[Ben Whitney]

I have just bought a Panasonic DMR-E55 DVD recorder in order to archive recordings stored on a V2 Sky+ box .This set up is at my girlfriend's house and is used with a 4x3 TV. The idea is that I can play back the DVDs at my house using a Panasonic S75 DVD player with a widescreen TV.
The first recording I made was to DVD-R. I set the Sky+ box to produce a 16:9 anamorphic picture and I set the E55 to 16:9. The signal was going in and coming out RGB via scart.
When I play this dvd back on the S75 it doesn't automatically switch to the correct ratio and I cannot even manually switch the TV so that it views in the correct ratio. It is still anamorphic with black on the left and right of frame.
Can anyone shed any light?

[monkeysoup]

Widescreen switching works because an aspect ratio signal is sent to your TV via either fully wired scart pin 8, or hidden in the viseo (line 23) for composite/s-video feeds (and note that SKY boxes and some DVD players don't bother to allow you a line 23 option.

Is the widescreen switching signal being recorded? Test by playing back on your widescreen TV in auto mode and see if it switches.

Some 4:3 TVs have a widescreen mode where they will squash the picture to show a full-resolution widescreen picture. Otherwise things will be tall and stretched.

[Ben Whitney]

I'm pretty sure that the switching signal is not recorded on dvd-r. My wide tv is on auto mode and doesn't switch.Problem is I can't even switch it manually.
The recording (from sky+) played back on the S75 is still anamorphic with black 'curtains' with the tv on 'wide' mode. However this same dvd played on the E55 through the same TV is fine. I can't figure it out

[kwilliams]

DVD minus R doesn't record a WS signal but DVD RAM does.
You could record onto DVD RAM instead which the S75 should play back OK.
Alteratively try recording in Letter-box mode which will appear as WS on a WS Tv and Letter-box on a 4:3. TV.
I don't know of any other way around your problem at the moment.
I saw this problem raised on the Ulead forum as well when the person was using Moviefactory 2.

[mikeydb]

Record it like you would with standard VHS tape! The recorder will recorder will record it exactly how a 4:3 tv will see it, if you've set your sky box up for a wide screen tv, it will record the picture in a way that will be suitable to watch on a widescreen tv but will look awful on 4:3.

If you record 4:3 in letterbox mode, you will be making a compromise but it will look okay on both 4:3 and 16:9 tv sets.

[Ben Whitney]

This was exactly my theory. To record the output of the Sky+ hard drive in 16X9 Full Frame on the Pan. E55 - i.e everything looks tall and thin on a 4x3 TV. This disc should then play back correctly on the Pan. S75 (set to 16x9) and widescreen TV. But it doesn't. No amount of manual switching of the TV's aspect ratio gets rid of the curtains left and right.
To make things more confusing the disc plays back perfectly in the E55 through the same widesceen TV. It seems that a dvd-r recorded on the Pan E55 in 16x9 full frame from a sky+ box cannot be made to play back in the correct aspect ratio on a Pan. S75 on a widescreen TV.