Widescreen DVD problems on Sony VAIO

[aland81]

Hi all, trying to fix a problem on my friends new laptop (Sony VAIO VGN-FJ1S). Any widescreen DVD that is played is surrounded by black bars even though it is a 14.1" WXGA screen. This occurs both using Media Player 10 and VLC, I've done a bit of searching and the only thing is maybe it is the mpeg2 decoder that windows is using, though I'm not sure how to change this.
I can play widescreen movie files fine (avi, divx) in VLC, which makes me think it is not a driver problem.
Any tips, ideas etc would be much appreciated!

tia
Alan

[rik]

I believe this is normal. The DVD Decoding software determines how the movie format fits to the screen and it isn't an issue with the codecs or encoder or whatever. Understand I'm not 100% sure of this but I have seen this with several different software packages and only happens with widescreen versions.

[FastGame]

rik is correct, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anamorphic

[aland81]

Thanks for the prompt replys, I think I understand. . I've just been playing a bit more with VLC and found the autocrop feature, which seems to work - though it can be a little unpredictable.
Is there anything similar I could use for Windows Media player? My friend seems to prefer that for some reason.

Thanks again
alan