Quote:
Originally posted by tomdkat
I'm glad to hear the SD-4800 is working out so well for you!  Here's something for you to check out; put on Rounders in the SD-4800, hit the "Zoom -" button twice, like you did before when Avia showed you effectively negated the TVs overscan by Zooming away, and see how the sub-titles look (I know they will be completely visible) as compared to what you're currently seeing with your Sony. Since you are Zooming AWAY, the Toshiba should not have to adjust the subtitles as if you were zooming TOWARD you. If the subtitles appear the SAME as when the Toshiba Zooms toward you (the way you want it) then yo've proved that adjusting your TVs overscan setting would have "solved" your problem as your TV's "Zoom" would not be in addition to the 5% overscan, since (after ISF calibration) you overscan could have been 0. You went the OTHER way and can use the DVD player to compensate for the TVs overscan setting by Zooming the picture AWAY from you.....
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The cool thing about the SD-4800 is that it adjusts a letterboxed 4:3 movie to output a 16:9 signal and in that process moves the subtitles to the appropriate spot on the 16:9 signal. The problem with the Sony is that it outputs a letterboxed 4:3 signal as a 4:3 video signal. It doesn't matter how much overscan my TV has; if the subtitles are authored below the 1.85:1 portion of the 4:3 letterbox, the EXPAND mode on my TV will crop at least a portion of them.
I threw various DVDs in the SD-4800 and was pleased with the results. By using the "- zoom" button on the remote I was actually able to get American Beauty to display with an exact ratio of 2.35:1 (yes, I measured with a tape measure and did the math). I watched North by Northwest (incredible video quality BTW) in its entirety and was able to get it to display properly in its native 1.85:1 ratio with tiny (I mean really small) black bars at the top and bottom of my 16:9 tv.
I still need to watch more on the SD-4800, but I'm pleased with it thus far. It definitely has some features I wish the Sony had such as the zoom function and closed caption decoder. I have many DVDs from both MGM and Artisan that have no English subtitles, but do have closed captions. I like to read along with a movie and the only way to get closed captions to appear with my Sony is to turn the progressive signal off and watch it in interlaced mode.
Not that I would ever need to use it now, but the SD-4800 can switch between interlaced and progressive with the touch of a button on the remote. The Sony has to be changed by stopping the player and going into the setup menu on the player.
All of these features have me leaning toward making the Toshiba my everyday player. Unless I find that the Toshiba isn't as nice as the Sony for video (haven't determined that yet), I'll probably end up keeping the Toshiba and getting rid of the Sony (which I still think is a darn good player). I just don't think I need to have three DVD players hooked up to my system (my LD player, a Pioneer DVL-700 also plays DVDs, but I rarely use it for that).
Thanks for the input, tomdkat. You've been a big help as always.