Is the M675 capable of playing widescreen DVD's in a way to maximize the 17" screen? I am getting black bars on the top and bottom as if I had a regular screen. How do I get widescreen mode? :scratch:
Question 2 - What is a good pair of portable speakers to compliment my laptop?
Thanks,
KeithGP
CoolWind
02-24-2004, 02:11 PM
Quick answer is yes. The m675 certainly is capably of playing widescreen DVD's. However, your concern about "maximizing the 17" screen" has less to do with the m675 and more to do with whether you would prefer to watch the film in the ratio in which it was filmed, or whether you want to watch it simply stretched to fill your screen.
As the owner of an m675 and a widescreen HDTV, I can tell you that precious few widescreen movies will ACTUALLY fill widescreen TV's to their vertical edges. For examples of this, try watching Ben Hur in its original aspect ratio - you'll get wide black bars on the top and bottom of any widescreen TV or PC if you watch it the way it was filmed - in ultra-wide 2.20:1 aspect ratio.
Although the TV's often have scaling features that let you force-stretch the image, doing so causes you to lose the true geometry of the original image (either that or you end up cutting something off the sides in order to fill the vertical). So, I might suggest that if you want to enjoy the whole movie the way it was intended, then dont worry about filling the screen. If you don't care about stretching or chopping off the image, then I believe the DVD software that comes with the m675 allows you to choose among PAN vs widescreen modes that let you force the image size...
I'm still working on pictures for a review of my own m675 - will try to take pics of movies to illustrate my points above.