The main TV in my house was recently upgraded to a 60 inch plasma, the LG 60PA5500, and other than one issue, I love it. The issue, however, is one that effects my watching of Laserdiscs, which is bothersome. It seems as though LG has taken the regular Zoom mode off the Aspect Ratio selections list, so watching letterboxed movies is a pain. My only options (on the TV) are stretching horizontally (which just looks awful), or using their Cinema Zoom mode, which can be zoomed to fill the screen for 1.78 and 1.85 discs, but it cuts off a lot of picture from each side to achieve that zoom, which sucks. I go in contact with their customer service, to see if maybe it would zoom normally depending on the input I was using, but to no avail. There is simply no normal Zoom mode available.

So, I know certain video scalers/processors let you adjust aspect ratio, but I don't need a fancy one with a great comb filter or lots of options, because my receiver has an upscaler chip, plus I run it through a DVD recorder anyways on it's way to the receiver. Is there any scaler/processor that anyone knows of which would be good for just the purposes of adjusting aspect ratio, and letting me output letterboxed discs as widescreen, but isn't packed with lots of other features I won't be using, or crazy expensive for the one task I need it to do?

With a little patience, you can pick up a DVDO iScan VP20, or VP30 for $150. or less on ebay. These work great, with the exception of letterboxed films at 1.66:1 (which will be shown at the full width of your HDTV thus cutting off some image information at the top and bottom).

They also have some additonal bells and whistles which are very handy for LDs. For example, the ability to add black bars over your picture (great for blocking out Japanese subtitles which are outside of the picture), and the ability to convert analog video and audio to HDMI.

If you have Video Essentials LaserDisc (if you don't, buy it ASAP) you can check the overscan pattern and see just how much, percentage-wise, your set is cutting from the picture. On my Toshiba LCD set, the Zoom mode for LD's crops 2% from either side of the image - which is better than any CRT other than a professional broadcast monitor. Via the antenna input with 4x3 SD material, the Toshiba overscans 4% from top and bottom and both sides. My 35-inch CRT Sony XBR Wega overscans 5% all the way around- and for a CRT, that's a good, low amount. My Toshiba's 'normal' mode is a pixel-by-pixel setting that has no overscan at all and shows all the information, which is great for DVD and HD, but since that can reveal junk at the top and bottom from standard def sources, it has also has a mode that overscans the image by 2% all over - it's a small amount, but just enough to hide head switching noise from VCR's and closed captioning data at the top.

I actually don't have a copy of Video Essentials, but it is on my watch list. The issue with this zoom setting is that there isn't overscan, there's straight chopping off the sides. When I hit Cinema Zoom, it stretches the image to fill the screen horizontally, but keeps the bars above the below the picture the same thickness, so it basically acts as a 16:9 button. Then, if I increase the Zoom amount, it zooms in on the image of the middle of the screen, but cuts off picture on the left and right each time I increase the zoom level. I have no idea why they would ever have a zoom mode like this, it makes no sense, but it's what I am stuck with.

MY 32" LCD HD TV also lacks any sort of zoom modes as well. The only option I have is to view content in 4:3 (with black bars on each side) or 16:9. I tend to watch Laserdiscs set on 16:9 which in the case of letterbox widescreen discs that I own, feature reasonably thick black bars above and bellow the image but NOT on the left and right sides. Sure the image overall is a little stretched, but to be honest its not that big of a problem. Non-anamorphic DVDs like The Abyss actuelly tend to annoy me more for some reason (even though its presented in the same way as most widescreen Laserdiscs in that its Letterbox). Maybe it has something to do with me subconsciously adjusting my expectations depending on the format, or maybe The Abyss is one of those rare cases where a pan & scan "full screen" version is preferable?

Most all TVs in HD mode will not give you any aspect ratio options, but to lack that in standard mode is a real lousy deal.

You have to get a scaler like the DVDO models, the DVDO Ultra or newer, or one of these Hitachi models:

http://www.epage.com/js/mi/c1064/b1064/ ... 33503.html