2 is in 16:9 mode and it still has black bars on all four sides, you may be playing a non-anamorphic DVD. When playing an anamorphic DVD (says on the back of the DVD: “Enhanced for Widescreen TVs”) the PS2/TV should automatically adjust the video to fit the entire screen. For letterbox (non-anamorphic) DVDs, you will have to use your TV’s zoom features to get the video to fit. Sorry if none of this helps and I’m just talking out of my a$$.

edit: Which mode was the PS2 in when everything looks stretched?

 

[rupan_sansei]

Not sure if this will help, but I had similar aspect ratio issues with my DVDs on the PS2 with a new TV. It took me a while to figure out there are two sets of ratio settings you have to mess with to get the picture right. One is when you go into the options at the PS2 main menu screen (with the pretty colors and soothing music) and the other set is when a DVD is actually playing, press stop, and access the DVD player menu (the transparent looking one with all the icons). I had to get both of these in sync before things were positioned properly.

 

[Mr Durand Pierre]

Ok, I figured it out. There are 2 different menus. Confusing, but it works now.

 

[mitch079]

You might just want to go out and get a DVD player and not use the PS2. Sony admitted they didn't use the best parts on it and, in my experiences, the PS2 wears out quickly playing DVD movies. You can get a good DVD player for a fraction of the cost of a new PS2 nowadays.