Widescreen (16:9) playback on a 4:3 TV... Confused
 

OK so I have been shooting 16:9 format on my Canon XL2 for a new video (DVD) we are doing. I just thought about something though... The majority of the viewers are going to be watching this video on an older television (4:3). If I do this video in post production as widescreen will the viewers have a problem viewing the video or will the DVD player automatically adjust the screen view. Sorry if this is confusing

It will depend on how their DVD player is configured. Out of the box, DVD players have typically defaulted to a 4:3 screen with automatic letterboxing of widescreen material. Since I haven't bought one in several years, don't know if this is still the case.

Either way, there will be a menu where you tell the player if you have either a 16:9 or 4:3 screen. Then there will be another menu where you choose pan and scan or letterbox if the screen is 4:3 (or possibly this will be on the same menu).

Boyd is correct. Older (analog only output) DVD players can be set for both 4x3 and 16x9 television sets from the menu.

Newer ones connect mostly to 16x9 sets, usually via HDMI - and HDMI is bi-directional communication, the TV will "tell" the player the right setting. On my TV for example the "format" button is no longer active when in HDMI mode, because both the TV and the DVD player are 16x9, I can't set them to 4x3, but if I play a 4x3 DVD, the aspect ratio will be correct.

What you have to do right is the aspect ratio of the DVD your author; if you set it to 16x9, it will play back right on any player that has been set up correctly.

I always found it a pain with my old plasma TV connected to a DVD player via analog component cables. You had to manually set the widescreen TV to the correct mode when playing a 4:3 DVD. Now I have a Blu-ray player connected to a Bravia LCD via HDMI.

There are two confusing menus at play here, one on the Blu-ray player and another on the TV which determine what happens with 4:3 and 16:9 material. It took a little trial and error to get these both set correctly, but now 16:9 and 4:3 SD material always switches to the correct mode automatically.