New DVD rentals watched in fullscreen seem to be stretched vertically it seems lately. They really look exceptionally perfect when I added a ressistor with a switch on the rear of my zenith 23XC36 to compress the vertical. This is really a cool thing considering all these movies seem to just be stretched from a widescreen format now and not written in 2 seperate formats like they used to be. I'm going to snap off a pic for you guys to see.

I hate the new DVDs, the stretch drives me nuts! I guess I'll mod one of the 70's Zenith sets laying around here like you did. I'm not touching anything older with mods like that.

Eah I hate the fact that I did the mod too but it beats watching them like they are now. At least nothing I have done is perminent. But the up side is a very digital like picture with the line compression. The down side of course is convergence. The bottom R/G horiz convergence throws off a bit. But a slight tweak and it's good to go. I may consider a switch and resistor for that too. Considering all I do with this set is watch DVDs I find Im never switching it back.

I like the idea of adding a vertical "compensation switch"--- excellent thinking.

the up side is a very digital like picture with the line compression. The down side of course is convergence. The bottom R/G horiz convergence throws off a bit. But a slight tweak and it's good to go. I may consider a switch and resistor for that too.
Shawn-

I don't think there is a "new DVD format". Rather, your player may have got set to 16:9 mode by mistake. (If your player has some kind of "full screen" setting, that could be another cause entirely.) The three typical settings on DVD players are: "4:3 letterbox", "4:3 pan and scan" and "16:9". 4:3 letterbox manually adds black bars on the top and bottom of widescreen movies (unless the disc itself has the black bars encoded, mostly older DVDs). 4:3 pan and scan chooses the pan-and-scan version of a movie if both versions are on one side of a disc; it does NOT manually make a wide-screen movie fill the screen (again, unless it is one of the few odd players specially made to do that). In either of these modes, a true 4:3 DVD (such as one with a TV show, or one of the awful modified "full-screen" movie versions) will fill the 4:3 standard TV screen with video. 16:9 mode is usually for component-mode inputs on HD-capable wide screen TVs, but it also works on the composite output (and there have been a number of wide-screen (16:9) non-HD TVs made, especially in Europe). If you choose 16: 9 and feed an RF modulator, you will get exactly what you describe, a movie with tall, thin characters (or stretched-out ones, it is the same effect).

In the pre-HD but early-DVD days, there were mods described to do exactly what you have done with your Zenith, and for precisely the reason you describe: Using all of the scan lines of the TV on the 16:9 area to get a higher resolution than the 4:3 letterbox setting allowed. Often, the mod included a switch controlling a relay (or relays) that had enough poles/switch contacts to change all the needed circuits, such as three vertical circuits in a three-CRT projection TV. I almost did this with my 61" Sony set in the year 2000.

Considering all I do with this set is watch DVDs I find I'm never switching it back.
Roundie color TVs and older rectangular sets are ideal for watching letterboxed content, as you have found out.

I subscribe to BlockBuster and they send DVDs like this, there has been nothing I could do to change it. Menus are useless, and no option of 4:3 format. Letterboxing is ok but this is the pits. There is something different with the format now. I noticed it a few months ago when we subscribed. I have a set that I adjusted to look right but now I might do the reversible mod to one, still nothing pre 1965:no:

000

I set the DVD player menu to 4:3 and it looks the same:( There wasn't an option for 4:3 in the disc menu. Older discs had an option of wide-screen and regular. I don't mind letterboxing as it is good for roundies. But these discs are not doing what I want them to, I don't understand why it's not letterboxing them. Maybe my "Sony" DVD player is what sucks. Hmmmm...

I set the DVD player menu to 4:3 and it looks the same:( Maybe my "Sony" DVD player is what sucks. Hmmmm...

This is also a problem with the new Blu-Ray disks of classic academy aperture [1.37:1] films like Wizard of Oz, Pinnochio and Snow White. The BDs have been authored to prevent the screen size and shape controls in the BD player from operating //at all//. If you watch one of these BD films on a 16:9 HD set you get
an almost correctly shaped image with black pillar bars on the left and right.
However if you watch it on any 4:3 set, the image is either square [1:1 aspect ratio or 4:3 but reduced in size with black bars on all four sides. So far I've not found any BD player that will override the authoring of the disks and fill a 4:3 screen properly. Three pics showing the problem... Cliff

000

So far I've not found any BD player that will override the authoring of the disks and fill a 4:3 screen properly.
The Blu-ray format (and HD DVD, while it existed) has no provision for 4:3 displays at all that I am aware of, at least in any HD modes. As you said, the aspect ratio of The Wizard Of Oz is correct when viewed on a 16:9 display, and that is exactly as intended. Using a Blu-ray player on a 4:3 display is a compromise at best (some players will not even give you a picture from the non-HD outputs when a Blu-ray disc is played), and a headache (as you found out) at worst. It is ultimately best to stick with regular DVD players and discs if you want to use a non-HD, 4:3 (or round) :D display.

I set the DVD player menu to 4:3 and it looks the same:( There wasn't an option for 4:3 in the disc menu. Older discs had an option of wide-screen and regular.
You need to have the disc stopped to get into the player's setup meny, but I think you already got there OK. Does your player have only two options (4:3 and 16:9), and not three (as I described in my post above)? If the player does not have the "4:3 letterbox" option next to the 16:9 option, it is probably there but in a different menu (in the player setup, still, with the disc stopped). If this setting is wrong, it will likely give you the problem you and Shawn have described.

I have not used a non-HD disc player for several years, so that is why I suspect they might have moved the letterbox-versus-full-screen option into a separate menu, perhaps.