Playing Widescreen DVDs

[trust]

I have a Widescreen TV, I set it to the Widescreen setting and insert a Widescreen formatted DVD. Result: More often than not it still plays with the black bars on the top and bottom. Shouldn't the bars be gone since it's on a Widescreen TV? I often have to use the "zoom" feature of my TV to make it fill up the screen but this results in a distorted picture and it cuts off some parts of the image. Once or twice the DVD has played without the bars and it was great, but it's not something that I can seen to always get.

What am I doing wrong?

[Armin]

I have the same problem with Windows Media Center, and neither the zoom for Media Center nor my TV. Mine doesn't get distorted, though.

[trust]

I have the same problem with Windows Media Center, and neither the zoom for Media Center nor my TV. Mine doesn't get distorted, though.

It's only distorted because I zoom in on the image and it results in just lower quality. It's nothing drastic.

[Mythix]

Do you have any other screen format settings you can change, also does this option happen with all of your WS DVD's or just some?

[RoMi]

It all depends on directors preference they shoot in two styles of widescreen (for the most part).  http://gregl.net/videophile/anamorphic.htm explains it pretty well, since none of these shots are exactly 16:9 they don't fit on the tv without streching or lines.